Death's Door, the second game by Acid Nerve (of Titan Souls fame) is, at its core, an extremely competent adaption of the classic 2D Zelda formula. Your journey as the Crow, a lowly worker in some sort of bureaucratic afterlife, will take you through several different areas in which you solve little puzzles, talk to NPCs, battle enemies and carefully observe the environment in order to figure out how to access hidden items and upgrades.
When you aren't looking at the beautiful isometric maps that are distinct enough to make the lack of a map feature a non-issue (seriously, this game has some A+ natural navigation), you're probably fighting a bunch of enemies. Combat is, at its core, a somewhat simple affair, but with the added benefit of several multi-purpose tools (your basic attack is also your projectile parry, your grappling hook will eventually become an offensive tool, and so on), exploitable environmental hazards and surprisingly aggressive enemies, you get a decent package that encourages free-form combat as much as this kind of game can. Bosses are a bit more traditional and, for the most part, provide great exclamation points for one part of the game before moving on to the next.
Unlike some genre contemporaries, Death's Door pretty much throws side content out of the window and puts the focus on engaging exploration. Of course, not every area is a winner (the forest overworld might be a bit too convoluted for its own good) and while the encounters feel as deliberate and hand-crafted as they are, more opportunities to play around with late-game upgrades would've been nice. Thankfully, the game's excellent audiovisual presentation combined with its endearing, yet never overly chatty writing, rarely allows for a dull moment.
Death's Door also wins my hypothetical "Best True Ending" award this year, because despite some heavy hints in the game's second half, it's something I did not see coming.
If you're looking for a fun and polished action adventure experience, the ten to fifteen hours you will spend with this game are well worth your time.
When you aren't looking at the beautiful isometric maps that are distinct enough to make the lack of a map feature a non-issue (seriously, this game has some A+ natural navigation), you're probably fighting a bunch of enemies. Combat is, at its core, a somewhat simple affair, but with the added benefit of several multi-purpose tools (your basic attack is also your projectile parry, your grappling hook will eventually become an offensive tool, and so on), exploitable environmental hazards and surprisingly aggressive enemies, you get a decent package that encourages free-form combat as much as this kind of game can. Bosses are a bit more traditional and, for the most part, provide great exclamation points for one part of the game before moving on to the next.
Unlike some genre contemporaries, Death's Door pretty much throws side content out of the window and puts the focus on engaging exploration. Of course, not every area is a winner (the forest overworld might be a bit too convoluted for its own good) and while the encounters feel as deliberate and hand-crafted as they are, more opportunities to play around with late-game upgrades would've been nice. Thankfully, the game's excellent audiovisual presentation combined with its endearing, yet never overly chatty writing, rarely allows for a dull moment.
Death's Door also wins my hypothetical "Best True Ending" award this year, because despite some heavy hints in the game's second half, it's something I did not see coming.
If you're looking for a fun and polished action adventure experience, the ten to fifteen hours you will spend with this game are well worth your time.