I dislike the term “Souls-like.” Not only does it force me to say “Souls” a lot in this review, but nobody seems to agree on what it constitutes. The roguelite Dead Cells, for example, is also considered a Souls-like…for some reason. Maybe it’s the high difficulty? The limited healing? Or perhaps the exploration? As much as I love the game, calling it a Souls-like seems like a marketing ploy by the devs. The Souls games have more than just those elements, such as high-commitment attacks, obscure side quests, an oppressive atmosphere, and more.

It seems as long as you have at least a few of the features that the Souls games popularized, your game is a Souls-like. But you know a series that has a lot in common with Souls that isn’t considered a Souls-like? Castlevania. The old-school games were brutally tough platformers that featured high-commitment attacks, oppressive atmospheres, and scarce healing opportunities. Symphony of the Night and its handheld successors added exploration, side quests, and RPG elements to the series, but they also ditched the methodical action and considerably lowered the difficulty. The higher challenge, whip-based combat, and tense platforming in Circle of the Moon on GBA was the only time Konami bridged the gap between the old and new Castlevanias. It was very flawed, but there was also nothing quite like it, until the arrival of the Souls games and the main subject of this review: Salt and Sanctuary.

I don’t just want to make another review reinforcing how similar Salt and Sanctuary is to Dark Souls. Sure, there’s a lot of valid comparisons to be made and I will bring them up later, but I want to bring light to why this game also feels like a true successor to old-school Castlevania. Most comparisons between Souls and Castlevania that I’ve seen reference Symphony of the Night, but the only features Souls borrowed from that game were the exploration, RPG elements, and variety of weapons. These features aren’t unique to Symphony, and they weren’t unique when it was first released. But that slow, deliberate combat from its platformer predecessors? That was special and it’s what Souls and every true Souls-like features in my opinion. Salt and Sanctuary is part of that group. It is as much a spiritual successor to Castlevania as it is a Souls-like.

Now for the game itself. It borrows from its inspiration very well. Every feature I explicitly mentioned in the first paragraph is present, so I won’t repeat them here. One of its new ideas are stone statues used to summon specific vendors at sanctuaries, which act like the bonfires in Dark Souls. These statues are fairly scarce, encouraging thoughtful decision-making as to what vendor you need at the moment. Should I summon a blacksmith to upgrade my gear? Maybe an alchemist to change my current weapon? Or maybe a sellsword to summon another player? There are eight types of statues that can be used and no more than four are allowed per sanctuary. However, once I realized I could group multiple vendors with the fast travel guides, the stressful decision-making was completely destroyed. They can warp you to any sanctuary you’ve visited. As a result, I was warping back to a select few sanctuaries over and over again to stock up on items or upgrade my equipment. No need to use any statues other than the ones for summoning guides. Or I could just use a calling horn to warp to any sanctuary where a guide was installed. The guides even sell these horns for dirt cheap, so why not buy as many as you can to fast travel at your convenience? I’m grateful I didn’t realize the sheer brokenness of calling horns until after I finished the game.

My suggestions for fixing this are simple. Limit fast travel to the sanctuaries where I placed guides and remove calling horns. I would then have to decide if installing a guide at my current sanctuary was worth it. By extension, I would be encouraged to use the other statues more often. I don’t think backtracking would have been negatively impacted all that much with these changes. The world is full of shortcuts back to previous levels and even if the backtracking was tedious, the level design pushes the player to explore areas in a mostly linear order. That is probably the reason there is no map, but I still think there should have been one because it’s much harder to remember the layout of a rectangular 2D world as opposed to a uniquely shaped 3D world like Lordran.

I wasn’t impressed with the covenant system. I chose to stick with my starting creed the whole playthrough because I correctly assumed breaking it would result in undesirable consequences. On a gameplay level, my choice didn’t affect me beyond a handful of sanctuaries preventing me from using elemental buffs for my weapon. I used those a lot, but if the intention was to challenge players that stick to one creed, Ska Studios needed to include more sanctuaries aligned with different creeds. Players would then have to make a choice. Either they stick to their creed and miss out on certain items or they change their creed to get those items, but face repercussions from their previous creed.

The missed potential is depressing because the statues and covenant system could have made Salt and Sanctuary rise above being a Souls and Castlevania (Soulsvania?) clone. It’s an extremely competent clone for something made primarily by one person, but it is a clone at the end of the day. I still had fun playing it and can easily recommend it to fans of its inspiration. Just don’t expect it to deliver an experience like those classics.

As an art piece, this game is amazing. It's grungy style feels reminiscent of Gorillaz's music videos and early new grounds art. The atmosphere in this game is really good and as the game progresses it only gets better. However where the world design evolves throughout the game, the bosses become a mixed bag as it go on. There's bosses that require a mastery of dodging and stamina management while others are a straight up punching bag. But they are carried by the amazing map structure of this game, which I feel surpasses the souls-like moniker and moves more toward Castlevania's design. I can't wait to have someone to play this with! One of the best games to come out of this souls-like trend.

Not that mechanically polished. Story is vague. Progression busted. Spikes in difficulty.

BUT IT'S A SPLIT SCREEN SOULS LIKE (and maybe one of the very first??)
Playing this with the right person makes the flaws easy to gloss over.

Salt and Sanctuary has probably been one of the most... average experiences I've ever had playing a game. It does translate the soulslike formula into 2D (even things that don't even make sense to do so) but that's all I can say about it. The worldbuilding was average, the combat is average, everything is average.

Why no 2.5/5, then? Well, it did keep me playing until the end (even though I almost dropped it more than once) and that's important, I'll give it credit for that.

The one thing I can really complain about is the huge difficulty gap between the end game bosses and the final boss itself, plus the fact that there's a freaking long way from the final save point and the final boss fight. It's almost designed to be annoying. You know, I enjoy hard fights, but at least let me retry quickly. That was by far the most wacky and irritating part of this game.

My favorite non-fromsoft soulslike (at least for now). It's literally 2D Dark Souls. I loved it.
My only "problem" is the same i had with DS3. It's too dark for my taste. Ironic, i know. What i mean is that the stages are all gray, brown, and other... boring colors, you never get a break from it. It's boring.

Demon Souls (ps3) pulls it off perfectly because it's short as fuck (and its atmosphere is fucking godlike), longer games like DS3 o S&S become tiring. DS1/2 are surprisingly colorful but this game was like "dark tone means gray".

But whatever, just a nitpick anyways.

Fun soulslike experience. I found its aesthetic too derivative, although I enjoyed most its unique mechanics like the sanctuary summons system. Some of the bosses are straight up unfair and unbalanced like the Witch of the Lake and bogs the experience down and makes me angry, not in the "I'm bad at this!" kind of way but the "I should've totally won, why did I lose???" way. I still enjoyed my time and I liked all the upgrades and stuff that lean on the metroidvania side. Would recommend if you're a huge soulsborne fan although if you're anything else you won't get as much out of it. I'd say just play From Software's games instead. Would like to give their other game, Charlie Murder, another whirl though.

Ok, so after beating this game I had to write a review about it.Honestly, one of the most fun and best games I've ever playedIt's a Soul Like/Platformer game and it does its job good the art style of this game is very climatic when I played this game I get a Lovecraftian vibe from the art style and bosses the animations are also excellent and fluent as for platforming it can get really
Frustrating, but you can get used to it also the game isn't really that hard to be honest
I mean at the beginning, it can be tough, but as you progress in the game, stuff gets easier I wish only the last boss was harder the soundtrack of this game is also climatic which is why I really like this game it nails everything that it does 5/5 best game I received as a gift