It’s funny how something old and well-established can become so irrelevant nowadays that we can dig it up from its grave, sprinkle a new look, and call it a day. Now, this sentence might sound accusatory, but I do not blame Death’s Door for being what it is – a Zelda game. See, that was a very clever thing to do, considering that we didn’t have a “classic” Zelda experience since… God damn, 2013! Since Breath of the Wild took that venerable series into a new direction we got kinda skimped when it comes to the ol’ reliable formula.
And Death’s Door delivers exactly that. It’s almost nostalgic in how blatant it is in recreating the recipe with only a few modern gaming concessions to make it feel more aligned with the expectations of today. But we get the whole deal - Zone and dungeon per item that opens up? Check. Heart system for life? Check. Simple combat relying on knowing basic enemy patterns? Check. Zone exploration with new tools you obtained in dungeons? Check. Damn, bombing up a wall to find a secret is a Zelda Staple! It’s how we did it back in the day!
Once again, I know the tone in the paragraphs above might be a little dismissive – but it isn’t, I swear I am quite enchanted with this game. It executes the formula, I dare say, to perfection. Level design is impeccable, with well-made shortcuts that harken back to the Dark Souls ingenious staging in which we can explore for an hour only to find a single gate back to the entrance. Each zone is also tempting us with big, shiny ‘come back when you get that thing’ signs all over the place – stone walls ready to be bombed, pots waiting to be lit on fire, and metal ankhs in the ground to Hookshot towards (did I mention how Hookshot is another shameless bow to the source material?).
Then we get the combat, which is… Unobtrusive. It’s Fun, if a bit simple, but wasn’t that always the case? It never was about some amazing combos or clever powers. But rather positioning, remembering the simple patterns of the varied enemies, and using a tool we obtained along the way to aid us. Enemy variety is quite fine – they repeat, a lot, but every stage introduces a new variant and a completely new bad guy to tackle. This manages to keep things fresh enough to never feel stale.
And what would a Zelda-like be without Dungeons and Bosses? To get to the new power and new boss we need to ‘feed the souls’ to big bullish doors by going through our dungeon, solving simple puzzles, surviving combat arenas, and utilizing the items – excuse me – powers we got up to this point. The Bosses also kind of, sort of follow us around on stages, giving us a glimpse of their character before we have to whoop their butts in fun, engaging, and pretty well-thought-out fights. It’s never too hard, it’s never too frustrating. Even if some boss kicks your derriere too much, it costs you nothing to keep trying again and again. Or go explore a bit more, score some souls, and upgrade yourself.
Ah yes. Upgrades. The Modern Day concessions to the formula. We can spend our soul on leveling up some of our ‘stats’ – strength, dexterity, haste, and magic. To be honest this addition is a bit underdeveloped or plain useless. Why? It hardly felt like I was getting stronger, faster, nimbler. The iterations of each level felt so minuscule. Sure, I know it had to work since some enemies were now dying to 2 instead of 3 hits, for example. But my movement speed or attack reach or whatever the stat promised to improve never felt like a big jump in power. The system is so basic, so rudimentary that I’d either get rid of it or add some zest to it. Spending all your souls to level 5 of a stat should give you that extra oomph, that feeling of progression towards a specialization. But, to be honest, it is a nitpick, an afterthought, as this little leveling system played very little role in my game experience in its totality.
It took me about 9 hours to complete, which is a perfect duration for such a game in my books. It is a ‘one week of gaming’ for light, short sessions of the evening playing or 2-3 days of more intense fun. Especially since I should talk now about the audiovisual quality and…
It’s great. Real great. The music is delightful, I do need the soundtrack because some of the combat tracks and boss themes are superb, bouncy, kinetic, and energetic. The stages also have great tunes that build the mood and the atmosphere with almost clockwork precision. We have gentle, forlorn melodies when traveling through the decrepit estates of the Witch’s Manor, only to transition to heavier, industrial rhythms of the Inner Furnace. Then onward to the peaceful, nautical location, and gosh darn, I felt like walking the beaches of a French Riviera! The music is pretty stellar and reminded me a lot of the top-notch job of Gareth Coker for the Ori series. Here David Fenn was the composer (and I knew his tunes already from Moonlighter and Titan Souls!) and he did a stellar job. Moody, atmospheric. Fitting.
Gosh, I sure waxed lyrical about the music, so trust me, it’s great, but it works because the game is designed with great charm in mind. It has this soft 3D, isometric design, with everything having a strong color identity and this kind of mellow edges. It’s hard to describe in words, but look at it – it’s gentle and soothing, yet distinct and a bit cartoony. Then we toss in our main character… Oh yeah. What’s the game about? We are a Crow. Who is also a Reaper. Or rather, little Reaper, a kind of Death’s Assistant who collects souls in exchange for simulacra of eternal life. On one of our missions, we get shafted by ancient, bigger, nastier Crow because they want to get through the titular Death’s Door, and they need three extra Great Souls to do so. And so, we need them too now, because – due to a complex set of rules for the land of the dead – we are now mortal and very much going to die if we do not complete our assignment and get the soul we need to take in the first place. Which now resides behind the ominous doors.
It’s simple and effective. No waff about it, we get pointed to three directions of the world, told to slay the three big’uns to get their souls and be done before dinner. It is serviceable.
In summary, Death’s Door is brave enough to not try anything new. Yeah, I said it – sometimes you don’t need to blast through the open, hah, doors, and take a well-known formula that was perhaps just not utilized lately, slap a new coat of paint on it, and make sure it all clicks together to create an engaging, fun game. And that’s exactly what this is – a fun game for anyone wishing for a to-the-point adventure that harkens back to the games of yore without being too tough or full of ancient game design issues. These are the doors I want to go through more often.
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