What if your job was to help souls move into the afterlife? The premise of Death’s Door, from the creators of Titan Souls, goes through just that. While our peculiar character’s colleagues spend the day in the office in front of a secretary, the main character aims for the adventure into the gothic world of this title, which for me was a more than welcome surprise.
Death’s door presents itself as an action-adventure title, graphically refined with a world rich in surprises and a superb soundtrack, entirely produced by David Fenn, which creates an atmosphere shrouded in mystery and intrigue.
The adventure begins in a depressing tone, in an environment painted only in black and white under a very heavy theme. The player is assigned the mission to help a particularly large soul on its way. However, something unexpected happens and a mysterious figure, an old crow, steals that same soul. This is the catalyst for the story that unfolds into something much broader, revolving around figures who cheated death for years and about the true meaning behind the work of crows in this world.
The world is separated into dimensions, the dimension of crows where their offices are located and where they are immortal and the dimension of mortals, where, as you might expect, they are vulnerable to age and death.
The dimension of mortals is divided into three zones, completely different from the previous one, and all of them are connected to a common point, the cemetery. Fast travel mechanics is approached in a very interesting way since it is possible to find doors in different places on the map. These doors are directly connected to the crows’ offices, where it is also possible to upgrade the character’s attributes, at the central balcony.
At specific points on the map, the camera rotates among itself, without any type of interaction on the part of the player, making it possible to access places that at first glance are inaccessible or do not present anything special. Exploration is a vital point since in this sense there are some things to be collected, some more important than others. In this field, it is thus possible to collect Crystal Shards, separated between health, which consequently increases the player’s life bar, and magic, which allows the player to increase his mana bar, used in special abilities. It is also possible to upgrade special abilities if you find the secret locations of the challenge rooms for each ability.
Lastly and touching the most important points of objects that can be found, we have the different melee damage weapons. Among sharp objects, we have an umbrella that doesn’t cut at all but leaves good marks on enemies. All weapons have different stats as well as different attack times, nothing very significant apart from the Hammer which produces a shockwave that inflicts damage to enemies closest to the shockwave.
The attention to detail is delicious. Collectible objects, in this case, “shiny things”, appear next to the character’s work table. This aspect is a delight for players passionate about collecting figurines and physical games (not me, who have a shelf with some statues).
There really is a lot to explore and even after 11 hours of gameplay and the main story completed, I’m still tempted to discover every corner of the map.
The strategy between dancing among enemies while applying melee damage combos, mixing evasion skills, or skills like archery or fireballs has never tasted so good. Well-implemented controls allow you to deal with all these situations, leaving room for a very rewarding learning path.
In short, all the super immersive environment, the sense of humor, the attention to detail, the soundtrack, the super satisfying combat system, and the story make Death’s Door a must play this year.
Here is a little fan art that I did:
[This review is based on a retail build of the game for Steam, acquired by the self]
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