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Crowative counseling

Sometimes you have to face facts: two chocolate croissants are not a breakfast, death is inevitable, and a cuddly appearance does not make for an outstanding game. That sounds harsh - especially for someone who feels like they've been starting the day this way for years - but that's the way it is. Joking aside, Death’s Door by Acid Nerve is nice. Really 'nice'. However, since 'nice' is generally the little brother of 'shit', I'll briefly explain why I wasn't really enthralled by the game.

The reader should know that I consume video games relatively selectively. In other words, I tend to play 20 games a year rather than 200. When making my choice, I rely on my own taste on the one hand, i.e. what appeals to me, what interests me? And on the other hand, I rely on critics' opinions, i.e. what are insider tips that you should have tried out? Death’s Door is one of the latter and caught my eye while browsing the Nintendo eShop. Saw it, bought it.

Adorable hero

Now the cute indie game has suffered the tragic fate of me playing it directly after completing Hades . And after I celebrated the odyssey around underground offspring Zagreus so much, Death’s Door falls a little short. Probably an unfair comparison, but since both are soulslikes, a legitimate one. I found it quite hard to get into the game after getting used to faster and more action-oriented controls and was more annoyed than motivated by my various deaths - but I'll cut a long story short. So let me describe the game first.

Death’s Door begins in a black and white, torn world in front of the entrance to an office building. Our character was dropped off there in the form of a crow. A really cute looking crow with a glowing red sword that clearly 'sticks' out in the monochrome (pun intended). The introduction arouses interest, the art style is unusual and appealing. We enter the building, where we meet other feathery kindred spirits. Apparently we are part of a government agency and our job has something to do with death. Of course, the game title is a real givaway, but since crows like to accompany the Grim Reaper in mythological terms, it's an understandable explanation.

Shortly afterwards, we are sent to the colorful world of mortals to collect a soul. As nobody likes to leave voluntarily, we have to help out. And so begins our little adventure, which lasts around twelve hours depending on our play style and skill. The principle is quickly explained: after the tutorial, we have to bag three more large souls. Those of a witch, a beast and a king. Sounds simple, and it is. Anyone expecting more depth will be disappointed.

The four we want

Just like a The Legend of Zelda with Souls-elements, we unlock a total of four abilities, such as a bomb or a grappling hook, which allow us to explore new areas and help us in battle. In doing so, we beat up enemies who can withstand different amounts of damage, but who drain one of our four health points every time they hit us. Incidentally, our life and mana pools can be increased to a maximum of six points by finding shrines. If we die, we get up again at the next door, which serves as a fast travel point. But not only are we back, all the enemies have also been brought back to life.

We keep the experience points we receive for killing enemies even after death. They are used to gradually upgrade our four skill trees: strength lets us deal more damage and gives our blows a greater range; dexterity lets us strike faster and recharge attacks more quickly; haste lets us run and dodge faster and magic increases the damage of our spells / ranged combat skills.

Incidentally, this magic can only be used to a limited extent and is only recharged by hitting enemies. So if you want to make our lives easy, shoot fireballs and arrows from a safe distance, you still have to throw yourself into close combat again and again. This makes the battles a little more tactical, but as is usual for the genre, it can be broken down to hit - dodge - hit. Although each opponent has their own fighting style, you'll soon get the hang of the moves. After that, it becomes more of a game of patience, as every life point lost means a rapid approach to the thundering DEATH screen.

A good idea, nicely done

It doesn't sound too bad on paper - and it isn't. For the twelve hours I played Death’s Door I was thoroughly entertained. The story was okay, the characters were wonderfully quirky and the fact that you're playing an armed crow bashing away at enemies was totally charming. The reduced art style and the iso-perspective also set the scene nicely for the different areas of the game world and make you want more.

And that's the problem: there's not much more to come. The Metroidvania-like gameplay means that we have to laboriously fight our way through the areas and keep unlocking shortcuts that allow us to navigate the game world faster and avoid battles. At the same time, you also want to explore this world - and have to do so due to the lack of an overview map. As a result, you often run the same routes, take detours and shortcuts and end up back at the starting point because you no longer know exactly where you're actually going.

Maybe it was just me and players who stubbornly followed the story had no problems with it. But for someone like me, who likes to look around and deviate from the main path from time to time, Death’s Door has navigated itself precisely into this unfavorable space, in which you actually feel like exploring the world, but the exploration is not rewarded enough and is therefore rather annoying. This is toxic for such a charming game that actually offers everything, but too little of it.

And that brings me back to my initial point from the beginning. I understand every critic who pulled this game out of a sea of titles and said: “Oh nice, how refreshing! A cute little indie title with a cool art style, likeable characters and challenging boss battles. Really something new after the 10th Call of Duty!”

But that's not enough for me personally. Because on the basis of these statements, I approached Death's Door with too high expectations and was ultimately somewhat disillusioned. Because I don't play hundreds of games a year, I play selected ones. I had expected more, more depth, more scope. Perhaps I was also frustrated because the Souls principle got on my nerves again here and made me doubt that I would have fun with Elden Ring.

Nevertheless, Death’s Door is a solid game. It offers an interesting story, challenging battles and a great, beautifully staged game world. It reminds me more of Bastion, which was one of the first games from Hades-developer Supergiant Games, and gives me hope that Acid Nerve will experience a similar success story with its future projects. They certainly deserve it, because the game about the armed crow is really, really nice.