This game broke me. I rarely play games, and especially not AAA games, where I am genuinely unsure whether I can finish them. Returnal had multiple of these moments where hour long intense runs would come crashing down in an instant of brutal punishment and were it not for the incredible game feel and atmosphere I would have quickly abandoned it many times over.
But I didn't. In the end it was quite an anticlimactic final stretch where certain lucky perks meant that I was essentially invincible, rolling through the last two biomes and final boss after struggling for days on end beforehand to even make any progress. This inconsistency of experience is certainly an issue that frustrated me, cursing at the screen after being stuck with a run-killing malfunction (a risk system tied to certain items and chests where you can get a random penalty ranging from mildly inconvenient to disastrous, the removal of them being tied to equally random challenges, ranging similarly from easily doable to completely out of your control) or losing to a random enemy after not finding any health pickups in three rooms.
The intense difficulty combined with insanely long runs also heavily discourages experimentation, which is a shame because the weapon system allows you to unlock certain perks for weapons you use, heavily modifying the feel of a weapon. In the later runs this meant for me that I would always use my faithful carbine with four unlocked perks instead of trying my hand at a new weapon where I still have to unlock perks one by one. The randomized distribution of weapons of course means you won't always get the weapon you want, which lead in turn to cool moments of unlocking a perk like Full Auto on the rocket launcher, which wasn't a weapon I favored at all now becoming an absolute killing machine, completely altering the weapon. I just wish there was maybe an option to choose your starting weapon, encouraging experimentation at least a little bit more.
In conclusion, this is a fantastic game with extremely rough edges that fully envelops all of its mechanics and interactions in its haunting atmosphere and world building, surely to be appreciated even years from now.

I would lie if I said that I could follow any of the lore in this game even in the slightest, it went way over my head. Still, I can absolutely appreciate the worldbuilding achieved and admire the depth and consistency present in every aspect of the storytelling, even if it isn't the most digestible narrative. It certainly feels fresh in the mythology and cultural background used, even if the tone and gruesome nature mirrored in the gameplay is familiar in the genre.
What drove me to almost 100% this game is a really tight gameplay loop where most collectibles serve an in world purpose and are hidden at a perfectly balanced rate, where you actually feel like you can totally collect everything without investing dozens of extra hours searching every corner. This is also helped by a strong map that removes frustration by showing you when a room is or isn't a dead end if you pay attention.

The boss fights are definite highlights, offering creative mechanics and making the fights clearly accessible to master with the moves available to you, avoiding big frustration points often present in these tough Souls-likes. As tight as the combat is, the platforming didn't work that smoothly too often, unfortunately, even if the added speedrun challenges were extremely fun to master once accepting the quirks of the platforming.

In general, there has been a lot of work being done on the game in the form of free updates since release. Since this was my first time playing, I can't speak to the differences, but I really enjoy how they implemented the new content into the base game, where I didn't know something was added until looking it up specifically, which makes Blasphemous at this point a really nice package and one of the better metroidvanias out there.

A valiant, but ultimately messy effort. At times I was so immersed and fascinated by the world and setting that is crafted and all the systems interacting with each other only to be forced out by overall jank, repetition and systems not fully recognizing my actions. The last point is the most important one. Systemic games like this one that are built on choices, consequences and player knowledge live and die by the integrity of their simulation. What happens if the player pushes against the systems presented in the game? If the game doesn't break and even anticipated the choice a feeling unlike any other is created. The problem is, though, that you have to support an enormous number of interactions in a game where you interact with a decently sized cast of characters going about their lives in a roman city across multiple time loops. And this game unfortunately broke the illusion a few too many times for me in the end. I would still wholeheartedly recommend this game to everyone who is curious due to its low time investment, as I mentioned, this is a truly valiant effort that hits on so many points, I just wish it were a little more polished in the end. Also I was incredibly weirded out by that final ending, a bold direction certainly to put it favorably.

I noticed a feeling I have when playing certain games that comes close to 'coziness' or flow. When the movement mechanics are perfectly tuned, the exploration finds the perfect balance for challenge and frequency and the game is polished to the level where you can just let yourself go completely because you are enjoying every step you take. This feeling usually leads me to spend as much time in these games as possible and tedious completionist activities flip to delicious extra juice to squeeze out of the most refreshing fruit. Well, this is certainly one of those games.

Death's Door oozes in polish and uses the third dimension to the full potential in a traditionally flat 2D genre. Style is certainly substance in this case, from fancy cinematography, beautifully layered and detailed dioramas forming a deeply intertwined and intricate level design and world to just hilariously bold title cards rivaling the ones in Control. The balancing act of humor and ernest, heartfelt storytelling works out perfectly in this bleak but intrinsically cheeky setting - you are a soul-reaping crow wielding a glowing sword arriving by bus at an office building greeted by Baul Plart after all.

Something I have to give games the highest credit for is respecting the player's time and dedication. You have an abundance of collectable items to collect and puzzles to solve but you get the option to get hints at various points that don't spoil the solution but relieve the player of needing to backtrack endlessly and should you decide to stick around after the ending and poke a bit more into the game, you will be rewarded for your time not only with a satisfying True Ending but also with great surprises and twists along the way.