Salt & Sanctuary

💠 2021 January 11th

I knew about this game for a long time, but I wasn't sure I wanted to play it because of its "Soul's like" label. I love the Dark Souls franchise, but the over-use of its name to qualify pretty much anything with a steep learning curve repelled me.

In the end I decided to give it a try.

It's a polished metroidvania with tons of references/easter eggs to Dark Souls. It means that gameplay wise, it's closer to Hollow Knight or Castlevania due to its 2D nature, but it has a "Soul's like" touch in the way the lore is told through objects, the way NPC encounters work, as well as some obvious allusions here and there. It's not too much though, and it's perfectly possible to enjoy the game in itself without understanding any of the references. It looks way more like a nicely made fan tribute than a horrible copy.

There are some good choices in the way skills work. They are arranged as a tree, letting the player who wants the perfect character plan their whole build from the beginning. That also prevents having completely unbalanced characters. It's very close to the systems Path of Exile or Final Fantasy X made.

In terms of gameplay, the beginning is a bit punishing and the character feels very heavy at first. It gets a lot better after a few levels. As the game goes on, the choice of armor makes a huge difference on the jumps, which is a nice addition since the character class can really be felt outside combat phases.

I wasn't fond of the graphics at first, but contrasts gets better after the first screens. As for the music, there are very few tracks, but they suit the mood of the game. Sound effects are ok, nothing annoying or too loud.

In the end, when I got used to the game I had a very smooth experience, and I enjoyed it way more than I had expected. I reached an ending after roughly 30 hours at a slow pace, taking my time to explore and leaving almost no bits of the map behind. I think it has some replayability, since going through the levels as a mage or a heavy armored warrior probably lead to a very different experience.

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