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If grimdark is a genre, then must be cutedark. The door of death slides into this camp on vaporous wings. He has Hollow Knight’s dimples but not his teeth. It’s lighter, a suitably feathery game. For long stretches it’s refreshing and little tiring with a few tough battles. This lightness is its strength. Soulslike shades are mostly a facade and they are inspired less by Lordran than by Hyrule. There are fluffy puzzles, curious dungeons, and cute characters with the text JiGgLiNg DIALoGuE. I predict all Nintendo fans will immediately think, “I’m going to have it on my Switch.” Unfortunately, you can’t, at least not yet. But still think about the PC version. For a good part of his playing time, he is an agreeable sword-beater who invites to a relaxed evening of dungeon strolling. Nothing too harsh, nothing too mean.
Until Betty appeared.
Betty is barbaric. It comes towards the end of this 12 to 3 p.m. story, in which a young crow tries to balance a strange corvid institution that governs life and death. Betty is an outlier. A big hairy aberration shaped like a Yeti, which stinks. But let’s leave it aside to talk about the continuation of this beautiful, musically gifted adventure.
Your Silent Cortagonist is working as a Soul Reaper, and an important soul has been stolen. Embark on a journey to defeat various bosses and solve dungeon puzzles to recover the missing spirit. Combat is firmly set at an isometric angle, a mix of punches and recoil to fire ranged attacks. You can reload your bow by hitting enemies or environmental objects like mushrooms or ice shards. Other ranged attacks are unlocked later, like a fire spell or a magic bomb.
You don’t lose your souls when you die, not even a lot of progress. There is none of this to worry about. The checkpoints are plentiful, as are the unlockable shortcuts. And perishing in a boss fight always brings you back to the base of the boss arena. There are healing flowerpots placed usefully before and after harder gauntlets. Everything is very forgiving and friendly. Anyone expecting a self-flogging chore might be disappointed. But the lightness suits this game much better. It has a smiley handwriting that will undoubtedly be funny to some, twee to others. But it made me laugh, and that’s all I care about.
Either way, Sekiro’s level difficulty would clash with his carefree tone and lively style, so I’m glad he (mostly) avoids that. It’s a new low-poly that’s reminiscent of cute dioramas, with depth of field and smooth surfaces bringing out details where you might miss them in other games. The way your shadow lengthens in some doors or the leaves briefly scatter when you walk through them. There is so much attraction in just staggering.
As you would expect from a Zelda-ish, there are good reasons to falter. There are secrets hidden everywhere. Disguised passages with shrines increasing stats at the end. Breaches in the hedges invite you to rustle in the overgrown shrubs (like a real crow). There are cracked walls that require as yet unknown explosive capacity to explode, cobwebs to burn with inevitable fire blasts, gaps that can only be cleared with an upcoming gadget. You notice a lot of these potential secrets before you get the necessary powers, so there’s a great incentive to waddle around the old areas and scour the game for completion trinkets. Naturally, it’s more appealing to the backtrack squad than to those like me, who just want to finish the story.
“Those who expect self-flagellation work may be disappointed, but the lightness is much better suited to this game.”
The enemies oppose it. There are growling dorks, teleporting wizards, and thugs armed with hammers. But the end-of-dungeon bosses are the main event. These battles follow centuries-old traditions of pattern and phase. Brilliant projectiles, smashes, stomp and sweep blend together to create enemies to learn. The witch urn, grandmother, is your first real biggo. She mimics the hopping attacks of her lesser minions and throws pots at you with different effects. But at this point, the previous dungeon did a good job of teaching you what its different pots and enemy types do, meaning the boss is “readable” almost at the same time, making you feel capable and smart. to deflect his dangerous projectiles towards her. .
Other bosses have a more perplexed feel when you take on the quirks of their arena, like collapsing floor panels. And a boss is a peak of difficulty that makes others languish. Yes, Betty, I’m talking about you. I found this fight aggravating compared to others because his big gorilla arms somehow “lock up” you when you try to dodge, and the sight makes it hard to judge where his bulky jumps will land. She’s just a big, boring slammer. I hope she will never find love.
Betty isn’t the only thing that ruffled my feathers. Keyboard shortcuts for the controller, for example, are a bit silly. For example, the button to go back on a menu (the B button on an Xbox controller) corresponds to the button to load your ranged attack into the game. It’s okay. But if, like me, you want to change the B button in the game to be “dodge” (I have a debilitating case of Souls Fingers), you’ll find that pressing that button in menus no longer works like ” return”. I’m guessing there’s a complicated reason in the code for this, but hopefully a future patch could separate menu commands from in-game commands.
Likewise, upgrading statistics seems redundant. Your soulbucks can be spent in a central world of sleek monochrome, a magical office with a small team of typists. But the upgrades are basic and barely noticeable. Slightly faster running speed, negligibly faster charge on ranged attacks, one decimal point more damage with sword strikes. While abilities have a clear purpose and specific roles in combat and exploration, the invisible increase in your crowtagonist’s virtual bowels seems insignificant. Cumulatively, it makes a difference. But it’s hard to notice.
These are insignificant flaws for a game that generally feels as good as it looks. And it looks good. For mostly top-down play, there are a lot of neat composition breakaway moments. The framing of each boss before a big fight, for example, shows the boss’s name on the screen in large print. I like this. Except when it’s-
The thing is, I understand what Betty is. She’s the really tough boss. A Dirt Bag Guardian designed to inspire a flashback through ancient dungeons, a soul escapade to find secrets, upgrades, and shrines now accessible through unlocked abilities. It is the bane of critics. I prefer to see the end of the story to conclude, thank you Betty. But the bane of the critic is not necessarily the bane of the player. And I’m sure others will inevitably find it a snap. I also know that if I had been less rushed by a deadline, this furry poo launcher wouldn’t have been so bad.
So other than the fact that I AM BUSY, BETTY, I’m happy with Death’s Door. I love Crowboy’s endearing head movements during his slow-motion animations. I love his bird Naruto waddles. He’s a cool little guy. I like how handy the camera is, allowing you to move the view around and peek in any direction (a feature always appreciated in side metroidvanias or sliced shots’ n ‘from top to bottom). I love how the music in the Furnace Dungeon is perfectly in sync with the tempo of its steam pistons (the music in general is downright excellent, from the weird lament-o-notes of Firelink to the bops full of locals. of the forest). I love and am deeply disturbed by the eyes of Grandma’s Studio Ghibli, which follow you around the room with the automated paranoia of the security cameras.
In short, Betty is Horrible, another God-forsaken monkey. She killed me more than all the other parts of the game put together. But above all, it didn’t kill my appreciation for the game, a solid and often funny fable about death. No, I don’t know when they will announce the Switch version. Go away.
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