Death’s Door (PC) review

Reviewed on: PC

A surprise from the small studio Acid Nerve, Death’s Door is concise, responsive, beautiful and, above all, fun!

When I got the offer to review the title, and seeing how everyone was calling it “soulslike”, I couldn’t help remembering my experience with NioH 2, where my experience with this genre was practically nil. However, it took no more than a few seconds to realize that this is yet another exaggeration, very common lately, of labeling any kind of game with minimal difficulty this way.

Acid Nerve brings a title where the protagonist is nothing more than a little crow, an employee of a reaper’s office whose job is just to bring souls in to be processed. The title is an action-adventure with puzzles and RPG elements and excites the player to explore its environments and discover secrets on the journey for upgrades.

Plot

The story behind Death’s Door doesn’t force itself to be more complex than necessary. It is simple, mystical, unique, but presented subtly and sparingly, with the wonder of elements in the scenery, the look of characters and mysterious artifacts. The choice of narrative presentation recalls the way adventure and 3D platformer titles like Banjo-Kazooie used to do it, including the dialogues with each character’s characteristic noises.

The plot consists of the fact that the protagonist, a crow, is actually a reaper (a representation of the folkloric Lady Death) and has the mission, really a job, of bringing souls back to the office to hit their quotas. However, after some bumps and hiccups, our hero begins to meet others like him who hint that there is more going on behind this situation than meets the eye. Soon the player finds themselves involved in resolving loose ends left behind: such as characters who should already have passed on to the beyond and mysteriously still wander the realm of the living without a care.

Graphics

The art style is quite harmonious, using less saturated tones and particles to highlight the game’s points of interest.

The scenery models are detailed, following a “less is more” orientation where objects are very well modeled but without any visual clutter. The effects are also sober and understated, delivering understanding in just the right measure to the player’s senses.

The characters are caricatured and exaggerated, partly recalling the more cartoonish style used in games like Wind Waker but, clearly, in the dark tone the plot calls for. This art choice allows all its characters, even the most minor ones, to be extremely expressive and their movements to be smooth and pleasant, especially in combat, where both the protagonist and the adversaries have fluid, polished actions.

The soundtrack follows the same polish and fits perfectly with the tone of each stage, situation and setting.

Gameplay

The character can walk, roll, attack with different weapons, use a series of abilities and interact with objects and NPCs.

The controls are precise, fair and responsive. The programming is of excellent quality and the margin for error is large enough that your skill isn’t punished by micro slips, so the game’s difficulty is neither intimidating nor unfair even for casual players.

It is common in games of the genre to find frustrating functions disguised as difficulty, and that is definitely not the case with Death’s Door, where progression was programmed at just the right point so the challenge is always at an appropriate level for your progress.

Conclusion

Death’s Door is succinct and lovely even for a gloomy title. The conspiracy behind the plot is exciting and the battles keep the player busy on their journey to develop their skills and finally overcome the fight, even for optional bosses that are slightly crueler in terms of challenge.

The title was developed and published by a team of just eight people and shows a very high level of quality, which proves once again, in the age of 4K, that consistency of quality and polish across all aspects of a game is much more important and rewarding than excellence in just one aspect.

Death’s Door is highly recommended for all players and, for fans of the genre, it is essential.

The title is available on Steam and the Microsoft Store.

Played on PC (Ryzen 7 3800X, RX 480) with an Xbox One Controller.