Death's Door (2021)

The Netflix version is so bad. I can see that it's not a terrible game, but the terrible controls really set it back.

On Android the game only uses touch controls; no controller support. This fast-paced game is simply unplayable with touch controls. Fortunately, I used an app to translate controller input into touch events, which work very well. Except that the game constantly and randomly fails to register the touch events that I can see on my screen. I died so many times because my character rolled in some random direction because the game didn't recognise directional input.

The are other niggles that don't come from the port. The pseudo-isometric perspective looks cute, but it can cause visibility issues. Enemies can block the view of your character and are very hard to read if they have their backs turned to the camera. That's not a big issue in most situations except with the third boss, who is large enough to cause problems.

I still like the game overall. It's cute an funny and the level design is quite good, albeit a bit repetitive.

Overall good game, good atmosphere. and the art is gorgeous. the crow has a little personality conveyed through some animations which is cute. the soundtrack is nice but i found the "exploring music" too repetitive and samey.

gameplay wise is fun but it can be frustrating at times due to the control scheme and the feedback of your actions. collectibles seemed pointless.

The upgrades are very standard and not interesting. sometimes i couldn't tell if they were making a difference or not. maybe a visual upgrade to weapons would have made things more interesting. You can get multiple weapons but i couldn't see much of a difference between them, and i found myself defaulting to the standard one anyways.

It has cute humor which sometimes feels at odds with the dark atmosphere that it portrays.

Now it looks like I had say more bad things that good things, but i guess that is the problem with the game, it doesn't do anything brand new or really well other than presentation and I feel some of my complaints could have brought this game to the next level.

Anyways, I still recommend it if you are looking for a puzzle adventure type game

I am liking it overall but there are some things that really grind my gears:

• controller support is busted (at least on the game pass version)
• the controllers in general are really awkward and not smooth: Characters hit where the mouse is aiming, different button for charge vs regular attack, space bar to accept instead of enter???
• Some of the feedbacks are just derimental: whenever you get hit by a big boss the music and sounds kind of mutes, a lot of games use this to indicate a good hit by the player, not the other way around, really throwing me off. When you get hit the mouse dissapears, and only reappears when you get up. so you don't know which way you will be aiming and very likely will get hit again. the monkeys that jump around could use a big shadow to indicate where they land. as it is right now the perspective makes it hard to tell
• The healing system is just strange and I can't make head or tails as to why it is the way it is. you need to find seeds and then you need to find a pot where to plant it. and then you can only use the pot once per death. it feels tacked on and trying to be different without really accomplishing anything of note. dying brings you back to the last door, and then you can walk all the way back to where you were meant to be, I am not sure why you can't have a quicker checkpoint at the beginning of the room for example.

This was a fun, quick game. Dark Souls exploration and dodge roll combined with top down Zelda mechanics and items. Loved the ways levels would loop back around to places you had already been.

There is a slight lack of creativity, like no mechanics that the game introduces for the first time. It is a rock solid use of these older ideas and tropes though.