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It's a good thing you guys were correct, otherwise it'd be awkward

#32: Death's Door

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/2/0/AAA-H0AADcu4.jpg

No really, why DO people compare this game to Dark Souls, though? And don't say that people don't do that, I've heard it from like three different people! Is it because this game has a dodge roll? Because it has a slightly melancholy vibe and grayscale aesthetics? Dark Souls didn't even invent those things! It's not like Dark Souls at all! There's no RPG elements, your attacks come out instantly and have no windup, and it's not frustrating and annoying to play. It has a crow! What I'm trying to say is that Death's Door is better than Dark Souls. Come at me. I will fight you and I will win because my attacks don't take 12 seconds to perform.

(Dark Souls is fine, by the way. It's just not for me. Please don't actually fight me over the merits of the game, I will immediately acquiesce.)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/2/1/AAA-H0AADcu5.jpg

Death's Door is a little isometric action game with some very light Zelda elements where you play as a little crow who has to go reap some souls. That's pretty much it. What it lacks in the originality of its gameplay premise, it makes up for by its presentation being polished to a mirror shine. It really lives off of its visual style in particular; the game's world pops off the screen like a little animated diorama, the environments so uncannily smooth that they almost look like they could be real, made out of real miniatures fimed in some kind of impossibly fluid stop motion. This is an example of a game where just wanting to look at it is something that consistently drew me back in. It has a relatively muted color palette compared to most of the games I like (up to this point, I think BPM, Pawnbarian, and Forgotten City are the only games I wouldn't describe as explosively colorful) and it's rare for me to really get drawn into these 'dark' color palettes, so that really speaks to the immersive quality of this game.

Like Astalon in my previous writeup, it also - at least for me - had a nearly perfectly designed difficulty curve. The game is demanding, but not unfair. You don't have a lot of room for error as your health bar is pretty small, but all of the basic enemies and bosses give a fair amount of telegraphing to their attacks, and your little crow has responsive movement and a dodge roll, so any time you get hit by something it really feels like your fault; yet, the game's attack patterns are interesting and tricky enough that you will get hit nontheless. Attacks feel good; weapon attacks are quick and snappy, and charging up and letting loose your ranged attacks is satisfying, although I wish attacks landed with a little more of a 'thud' to them.

I wouldn't call this game a metroidvania, but it does have a little bit of that vibe to it with getting upgrades that let you explore more places. I felt like this game could have used a bit more of that, as cool new weapons and upgrades are too far and few between to make exploring feel like it's worth it some of the time. On the bright side, though, I was surprised by how well hidden secrets are in this game; health and magic upgrades come in the form of these giant shrines that you feel like you couldn't possibly miss, but the game uses these clever camera tricks to keep them just out of view, which makes the swinging of the camera around the level to reveal them once you've found the hidden path immensely satisfying. I've always had a big soft spot for secrets that are fair but well hidden since DKC2 so this won me over.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/2/2/AAA-H0AADcu6.jpg

I don't know how I feel about this game not having a map. I've always praised Metroid 1 for exactly this, because getting helplessly lost and having to remember where things are yourself is somehow satisfying in a slightly masochistic way, but the mazelike areas of Death's Door and the inability to zoom out and see where in them you are can be more than a little frustrating at times, and I always felt like if I put the game down for too long I'd forget where I was going. I also think the game has way too much wandering around - there were a few times where I couldn't figure out where to go and I'd literally spend up to 20 minutes just kind of pacing back and forth through empty areas cleared of any enemies or threats, without any map or fast movement to help me clear ground faster, and it feels almost designed that way to pad the runtime of what's otherwise a modestly short game. There's some postgame stuff to do, but because it would require me to go through all these areas again I couldn't really bring myself to do it.

In any case, I'm glad I gave this game a chance, because it's a gorgeous looking and competently made action game. I probably wouldn't have given it a chance if it didn't have a crow. This game has a whole bureaucracy full of crows! Birds are my favorite animal and pretty much any game that features them is going to inherently get a lot more attention from me. I think I wouldn't have enjoyed this game half as much if it just starred like, some guy. I don't just want to play as some guy. I want to play a cute bird and it's simple stuff like that that keeps me playing a game sometimes.

It's actually occurring to me now that Hollow Knight is probably a better comp for this game, and Hollow Knight also gets Dark Souls comparisons a lot. I've never played Hollow Knight but I feel like it's pretty similar to this game? A world that's equal parts cute and bleak, attacks that come out fast and attack patterns that are fair, a little too much wandering around backtracking through empty areas for some peoples' tastes. Cool, glad we cleared that up. I'll play Hollow Knight at some point and see if my comparison was accurate. In the meantime, I'm glad I gave Death's Door a chance - it was recommended to me more than once and I nearly passed on it and I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would.

Next up: snek