Salt and Sanctuary Reviews

Yep. Another game I dumped a shit-ton of hours into on my PS4. Its a pain-in-the-ass but holy crap is it fun. The boss fights are fantastic and whooping that ass is so satisfying. Don't forget to kill the first boss on the boat. It's actually very simple to do. He's a big baby. Waaaahhhhh

TLDR: A co-op souls like metroidvania made by the underrated Ska Studios. I hope to see more games from them. Bosses will let some people down, but I was just fine with not having to smash my controller. The game keeps all the good bits of souls games and adds co-op, without invaders. Story: Shipwrecked and lost, your give yourself the mission of saving the princess, I think. The game being a love child from the souls genre, the story takes a back seat while you simply forge ahead, meeting the occasional oddball that says weird stuff. Gameplay: As mentioned before, this is truly a love child of the souls genre but done in a 2D style. So, yes, parries, rolls, blocking, stamina, limited heals, etc, it's all there, so I won't mention those further. Only difference on those basics is that whenever killed by an enemy, the enemy will retain your salt (XP); kill it to get it back (bosses included!) and If you fall to your death, a bat will spawn, kill it to get it back. There are 2 kinds of checkpoints: sanctuaries and little rooms where you can only light a candle, the latter's only purpose is to fill up your heals and revive you and your partner, should you die. You cannot level or summon NPCs there. Speaking of NPCs, whenever you are in a sanctuary, you can level, summon NPCs like a blacksmith, a guide (which allows you to TP between other sanctuaries you've unlocked already), merchants, etc. Half the fun is discovering what they do. Oh, and they are permanently attached to where you summoned them at. I should quickly mention that there are 2 kinds of currency in the game, your salt (XP), and gold. When dying, you will always lose 10% or so of your gold, but that is what is used to purchase items. I found this to be a nice feature as it detaches shopping from leveling. Spending you hard earned salt to level will grant you a black pearl, an item you can only use in your skill tree. There are also grey pearls to refund any misplaced points. The ''Tree of Skills'' is, uh, a skill tree that mainly spreads out in 5 branches which are awkwardly intertwined with class related gear and skills. It is initially a little off putting, but it works well as you can reinvest in the same nodes to further boost required stats, which I don't recommend doing early on as you should focus on unlocking higher tier of gear and heals. It's also note mentioning that not every node will boost a stat and that there are no nodes for HP, it increases as you level, on it's own. There are many tiers and types of weapons and spells, to be able to use them at all requires the node in the talent tree and the proper stats to use it to it's full potential. I think it's worth mentioning that it's not just light or heavy loads, there's more to it than that. Enemies are often just cannon fodder, they aren't very challenging and usually award the salt they should. Bosses are a mixed batch, where many From Software games excel at throwing memorable and stupidly OP bosses at you, this game tends to have overly easy bosses with obvious patterns. But that doesn't mean they're all push overs, it just means that they just aren't all memorable like, let's say, Melinia? Remember her? I do. The game is also co-op early on, though you will have to remain close to each other as the screen only stretches so far. And I believe it's only couch co-op, so remote play together would be in order. Exploration is heavily rewarded. Oh... and there's no map. My nitpicks would be that there's some really BS unicorns near late game and some questionable platforming, apart from those 2 sections, the game is solid. Graphics: Pretty bad, I think Charlie Murder looked better (It's a great beat 'em up game up to 4 players, check it out!)... so that's weird (Charlie Murder was released 3 years prior). But the majority of the game manages to remain true to itself all the way to the end, for better or for worse. I think it's mostly the colors that put me off, many areas seemed too bland, but maybe it was intentional, even so... Audio: A lot of reused assets from Charlie Murder but that's fine, it works well in this game. Funnily enough, guitar riffs fit the genre better than I thought!!! I bought this in a bundle, without even noticing, when I repurchased the ever underrated Charlie Murder gem of a game. I hope to see more from Ska Studios, I have a soft spot for them. Did I mention Charlie Murder yet? It's pretty good.

Outside of the bleak atmosphere and art style, this was just a game I could not connect with. The skill tree looks complex at first glance, but just ends up being three separate skills of stats/health/proficiency, so there is not much room for creative builds. The combat is slow with not many enjoyable enemies, and most of the permanent upgrades and platforming sections were dull. Movement feels rigid which does not help. My biggest issue is I just did not find it fun to explore. The areas have set darkened backdrops that makes it easy to get lost, so I often just ended up looking at a map online. The bosses were alright, but they mostly ended up being a weakness check. I was stuck on one boss as a caster, and swapped out to a lightning attack to realise it did a third of the boss’ health, to then kill it instantly. There is also a weakness mechanic to mana and health, where your max bar drops whenever either takes a heavy hit. Why does this exist? I assume its to try to make adventuring feel even more daunting, but instead it makes it feel more tedious. I really tried to like this game, but I just never got there. 5.5 / 10

Worth it's....salt :3 Worth full price, great game, good challenges, good design, cool mechanics. Pain. Suffering. Agony even. Good luck.

just amazing. a perfect mix of dark souls like combat, spectacular bosses and the right amount of metroid vania

Probably one of my favourite "souls-like" (I hate that term). The combat is enjoyable and has enough variety to warrant multiple playthroughs, even if it seems deceptively simple, there are enough hurdles to make you want to bash your head against a wall. There is so much detail and love put into the worldbuilding that I found myself just reading through the skilltrees flavour text, the multiple item descriptions or the INGAME BESTIARY. And to top it all off the artstyle still manages to keep me wary and cautious the mix of dark colours and gruesome designs makes this game (atleast for me) unsettling.

Greatsword go bonk. Great game, only complaint is that the levels very quickly become pointless once you've maxed your primary attack stat and have decent Willpower. I had ~20 unspent Black Pearls at the end of the game, and I was level 75, I didn't need anymore Willpower, and my Strength was 34, plenty to 2-hand a great sword and hit the soft cap. I could have gone for more healing potions, or for better armor, but I never really ran out of health potions, and didn't plan on getting hit. Don't worry about salt too much, the game is VERY generous with it, I occasionally lost it after a boss, but it didn't matter. I apparently did a lot of things out of order, and pretty much always felt overpowered. Feels like a 2D Dark Souls 1, down to Poise and Poise Breaks being OP. Very fun. Pull a Gwyn and stagger the final boss to death, it's fun!

This is the first game that I've ever 100% with achievements. I cannot stress it enough, the game is amazing! First two playthroughts were with my colleagues, and they felt amazing! It is a bit hard to understand how you can get better weapons (which is something the sequel is a little better/easier to manage), however the game itself is amazing. The visuals are great, the gameplay loop is engaging, and the boss design is perfect. If you enjoy souls-like, and like 2D, the game is amazing. I've spend too much time playing it, and it's even better if you have a companion to enjoy it with (play cleric, especially if your other colleague is new to souls-like) The companions are great, the sanctuaries are completely different and really enojable, I've definitely spend too much time grinding, testing different playstyles, and having a lot of fun, do yourself a favor and just play it <3

first game with 100% achievement. love the art, love the gameplay. it took me a while to fully optimize game experience, since you had to experiment with game items (2/3 game progress til i found how helpful stone leader and their perks).

100% the game a few years back, still one of my favorites. Combat feels nice, bosses are cool, style kicks ass. Pretty good replayability, the tree of skill is cool, even if a little annoying. It's not too long a game, roughly 20 hours a first playthrough, and probably more than half that on subsequent runs, assuming you don't run around like a tard. Don't think the game is too hard. parrying feels rather forgiving, and after you understand the bosses they aren't really any kind of hassle. I could just also be really good at video games though. Pretty well paced as well I think, generally think metroidvanias are a slog. The map I really like. Like Dark Souls it's very interconnected, although it's not too useful since fast travel is pretty readily available from the start. It's still cool to explore and open up shortcuts to areas you've already been to, makes sense lore wise as well. [spoiler]I think amalgamations of things are really fucking cool.[/spoiler]