3/5 ★ – geddycahoon's review of Death's Door.

For its first 5 or so hours, Death’s Door feels like an above average indie. The simple gameplay loop is fun enough, combining Zelda esque adventuring and VERY simple puzzles with Dark Souls flavored combat. It’s all supported by a cute and charming art style. Even if it falls into pretty much every trope of modern indie games, Death’s Door had me reasonably enjoying myself. Unfortunately, the game sort of falls of a cliff during its third and final main area. The oozing personality and puzzle/combat setup of the previous stages is gone, replaced with tedious endless combat and a boss that lacks personality. The final third of the main game is so dramatically worse than what precedes it that it while it doesn’t wreck the experience, it certainly deflates it from something very good to something only decent. If this game were a little shorter, it would be better. Full stop. That said, it’s still an easy recommend (when on sale) if you’re looking for something simple and entertaining. There’s some post game stuff that the dull final stretch completely sapped me of any desire to bother playing, so for enjoyers there’s content to be found even once the main story is finished. Death’s Door is so trying to be everything the developers enjoyed (you literally fight a giant crow version of Slave Knight Gael) that it’s hardly reinventing the wheel, but for most of its play time it’s ripping things off competently enough that it’s a good time. Cute, decent game that’s just lacking a certain oomph.