Death's Door - Isometric action-adventure from the makers of Titan Souls - Xbox/PC/Switch/PS4 - GOTY 2021!

[kempstar]

Anyone got any tips for the annoying poison knight?

[Varsity]

35 minutes ago, kempstar said:

Anyone got any tips for the annoying poison knight?

 

I had more trouble with that than legit any of the main bosses lol. 

 

You can use the bomb plant that's there to bait bombs at him and chip away that way. Failing that, wait for him to do his 3 swings then run in, hit 2-3 times depending on your dexterity stat and then run off. Rinse and repeat. 

[kempstar]

31 minutes ago, Varsity said:

 

I had more trouble with that than legit any of the main bosses lol. 

 

You can use the bomb plant that's there to bait bombs at him and chip away that way. Failing that, wait for him to do his 3 swings then run in, hit 2-3 times depending on your dexterity stat and then run off. Rinse and repeat. 

Same, all the other bosses I killed first or second time so far, but this prick is well annoying. Ive tried both those tactics, but when he does a running, jumping smash, he seems to be able to hit me from anywhere!

[DC]

The big fuckers? If you have the ninja rope upgrade, they can’t handle the slash. You can even get a standard hit in after. Rinse and repeat.

[Varsity]

Finished with 100% completion. 

 

Final thoughts, it's rare for me to give anything a perfect score and I've been thinking throughout today what would hold this back from that. The only gripe I have is that there was no map but it wasn't major really, just a slight inconvenience. So yea, 10/10 game for me. 

 

The soundtrack is so memorable and really speaks to me as well as fitting in with the general aesthetic of the game. The boss fights were all kinda unique and felt they did a lot considering the relatively small number of moves you can do. The general environment and colours also were great. 

 

Strongly recommended game to anyone personally. Don't be put off by the Dark Souls references, I suck at those games and had no issues with this tbh other than initial teething problems. 

 

Would love to see a continuation of the world and lore made here some time in the future. 

[Lovelyman]

I’m loving this too. I reckon it’s shoe in for people that love exploration games like Dark Souls and Hollow Knight, but also the dungeons have elements of Zelda in there too. 
 

it looks and sound and plays fantastically. 
 

Another great indie. 

[df0]

I'll always remember Death's Door for several reasons, one being the way the

Spoiler

Frog King

is introduced. Genuinely made me have a good laugh.

[kempstar]

14 hours ago, DC said:

The big fuckers? If you have the ninja rope upgrade, they can’t handle the slash. You can even get a standard hit in after. Rinse and repeat.

Specifically the poison mace big fucker. This made him completely trivial 🤣

[kensei]

Ah, I was going to come in and say the person you saw Havel and thought "You know what that dude needs is poison" deserves a special place in hell. That and deciding to add spinning balls of doom to one of the hardest enemies in the game.

 

This is very good though, just the right mash up of 2D Zelda and Dark Souls. While the puzzles are fairly trivial, it's exactly what I'd like to see out of a new 2D Zelda - replace one shot items for a smaller number that are used effectively throughout the world.

 

It's also very well paced. It knows when to crank up the fights for tension and when to dial it back. The art and characters are charming, too.

 

My only nitpick is that it occasionally gives you a puzzle - usually some sort of coordination challenge really - that if you fail you lose health and will ultimately die. I don't really mind doing these a lot of times, but being dropped back to the last door is an irritation, especially if it's a bit of a hike.

[Alan Stock]

Finally got around to finishing this off. Took a long time to get the 100%, pretty tedious mopping up some of those last few secrets due to insane amounts of backtracking and scouring every nook and cranny., but also quite satisfying. That aside though, I actually found the later bosses generally a bit easier than some of the earlier ones, even without being max upgrade. Definitely skill and learning coming into play, it taught me all I needed to know in the previous fights. I really appreciate that you can instantly hop back into attempts, it makes those boss grinds much more bearable. I still found the perspective a bit annoying in fights sometimes and screen effects getting in the way, but overall they were solid battles. Its a pity I only found one of the weapons just before the end, and the other one after I'd beaten all the bosses, as well as some powerups which would have been really handy!

 

Anyway, as for the game overall, its really nice, I'd still give it an 8/10, its very nicely polished, solid and satisfying to play and the atmosphere is spot on. Downsides are getting lost, hunting down final secrets and the aforementioned perspective sometimes making things a bit looser than they should be. But pretty amazing that only 2 devs (plus a 3D artist) did almost the entire game themselves (including the music!), its another Hollow Knight style triumph.

 

 

[df0]

As someone said before, soundtrack is on Apple Music (and Spotify but that's been cancelled) - https://music.apple.com/nl/album/deaths-door/1587919725

Works very well as background music while working.

 

[Alan Stock]

I forgot to mention, I checked my trophies after completion, and it turns out that nearly 40% of Playstation players have finished it. That's pretty amazing especially considering how challenging it is. Just goes to show that a short and sweet game can capture the hearts of many!

[df0]

Or the user base on PS is low.

[PaB]

3 minutes ago, df0 said:

Or the user base on PS is low.

Eh? Doesn’t matter if they sold 100 copies or 10,000,000 . 40% is 40%.

[df0]

Hmm, fuck 😟
I’m gonna leave that there, for future embarrassment.

[kempstar]

I was fairly late to the party on this one. It almost completely passed me by. Im glad it didnt.

 

I had a little peek in here when it was only a PC game, to see a couple of shouts of "Game of the Year, IMO". Comments like this, especially when a game has not been out very long, tend to put me off - often it is just early in the moment excitement, and hyperbolic. This time, I am pleased to report, it was actually pretty close to the truth.

 

First the good. Actually, the spectacular. The music is astonishingly atmospheric, haunting, and just god so damn beautiful (note: not hyperbolic!). I cant actually remember a soundtrack in recent years that is so wonderful. Its "put it on my Spotify playlist and not even be embarrassed that people see that I am a total video game loser" kind of brilliant.

 

The second most brilliant thing about this is the best ever representation of how a crow might eat a bowl of soup with a big chunk of octopus (?) in it. It really is the most adorable thing ever, and is exactly how I would eat a bowl of soup with a big chunk of octopus (?) in it if I was a crow. Who needs chopsticks?

 

I will distill the rest of my thoughts incase you are already bored. The combat controls great and is fun, fun fun. The map is so dense and absolutely covered with secrets that really reward taking your time. The game is basically Crow X Zelda X Dark Souls X A little sprinkle of magic. The only slight missteps are the occasional frustrating difficulty spikes, such as Poison Havel Wanker and the final (final, final) boss. I managed to eventually smash them both, and glad I persevered. 

 

Games like this delight like only videogames can 😍

 

[moosegrinder]

I think you'd have to be a complete dick head to find the music anything other than fantastic. Despite whatever faults the game the music is absolutely not one of them.

[metallicfrodo]

Completed this (in that I beat the final boss) the other day and I found it very enjoyable throughout. I don't even think it's that difficult to be honest, although I think a lot of that was to do with the generosity of the checkpointing system, and how most of the maps you worked through involved opening short cuts, so once you had done a section it was done. That also extended to boss battles with the checkpoint being right next to them so you could have another go straight away.

 

Personally I didn't really use many of the weapon options, sticking with the intial sword throughout. I also only upgraded the grapple shot, so I don't think I ever found the poison boss people were talking about.

[Minion]

Well this is a wonderful game, lovely art design, score and some nice clever and subtle little puzzles. I'm only at ceramic manor now so still early doors.

[Varsity]

39 minutes ago, Minion said:

Well this is a wonderful game, lovely art design, score and some nice clever and subtle little puzzles. I'm only at ceramic manor now so still early doors.

 

Best soundtrack at ceramic manor love it. 

[Lovelyman]

How do you find the optional power up bosses?

[Jamie John]

42 minutes ago, Lovelyman said:

How do you find the optional power up bosses?

 

Just through exploring. There are only four. IIRC, there are two lanterns outside each of the boss rooms, and all of them can be found in the central graveyard area, or its outskirts. There's one in the 

Spoiler

cave with the river running though it that adjoins the graveyard and the dockside area where the squid restaurant is, and another in that sort of basement crypt area with all the spider-like enemies that swarm you, close to where you spawn when you arrive in the graveyard from the crow world.

 

[Fondue]

Really enjoying this. Beat the final boss tonight and am mopping things up now. Glad to see the music has rightly been called out as excellent; the whole thing is to be honest. 

 

The battle with the 

Spoiler

Old Crow

Spoiler

Oops - how do I delete this spoiler? Jeez. 

 

In particular was striking visually. 

[Minion]

I'm loving this game, I've been taking my time and taking it all in and am up to the Frog Kingdom run. The music and atmosphere is delightful it has a distinctly japanese feel to it with some lovely british style wholesome wit, it's really special. Thanks to gamepass for presenting it to me! I might double dip on PS5 just to give the developer some money.

[Lovelyman]

I have mixed feelings about this game. 

 

It looks and sounds lovely. The combat is most of the time nice and fluid. 

 

It's very linear though, there are a few little exploration rewards.

 

The first two main bosses are great, inventive and fun.

 

The magic is actually pretty useful too.

 

Some enemies are annoying AF.

 

The last boss is a terrible design - an exercise in Dark Souls excess. Let's see if we can frustrate you after fighting for so long that you just think 'fuck it, I can't be bothered to start that fight again. I know I can do it, but I will rush the first part because it is boring and then lose all my health for when it does a thing that sometimes hits me regardless'.

 

I have really enjoyed it, but the last part has made me feel nothing but a resigned frustration. 

[Varsity]

I didn't find the last boss so bad, at least it has a checkpoint in it. If I literally had to start from scratch each time that'd be a different story. 

[Jamie John]

Yeah, I enjoyed the last boss: it was a good escalation in challenge and the checkpoint midway through as well as the immediate restarts prevented it from being frustrating. Like all the other bosses, it's pattern recognition and nothing you haven't seen already. Keep going!

 

38 minutes ago, Lovelyman said:

It's very linear though, there are a few little exploration rewards.

 

Are you trying to say there are few rewards for exploration here, as in 'not many'? Just checking, as that's objectively untrue: the game is packed with secrets and things to discover, and finding them all was probably the part of the game I enjoyed more than any other. There's some post-game stuff as well which is also great.

[Lovelyman]

Just now, Jamie John said:

Yeah, I enjoyed the last boss: it was a good escalation in challenge and the checkpoint midway through as well as the immediate restarts prevented it from being frustrating. Like all the other bosses, it's pattern recognition and nothing you haven't seen already. Keep going!

 

 

Are you trying to say there are few rewards for exploration here, as in 'not many'? Just checking, as that's objectively untrue: the game is packed with secrets and things to discover, and finding them all was probably the part of the game I enjoyed more than any other. There's some post-game stuff as well which is also great.

What are they then?

 

I have

 

 

Spoiler

Additional weapons that are not that useful.

Spoiler

Extra health and magic, arguably unnecessary.

Spoiler

Buffs to my spells that are useful, but hardly exciting.

 

[Lovelyman]

I was really into this game until the last area and then the three boring bosses in a row. I that’s what’s soured me on it. 

[Minion]

Well I must be approaching the end game as I have all the weapons, I really like this so far, I like going back and finding things that I can now access with my new powers. A bit worried that the end will be fustrating now haha! I got all the upgrades last night defeating those annoying soldier things.