Video Game / Death's Door

Death's Door is an Action-Adventure game, developed by Acid Nerve, same developers as Titan Souls. You play as a crow employed by the Reaping Commission, whose first job is to collect a Giant Soul. Things go wrong quickly when their mark's soul is stolen, and they eventually find themselves trying to open Death's Door to get it back.

Provides Examples Of:

• Affably Evil: The Witch Of Urns is polite and welcoming to the Crow until she figures out they're there to kill her. She insists that everything she's doing is to keep people from having to endure the pain of death, even if that means that they also have to live with an urn for a head.
• Alas, Poor Villain: All the bosses get a pretty sad sendoff. The Urn Witch's eulogy is liable to catch the player particularly off-guard, as the game up to this point has been a fairly light-hearted affair. The Last Lord of Doors' is also pretty tragic - their predecessor was not a good parental figure, and their motivation for wanting to live is completely understandable, even if their methods were monstrous.
• All for Nothing: The Grey Crow's century-long efforts of tracking down the soul he was assigned turned out to be a hopeless affair, as souls that passed through the door are absorbed into the Aether. He does not take this well, going insane and attacking the player character in a boss fight.
• All the Worlds Are a Stage: The final boss fight sees the player revisiting all of the previous worlds but the Lost Cemetery as you chase the Last Lord of Doors through them.
• All Your Powers Combined: The Last Lord of Doors uses attacks from other bosses, namely the Guardian of the Door's chasing laser, The Witch of Urns' urn throwing, The Frog King's jumping stomps (but with shockwaves this time), Betty's Rolling Attack, and the Silent Guardians' stun circles.
• Animated Armor: All of the Lords of Doors are this. Each one is created by the previous one before they die. No one knows the origins of the first Lord of Doors. Also, there are secret Mini-Boss fights with Silent Guardians, who upgrade your spells when beaten.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Jefferson at the Stranded Sailor will give you hints where to find each of the remaining health/magic shrines.
  • When fighting a boss or miniboss the game gives you the option to try again when you die rather than booting you back to the last door you used.
  • After defeating the Last Lord of Doors, areas that still have secrets to be found will have their door in the Hall of Doors glowing red.
  • One of the quests of the post game is to gather all 50 life seeds in the game and plant them in all 50 seed pots. A massive task, as these are spread all over the world and a player unaware of this may not have used all their seeds to save them as needed (they're the healing item of the game). If the player finds the secret garden in the Estate of the Urn Witch, he can gather the Rusty Garden Trowel, which will glow at night showcasing which areas still have seeds to collect, while Pothead in the same garden will tell you which areas have pots that the player not used yet (the player still has to look for them, but this massively reduces the search area).
• Arc Words: From Steadhone the Gravedigger, we get, "His/Her/Their time in this world is over," whenever you kill a boss. Also, his own words when you first meet him, "My time in this world is over," become a bit of an Ironic Echo when you find his locket and eventually defeat him in the post-game sequence.
• Autobots, Rock Out!: In contrast to most of the game's music, the boss battles tend to feature electrical guitars and other high-powered instrumentation to amp up the player's adrenaline and get them in the mood for a throwdown.
  • The Final Boss's theme takes it up to eleven with an electric guitar instrumentation of the game's main theme.
  • "Beginner's Battle" and "Avarice" start out orchestral before rocking out as the battle progresses.
  • "Grandma," the Witch of Urns' battle theme, is a Boss Remix of her leitmotif with backing by electrical guitar.
• Badass Adorable: The Crow is a cute little black bird who can take on foes ten times its size and win.
• Bait-and-Switch: Eating soup at the Stranded Sailor has the Crow hefting a pair of chopsticks for a moment before throwing them away and digging in like a true Corvid.
• BFS: The Reaper's Greatsword.
• Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: Betty is a giant yeti who lives in the mountains.
• Boss Subtitles: All notable bosses have these. The first couple play it straight, but the Frog King goes overboard until it hits the character limit. The third Giant Soul subverts this again after that, and just calls her "BETTY"
• Canon Welding: Truth from Titan Souls returns for the Golden Ending. You don't fight them this time though.
• Character in the Logo: The crow's silhouette appears inside the "A" in "Death".
• Chest Monster: Avarice appears similar to its original appearance in Titan Souls, gaining some red eyes and a remix of its original theme. When the Crow approaches Avarice, it opens like a regular chest, before suddenly chomping down and swallowing the Crow whole.
• Creepy Jazz Music: The Lord of Doors' leitmotif starts with an ethereal choir before opening up into a jazz-based rendition of the main theme.
• Distressed Dude: Pothead becomes this when he confronts his grandma, the Witch of Urns, and becomes imprisoned in a liquid-filled experimentation jar in her effort to brainwash him into becoming her immortal slave.
• Don't Fear the Reaper: The crow's job is to go and reap errant souls, but everyone besides the bosses understands it just has a job to do and doesn't fault it for anything. Most of the time, they're actually quite friendly and helpful to the crow on its quest. Death themself is a rather mellow person as well, and actually started the whole thing with the doors as a means to take a break from the general depression of their job. It's only when the Last Lord of Doors tried cheating them that things started to go wrong.
• Due to the Dead: Steadhone the Gravedigger is an immortal but gentle soul who can make sure that those who die on the islands (especially bosses) can be eulogized in funeral rites.
• Dying as Yourself: In the post-game sequence, if the Reaper obtains Steadhone's locket as a Tragic Keepsake and returns it to him, he becomes so overwhelmed with grief at the loss of his dog, Monty, that his own immortality causes him to turn corrupt and evil. Once the Reaper manages to defeat him, he returns to normal as he lies down on his back and thanks the Reaper for freeing his soul, knowing that "[his] time in this world is over" before passing on and becoming dust.
• Flat Character: Betty, the last of the three Great Souls the Crow must reap, is noticeably very underdeveloped compared to her predecessors. The Witch of Urns and Frog King both appear to taunt the Crow repeatedly as they progress through their lairs, but Betty is never seen until you enter the room where you duel her, and she has no dialogue.
• Foreshadowing: There are a few things in the game pointing to its relation with Titan Souls long before the ending:
  • Avarice is featured as a miniboss in this game.
  • The Shiny Medallion bears the likeness of Truth.
  • The Makeshift Soul Key, a piece of outdated technology, heavily resembles Titan Souls' aesthetic.
  • Betty's attacks are a clear reference to the Yeti, and the description of her Giant Soul all but spells outs that she's its descendant.
• Game-Breaking Bug: In the Nintendo Switch version, the final boss can glitch through the floor and disappear (when the Lord of Doors uses Betty's rolling attack on the very last fight), leaving you stranded in an empty arena. There's no finishing the fight from there, so you either have to kill yourself with your own bombs (if you have enough ammo) or reset.
• Golden Ending: After collecting the seven Truth tablets, you find the ruins of the First Door from Titan Souls, and Truth emerges and imparts the deeper backstory of the game. After the events of Titan Souls, the tower that housed Truth collapsed, and Truth was bound to those ruins. Sometime before the events of the game the Lord of Doors used parts of the ruins to recreate a Death's Door that would trap Death behind it. Also, Truth began whispering to the Free Crows about the downfall of the Lord of Doors, and to assign a chosen crow a Giant Soul, which kick-starts the plot. Afterwards, Truth and the crow merge, and the crow is seen flying away into the distance past where Death's Door once stood.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: The Lord of Doors engages the Crow in a running battle that takes the two of them through most of the game's previous worlds before ending in the Hall of Doors.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: The Grey Crow loses his mind when he discovers the Soul he was tasked with collecting is permanently lost to the Aether, meaning the years he spent looking for it in order to escape death were all for nothing.
• Guide Dang It!: A number of secrets are hidden behind panels you can open with your dive attack. Except the game never explains that you even have a dive attack, and the panels definitely don't look like anything you would perform a dive attack on. Your only hint is that they're all near ledges you can fall off of. Several of Jefferson's hints refer to them as "sewer grates", without any further explanation, even though they look nothing like anything related to a sewer.
• Heel Realization: The Lord of Doors' last words are to ask the Crow for forgiveness, but even before the start of their fight, they seem to come to a realization about their behavior, stating that their past actions were "not entirely moral... perhaps not even justifiable." They still refuse to go down without a fight.
• Heroic Mime: The Crow does not speak a word throughout the game, even when other people address them.
• Hugh Mann: Jefferson, a squid who is using a drowned sailor's corpse to pass off as a human selling soup. No one seems to notice or care. He is well-meaning, though, and gives you tips on where to find secrets. In the post-game he can take you for a ride and lead you to one of the Truth tablets.
• Immortality Seeker:
  • All three of the Giant Souls seek a means to permanently cheat death, be it turning their loved ones' heads into urns or devouring other souls before they can be reaped.
  • The first Lord of Doors requested immortality as the price in their bargain with Death, but when Death told them that was impossible they settled for extremely long life instead. The last Lord of Doors, though, decided to try and imprison Death and thus gain immortality that way.
  • A big part of motivation of the reaper crows is that they don't age or die for as long as they have no open reaping assignments. The Grey Crow, in particular, spent decades chasing after the soul he was assigned, desperately hoping to recover that immortality.
• Interspecies Romance: It is revealed that long ago the Drunken Crow fell in love with Betty the Yeti and thought about his plans to marry her... until her immortality corrupted her soul past her expiration date that she became a Tragic Monster and fled to the top of the mountains, killing anyone who would stand in her way.
• Joke Item: The Discarded Umbrella. Available from the start of the game, this weapon has the same stats as the starting sword, but half the damage. There is an achievement for beating the entire game with it.
• Lonely Funeral: Happens to each of the Giant Souls you've beaten. The funeral of the Witch of Urns/Grandma is attended by the Reaper, Steadhone and Pothead; the Frog King's is attended only by the Reaper and Steadhone; Betty's, by the Reaper, Steadhone and Barb the Bard; and the Last Lord of Doors', by the Reaper, Steadhone and Death themself at the end.
• Meaningful Name: Vaga, a Crow who hangs around the Reaping Commission as a vagabond. Also Badger, the only other Reaper who's still operational; he has a large white stripe down the middle of his head and back.
• Mickey Mousing: When the pistons are turned on in the Inner Furnace, they move up and down in punctuation to the rhythm of the musical beat of its tune.
• The Minion Master: Avarice never fights you directly. It instead creates portals for enemies to pass through and attack you.
• Mood Whiplash: Hoo boy. Cutesy graphics, often surreal sense of humor, frequently tragic and sympathetic bosses, and some pretty heavy existentialist themes. Somehow, it all works.
• Never Mess with Granny: The Witch of Urns appears to be a Granny Classic at first, and she's rather welcoming to the Crow until she begins to suspect they're there with mischief in mind - which they absolutely are. Once you push her far enough, she shows you how she's managed to live as long as she has.
• No Name Given: The Lord of Doors is distinct from their predecessors in that they have no given name, even though the Lords who came before them did. The previous Lord of Doors neglected to give them one, being an immensely logical and unemotional being who only fixated on what needed to be done. This played a large role in the Last Lord of Doors turning to evil.
• Not Hyperbole: Pothead. You may think at first glance that he's just got a pot stuck on his head. He then asks you not to judge him by the pot, but "by the deliciousness of the soup inside". He proceeds to verify that he's not kidding by taking the lid off and bowing, slopping some of the aforementioned soup out in the process.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Vaga is a weird hobo who's bumming around the Hall of Doors. His hobbies include chuckling at people, throwing seeds at the Security Chief, and wearing newspapers on his head. As the Crow explores more of the abandoned offices around the Reaping Commission, his comments become more and more pointed regarding the Commission's motives, culminating in finding a journal that ends with his trademark "Heh, heh, heh..." After you obtain the Hookshot, he pointedly suggests the Crow explore the Mountain, where they discover Vaga is the leader of the Free Crows, a group of Crows who have rebelled against the Reaping Commission.
• Oddly Small Organization: The Reaping Commission employs approximately six crows in total, despite apparently being responsible for reaping the souls of every living creature when their time to die comes. They don't even bother kicking out the highly-suspicious hobo who hangs around the place chuckling ominously at passers by. Furthermore, only two of the six crows in question are actively working as Reapers. It's made apparent that the organization used to be much larger, and that new souls to reap have trickled to a virtual halt in recent years. This turns out to be a plot point - most of the former Reapers have long-since deserted the Reaping Commission, and many more of them were abandoned and left to die years ago by the Last Lord of Doors.
• Of Corpse He's Alive: Jefferson is actually a giant, talking squid that's very obviously puppeteering the corpse of a long-drowned fisherman. He is very insistent that he's not, but it doesn't stop him from somehow preparing delicious squid soup for the Crow.
• Ominous Latin Chanting: Many of the songs have background vocals chanting eerily in some language that's pretty difficult to understand.
• Ominous Music Box Tune: The Witch of Urns' leitmotif incorporates one, adding to her sinister-yet-enchanting vibe.
• Outside-the-Box Tactic:
  • When the Witch of Urns is inside her urn and shooting sprays of purple fireballs, you can shoot a fire spell into the opening of the urn. This will set her hair on fire and prevent her from attacking until she puts it out.
  • The Frog King can be fed a bomb spell when he's sucking in the floor tiles in the second phase of the fight. This not only stops his attack but also stuns him for a short while.
• Parasol of Pain: There's an umbrella weapon hidden in the first location you enter. It's a Joke Weapon weaker than anything else you can get, but beating the whole game with it nets you an achievement.
• Post-End Game Content: The Lord of Doors drops a Rusty Key on death that you can go pick up later. Using it on the rusty gate grants you access to a bell tower that turns day to night, which lets you access things you need to get the Golden Ending.
• Post-Final Boss: Steadhone the Gravedigger can be fought if you take the locket from the grave of his dead dog Monty on top of Betty's lair and show it to him.
• Precision F-Strike: If you confront the Witch of Urns/Grandma for the fifth and final time while she is performing horrible experiments on her grandson Pothead, she will get ticked off before initiating the battle after a lengthy conversation.
  Grandma: You little shit!
• Recurring Boss: Avarice is "fought" four times. Each subsequent battle increases the enemy count and their lethality.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: The Forest Spirits look like anthropomorphic flower babies who open their petals when standing still. They often generate if you plant life seeds in their respective pots and then leave and return much later to the same pots you planted these life seeds in. These little critters can also follow you around, and will often shrink and curl in fear if you wield a weapon. In fact, gathering all ten of them to follow you around can give you the "Conga Line" achievement.
• Rolling Attack: One of Betty's attacks is to curl up into a ball and do a fast rolling tackle at the chosen Crow. The Lord of Doors also uses it too.
• Sad Battle Music: The battle music for the Grey Crow is a rather tragic piano theme, fitting for somebody who went tragically insane after the entire endeavor he dedicated his life to turned out to be All for Nothing.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Death takes one look at the newly-corrupted Grey Crow and instantly teleports away, leaving the Crow to face them alone.
• Sequential Boss: The Last Lord of Doors.
• Set a Mook to Kill a Mook: While the Rolling Masks are using their rolling attacks at you, you can goad them into rolling onto one of their allies and damaging them in the process. The Gas Bombers can also be goaded into bombing their own allies if you play your cards right.
• Shout-Out: The security raven met at the start of the game is called Baul Plart.
• Silent Snarker: The Crow never speaks a word. Their body language and the way they react to the many eccentric people they meet on their adventure still manage to give them a great deal of personality and dry wit.
• Soulslike RPG: Not necessarily a straight example, but some elements are definitely there.
• Stealth Sequel: After collecting all the Ancient Tablets, you can find a secret cutscene that shows how this game acts as a sequel to Titan Souls.
• Tagalong Chronicler: Barb the Bard is the non-action type. They first meet the Crow in the Overgrown Ruins. After being impressed enough by their exploits to come up with a song about them, they decide to follow them on their adventure in order to compose more songs about their feats.
• Thieving Magpie: The Crow has a habit of "collecting" random bits and baubles they happen across in their adventures. They keep their collection on their desk in the Hall of Doors. Some of these are unambiguously personal property of other characters... albeit other characters who are due to find themselves on the business end of the Crow's sword.
• Trophy Room: The various Shiny Objects you collect get placed on and around your desk and the desk in front of it. Unfortunately, the Lord of Doors trashes the place near the end of the main story, leaving the title screen the only place to see it after that.
• Try to Fit That on a Business Card: The Frog King's Boss Subtitles take up the entire screen, with the font getting smaller and smaller to fit them all in.
  King of the Swamp
  Guardian of the Flooded Fortress
  Lord of His Domain, Ruler of All He Surveys
  Champion of His People, Keeper of the Five Oaths
  First of His Name, Second of His Other Name, He Who Is Without Middle Initial or Mercy
  Destroyer of All Those Who Would Question His Rightful Rule or Look At Him Askance
  Eater of the Vanquished, Devourer of the Indolent, Guzzler of the Non-Committal
  Bestower of Wrathful Opprobrium and Fount of Most Wondrous Beneficence. All Glory to Him and His Mace!
  Holy Basher of Toads Not Frogs, But Really What Are Toads Anyway? Like Worse Frogs Right? Uglier Too.
  Smartest Creature in All the Land, Really Clever Like That Einstein Guy But More Handsome and- Okay Hit The Word Count
• Uriah Gambit: It is revealed that ever since the Last Lord of Doors locked up Death in its own door and made the world stagnant through other beings who followed suit, they've sent many crows of the Reaping Commission to reap errant souls in other islands where the battles would be fierce. Once the Last Lord heard reports that the crows they sent to fight were either killed or disappearing, they ordered the remaining members of the Reaping Commission to seal off all the remaining doors, unwittingly trapping their own comrades in foreign islands and leaving them to their fates. The Last Lord's reign of terror would continue for an unknown period of time... until one certain crow was chosen for the job of the Reaper to go out and find a certain soul to obtain, thus kick-starting the plot.
• Visual Pun: Steadhone the Gravedigger is wearing a tombstone on top of his head. A headstone, if you will.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Witch Of Urns insists that all of her experiments and actions are intended to make people immortal - even if they live forever with an urn for a head.
• Where It All Began: Once you finally catch up with the Lord of Doors, your final confrontation with them takes place in the Hall of Doors, where they absorb all of the souls kept in the Soul Vault and take you on man-to-crow.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: The Last Lord of Doors wanted to achieve immortality, so they imprisoned Death in its own door to obtain eternal life; this impacted many others, including the Grey Crow, the Witch of Urns, the Frog King, Betty, and Steadhone the Gravedigger (the latter being kind and benevolent in giving the dead their decent funerals). However, since these beings live in this way, they live on past their expiration dates that their souls and bodies become consumed by their own evil and corruption; and it is up to the Reaper to free their souls from their terrible fates.
• Wink "Ding!": After the Last Lord of Doors is defeated, Death itself takes their soul after Steadhone's eulogy, then winds up its sickle and gives out a wink "ding!" (for comedic effect) before batting the soul into the rift of what remains of Death's door, closing it up for good.
• Your Days Are Numbered:
  • Reapers working for the Commission are immortal as long as they are not actively pursuing an assignment. While they are on the job, they're mortal, and they can age and die... so when the Crow's target is stolen by somebody else, they have quite a conundrum on their feathers. Their primary motivation for much of the plot is getting it back. Going by what Death says at the end of the game, it's entirely possible that they never were immortal, and that the Reaping Commission was lying all along.
  • Every Lord of Doors is told the day they are created exactly how long they have to live, down to the day of their death. This motivates the last Lord of Doors to betray Death and abandon their duties in order to pursue immortality.