Every now and then a game will catch my attention that is, shall we say, a bit out of my comfort zone. Death’s Door fits this description due to the souls-esque elements that it contains. However, Death’s Door does have a few elements that feel pretty fun to play around with.

In Death’s Door, you play a crow in charge of reaping souls. While on a job, your target soul is stolen by an older crow, who hopes to power the door to death itself, the eponymous Death’s Door. Without your target soul, you cannot continue your work, so you must travel across the world to collect other souls in the hopes of opening the door and collecting your target.

Death’s Door feels like a more difficult Zelda-esque title. You can roll, swing your weapon, shoot a magic ranged attack, and charge up a stronger attack. Hitting enemies will replenish your magic uses as well. As you kill enemies, you gain souls, which you can use to upgrade your base stats except for your health and magic points.

Magic and health must be increased by finding shrines, which offer magic crystals or health crystals. Collecting enough of each type of crystal increases your maximum. You can also collect life seeds, which you can plant throughout the environment at designated spots in order to replenish your health on the go. The problem with this is that there are a limited amount of pots, and a limited amount of seeds. Large areas or long fights can be excessively difficult due to the lack of being able to heal.

Additionally, there is no map. So once you finish an area or unlock a new ability, if you want to find secrets or find your next destination, you have to explore areas more than once. You can travel back to the hub area from doors spread around the environment. These doors work as checkpoints, but they are few and far between, so if you die, there may be quite a bit of backtracking.

Aside from that, the gameplay is pretty simple. There are some puzzles, but the true star seems to be the difficult combat. It really isn’t my thing, but I can see fans of Souls-likes really enjoying it. There are some framerate drops and some lag on the Switch as well, though it isn’t anything that would make the game unplayable.

What really drew me in was the storyline. The characters are colorful and engaging, and the world that was created seems to be full of vibrant and interesting elements. I wish there were ways to tailor the difficulty a little more, or at least make things less demanding for people that may have a hard time with muscle weakness or low stamina.

Truthfully, Death’s Door has some balance issues, mostly due to how slowly you gain max health, and how difficult it is to keep track of where you have and haven’t been. The puzzles are interesting, the story is interesting, but the steep barrier of entry is definitely going to be off-putting for some players. Do I regret giving it a shot? No. Sadly, I don’t think the enjoyment is worth the frustration of finishing it though.

A Nintendo Switch Review Copy of Death’s Door was provided by Devolver Digital for this review.

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Death's Door

$19.99 USD

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• Interesting Concept
• Smooth Controls
• Clever Puzzles
• Decent Action Combat

Cons

• Framerate Lag
• Steep Difficulty Curve
• Limited Upgrades
• No Map