Death Mark presents a very neat premise: people being marked to death by spirits that you need to appease or destroy to procceed the plot. Great start for a horror story that sadly stumbles on its execution.

Death Mark's story follows an amnesiac helping people get rid of their death sentence while also trying to unveil the mystery behind his own.
The mystery is actually pretty engaging, with the ghost backstories being quite neat sometimes. I just wish some characters were used more or had more content to their stories.

Gameplay (yes, gameplay) is actually pretty similar to Ace Attorney, where instead of clicking everywhere you'll point your flashlight everywhere until you find something shiny.
Puzzles are bland. All of them are pretty straightforward, just requiring you to use an item. Nothing too bad, just wish combining items was a mechanic used in stuff other than the last stand.
Other stuff similar to puzzles are the "LIVE OR DIE" segments and the partner mechanic. "LIVE OR DIE" is just a multiple choice that's really hit or miss, with some of them being tied to japanese history or culture so I kinda just took shots in the dark until I got it right. Sometimes the right answer would be either very obvious, or something completely out of nowhere, that made them feel really annoying.
The partner mechanic also bothered me. Each time you go to the ghost site, you can bring one person with you. Only some characters can perform specific actions, so bringing the wrong one can make you fail a puzzle. This wouldn't be as annoying if switching didn't require you to go back to the mansion and return to the ghost site, and if I didn't have the hope that characters would actually spout interesting dialogue if I brought them with me (which never happened).

Exploring the haunted areas is the scariest part of the game. Shining the flashlight around the room and being scared of something showing up is great but it's mostly unused. There are barely any details or events that happen when you shine the flashlight on something specific, which makes the feeling of danger wear out very quickly. I just wish the maps had more scary details to uncover or ghost appearances happened more (that weren't dumb jumpscares, which there are some).

Then there's the "Last Stand" segment and oh my god this absolutely didn't need to be in the game. This is where you face off against the ghost, which would be cool if it wasn't so frustrating. A big detriment to this segment is also that you're face-to-face with the ghost, which ruins every little bit of tension since you're seeing the monster you've been avoiding and all of them look really stupid (seriously, the difference between the CGs and their last stand form is hilarious).
Also, depending on how you resolve the Last Stand, you can get either a normal ending or a good ending. At first, I thought this would encourage replayability, giving you another chance to explore the level with another partner, until I understood that all you get if you get all the good endings is a flat "where are they now" prologue.

Also, the completely unnecessary CGs that are just "girl/woman in her underwear/naked about to die" was so fucking stupid it took me out of the experience every single time (it happens multiple times!).

Overall, it's a mid, short play if you're interested enough. It's also accompanied by a great soundtrack and great illustrations. Stumbles a lot and, personally, isn't all that scary, but it was a fine horror experience.


Edit: finished the DLC. It was ok, even if its existence ignores a very evident plothole and it drags a little.