Prior to 2021, the two-man development team Acid Nerve had only released two games. One was a Mobile puzzle title, and the other was Titan Souls, a decent pixel-graphic adventure game focusing entirely on creative boss fights, that at its core presented some promising future titles from the Manchester-based dev duo. While a lot of people, myself included to a degree, didn’t think too much of the game, it now seems the perfect stepping stone into last year’s highly enjoyable, memorable and critically acclaimed Death’s Door.

While Titan Souls heavily reflected the Game Jam prototype it once started out as, Death’s Door feels a fully realised modern homage to classic adventure titles, such as the Zelda games, in progression routes, area layouts and items like the Hookshot, bombs and bow. With combat akin to modern titles such as Bastion and Hyper Light Drifter, the game utilises both satisfyingly simplistic hit and roll fights, as well as an array of upgradable and varied ranged attacks, on top of five different weapons to find and master.

Playing as a “Grim Reaper”-Esque crow, your job is to hunt down souls assigned to you by The Commission, however, things don’t go as planned, and you’re thrown into an adventure made up of memorable characters, hilarious dialogue and a surprisingly engaging storyline. My favourite part about the plotline of this game is that some of the Bosses you fight, aren’t entirely “evil” and with some, you feel genuinely bad about defeating, especially towards the end, where you realise the beings you’re fighting are just a product of an otherwise unfair existence.

Now if that sounds a bit too heavy, it’s not. I mean you’re still a small crow that swings a sword. Playful moments are scattered throughout the sombre locations you visit, be it eclectic characters like the ever charming Pothead (no relation) or the (definitely-not-a-squid) soup chef, Jefferson, who tends the Stranded Sailor, a place to get hints on collectables you may have missed throughout your travels.

The Boss fight designs are relatively simple, most of them having rather easy-to-learn attack patterns, but still have the capacity to kill you a few times, striking a perfect balance between accessible and challenging. While a lot of the Bosses use similar basic attacks, like jumping up to crash land on the player or a large swiping attack (often chained together), they each do have distinct features that make them stand out as individual experiences. The mighty Frog King tilts the entire arena to try and get the Crow into his mouth while The Urn Witch fittingly throws a barrage of exploding urns towards the player, forcing them to always be wary of their surroundings. A neat feature to the aforementioned Bosses, is that they both have a weak point during a specific attack, where if you time a bomb or flame just right, they’re knocked out for a few seconds, and you get an achievement to boot, which I am always a fan of.

The largest difference between this game and Titan Souls is while that game focused solely on its 19 Boss fights, Death’s Door has an entire world to explore, with distinct individual enemies to fight. Whether you’re locked inside an area, fighting numerous waves to progress, or encountering one of many scattered across each of the main 4 regions, you’re constantly in combat and learning each enemy’s timings and susceptibilities. While each enemy defeated rewards you with souls, a lot of them drop a disappointingly low amount, meaning the soul orbs you find hidden across the map become your main source of improving abilities. To be fair, I was finding enough of those orbs to be consistently upgrading, so if you’re expecting to be able to farm enemies like in the ever-comparable Fromsoftware titles, you’re out of luck. 

Farming enemies should never even be considered in the time playing this game, however, as my playthrough lasted about 7 hours, with an additional 4 getting to 100% and experiencing the post-game content, which by the way is spectacular. By collecting all of the hidden trinkets, seeds and shrines throughout the game, you are rewarded with abilities, an additional boss fight, new interactions with the eclectic cast of characters, and a secret true ending, that I don’t want to spoil, but did take me by surprise in the best way.

Overall Death’s Door is enjoyable the whole way through. It’s creative enough to be its own unique experience but uses some of the best tried-and-true Action-Adventure tropes to its benefit, blending both the humorous characters and dialogue, with the dark setting of collecting souls and traversing a bleak land. While it doesn’t last too long or isn’t incredibly difficult, it still left me satisfied and is well worth playing.