Comparisons to dark souls are probably one of the biggest cliches of game reviews, to the point that they've become a joke. They're often misused and add nothing to the conversation. With Salt and Sanctuary however it feels like this comparison cannot be avoided, because it adapts near every mechanical aspect of dark souls and carries it over into 2D. It's all there, from the basics to the more niche things, spare save points which restore healing and losing xp on death, the slow stamina based combat, stat leveling, resistances, a bunch of possible builds, from dex and strength to magic and wisdom, a bunch of these in isolation arent really the most telling but when so many of them are in one place, it becomes hard to see it any other way. Especially when the world of the game is in the same dark fantasy grim medieval atmosphere vein with npc's scattered around the world, the lore being told obtusely through item descriptions and there's even a covenant system. And even further on top of that there are light online mechanics with bloodstains and messages. If you name a mechanic from dark souls, there is a high chance that there is a similar one here.
I'm saying all that to illustrate that i think the comparison is inescapable because it feels like this game was made with the "dark souls in 2d" aim from the get go. And since it feels so central to the making of this game, it will also be pretty central in this review. I enjoy the souls games I've played quite a bit, so there's definitely worse games this could be biting from, the question is, how well does it make that transition?
It is a mixed bag, but as you can tell from my rating, a lot of it isn't all that succesful. There are a few mechanics that, whether by coincidence or not, are the same in souls yet work much less well here. For starters, the combat is very much in that same vein of rolling to dodge with iframes, having to time your attacks well etc. The game however rarely shakes it up with any of the strengths a platformer could have and instead sticks to the ground for the majority of the bosses, leading to your only responses to attacks being roll through them, away from them, or occasionally jump over them and the positioning on a straight line is much less interesting than on a flat plane. Most fights early game are very stale because of this since despite some different designs they feel very samey. The game sometimes attempts to shake this formula up but this more often than not backfires, with some pretty bad bosses(the tree of men and the mad alchemist as examples). In general the combat leaves a fair bit to be desired. First off there's the aformentioned movement limitation, which already makes it less dynamic, but there's also the fact that enemies have an annoying tendency to instantly turn around AND sometimes start up an attack without any delay upon turning around. This leads to another point, that being that enemy tells often just don't convey the weight of the attack and sometimes come too quick for the speed the game operates at. S&S really made me appreciate the animation work that has to go into a game like this since here it is sorely lacking with many enemies. It doesnt help that there's plenty of grab attacks with little tells that can also be chained together, leading to further frustration. There isn't a map, which makes navigating some of the areas and backtracking a confusing chore, and especially hurts it as a metroidvania making it much harder to keep track of every place you cannot progress through yet. This isn't so bad at the beginning but worsens as the game goes on and discouraged me from trying to explore more thoroughly since i'd usually end up just going back to places i already was and risked getting lost with all the salt i had accumulated. Not having any landmarks to recognize and orientate yourself from a distance or even really an objective makes the lack of a map really felt later in the game. Speaking of it being a metroidvania, it isn't really a good one either. 4/5 of the abilities you unlock serve pretty much only as glorified keys to get past their respective "doors" and are scarcely used as anything else. The wall jump sucks and as far as I'm aware can't even be used to scale down walls and only the air dash which you get as your very last upgrade serves a purpose beyond just gating progression. The game tries to include some sections focusing on platforming, and to be completely frank, it is not a good platformer. Ledge grabs and wall jumps can feel janky, the character movement isn't anything worth writing home about and worst of all, fall damage can be lethal and it's hard to tell what's death pit and what isn't, and many of the levels have vertical designs which often have plenty of those. This is another aspect it shares with souls that i think is a pretty frustrating inclusion in this context.
Now I'll admit, many of those are nitpicks that by themselves wouldn't amount to much. I'll also admit that it's not like dark souls is without its shortcomings, cheap moments and annoying sections and design decisions. The issue i have here is that many of these small things pile up and make the game more and more frustrating as it goes on and there's not really any saving grace that could make me tolerate these moments. I struggle to name an enemy or boss i found enjoyable to fight, the best i get to is an "it was alright". There's also the additional feeling that what I'm playing is pretty much an inferior version of something i enjoy more. I could maybe overlook these issues if the game was doing something of its own, or if at least it had some strengths that overshadow it, so does Salt & Sanctuary have anything that could serve that purpose?
Well, one of the strengths of it is the game's world. Despite my complaints about the lack of a map, which do still mostly apply, the world has a ton of interconnectivity, shortcuts and links back to previous areas, which are often unexpected and pleasantly surprising, partially thanks to how lost the game can make you feel so finding familiar ground can be quite relieving. This is the only aspect where the lack of a map almost works to its advantage but it isnt really worth all the issues it causes. The game could've had a chance to set itself apart with its world, aesthetic, areas and lore and while it sometimes tries to do something unique, there is one moment which completely broke my suspension of disbelief.
Late in the game there is an area called Siam Lake, and it is pretty much an exact copy of Ash Lake from DS1. This moment completely baffled me, since despite the game already biting from Dark Souls so hard, I wasn't expecting it to straight up copy an existing area. This is the moment that made me mentally check out from the game since while i was willing to give the game some credit before, it felt like it had stepped over a line here and in the process completely gave up its own identity. Not only was it taking most of the mechanical base from souls, it was now directly taking its aesthetic too. At that point, what does the game have to set itself apart at all and not just permanently exist in the shadow of its inspiration? Worse still, it planted an idea in my head that if the game was willing to go so far as to copy an entire area, what else could it have copied that i didn't know about? What if something else that i thought was cool was just ripped from a different game that i haven't played? It is a pretty insidious thought but if the game did it once i wouldnt even be surprised if it repeated that.
As a side tangent that i couldn't cleanly fit elsewhere, while the aesthetic is something a bit different, i think the game kind of drops the ball on music and visual variety. While there's different areas and some are neat, it feels like there's too many dull shades of gray, brown and green that make it tiring after a while and there's only 2 different boss themes and 3 background tracks that play at random in the world. Both of those arent bad on their own but they get old when repeated so much, especially some of the background ones. This all just further added onto my fatigue with the game's mechanics.
So all in all, my experience with Salt & Sanctuary has been mostly negative. I find playing it a slog, its influences are so obvious that they're impossible to ignore, yet it is completely overshadowed by them in near every aspect and ends up with almost no identity of its own. There are some moments and ideas that show some spark of potential and a few things that are carried over from its influences still remain engaging but when they're put in a game i find as miserable to play as this, i find them to have little value.
I'm saying all that to illustrate that i think the comparison is inescapable because it feels like this game was made with the "dark souls in 2d" aim from the get go. And since it feels so central to the making of this game, it will also be pretty central in this review. I enjoy the souls games I've played quite a bit, so there's definitely worse games this could be biting from, the question is, how well does it make that transition?
It is a mixed bag, but as you can tell from my rating, a lot of it isn't all that succesful. There are a few mechanics that, whether by coincidence or not, are the same in souls yet work much less well here. For starters, the combat is very much in that same vein of rolling to dodge with iframes, having to time your attacks well etc. The game however rarely shakes it up with any of the strengths a platformer could have and instead sticks to the ground for the majority of the bosses, leading to your only responses to attacks being roll through them, away from them, or occasionally jump over them and the positioning on a straight line is much less interesting than on a flat plane. Most fights early game are very stale because of this since despite some different designs they feel very samey. The game sometimes attempts to shake this formula up but this more often than not backfires, with some pretty bad bosses(the tree of men and the mad alchemist as examples). In general the combat leaves a fair bit to be desired. First off there's the aformentioned movement limitation, which already makes it less dynamic, but there's also the fact that enemies have an annoying tendency to instantly turn around AND sometimes start up an attack without any delay upon turning around. This leads to another point, that being that enemy tells often just don't convey the weight of the attack and sometimes come too quick for the speed the game operates at. S&S really made me appreciate the animation work that has to go into a game like this since here it is sorely lacking with many enemies. It doesnt help that there's plenty of grab attacks with little tells that can also be chained together, leading to further frustration. There isn't a map, which makes navigating some of the areas and backtracking a confusing chore, and especially hurts it as a metroidvania making it much harder to keep track of every place you cannot progress through yet. This isn't so bad at the beginning but worsens as the game goes on and discouraged me from trying to explore more thoroughly since i'd usually end up just going back to places i already was and risked getting lost with all the salt i had accumulated. Not having any landmarks to recognize and orientate yourself from a distance or even really an objective makes the lack of a map really felt later in the game. Speaking of it being a metroidvania, it isn't really a good one either. 4/5 of the abilities you unlock serve pretty much only as glorified keys to get past their respective "doors" and are scarcely used as anything else. The wall jump sucks and as far as I'm aware can't even be used to scale down walls and only the air dash which you get as your very last upgrade serves a purpose beyond just gating progression. The game tries to include some sections focusing on platforming, and to be completely frank, it is not a good platformer. Ledge grabs and wall jumps can feel janky, the character movement isn't anything worth writing home about and worst of all, fall damage can be lethal and it's hard to tell what's death pit and what isn't, and many of the levels have vertical designs which often have plenty of those. This is another aspect it shares with souls that i think is a pretty frustrating inclusion in this context.
Now I'll admit, many of those are nitpicks that by themselves wouldn't amount to much. I'll also admit that it's not like dark souls is without its shortcomings, cheap moments and annoying sections and design decisions. The issue i have here is that many of these small things pile up and make the game more and more frustrating as it goes on and there's not really any saving grace that could make me tolerate these moments. I struggle to name an enemy or boss i found enjoyable to fight, the best i get to is an "it was alright". There's also the additional feeling that what I'm playing is pretty much an inferior version of something i enjoy more. I could maybe overlook these issues if the game was doing something of its own, or if at least it had some strengths that overshadow it, so does Salt & Sanctuary have anything that could serve that purpose?
Well, one of the strengths of it is the game's world. Despite my complaints about the lack of a map, which do still mostly apply, the world has a ton of interconnectivity, shortcuts and links back to previous areas, which are often unexpected and pleasantly surprising, partially thanks to how lost the game can make you feel so finding familiar ground can be quite relieving. This is the only aspect where the lack of a map almost works to its advantage but it isnt really worth all the issues it causes. The game could've had a chance to set itself apart with its world, aesthetic, areas and lore and while it sometimes tries to do something unique, there is one moment which completely broke my suspension of disbelief.
Late in the game there is an area called Siam Lake, and it is pretty much an exact copy of Ash Lake from DS1. This moment completely baffled me, since despite the game already biting from Dark Souls so hard, I wasn't expecting it to straight up copy an existing area. This is the moment that made me mentally check out from the game since while i was willing to give the game some credit before, it felt like it had stepped over a line here and in the process completely gave up its own identity. Not only was it taking most of the mechanical base from souls, it was now directly taking its aesthetic too. At that point, what does the game have to set itself apart at all and not just permanently exist in the shadow of its inspiration? Worse still, it planted an idea in my head that if the game was willing to go so far as to copy an entire area, what else could it have copied that i didn't know about? What if something else that i thought was cool was just ripped from a different game that i haven't played? It is a pretty insidious thought but if the game did it once i wouldnt even be surprised if it repeated that.
As a side tangent that i couldn't cleanly fit elsewhere, while the aesthetic is something a bit different, i think the game kind of drops the ball on music and visual variety. While there's different areas and some are neat, it feels like there's too many dull shades of gray, brown and green that make it tiring after a while and there's only 2 different boss themes and 3 background tracks that play at random in the world. Both of those arent bad on their own but they get old when repeated so much, especially some of the background ones. This all just further added onto my fatigue with the game's mechanics.
So all in all, my experience with Salt & Sanctuary has been mostly negative. I find playing it a slog, its influences are so obvious that they're impossible to ignore, yet it is completely overshadowed by them in near every aspect and ends up with almost no identity of its own. There are some moments and ideas that show some spark of potential and a few things that are carried over from its influences still remain engaging but when they're put in a game i find as miserable to play as this, i find them to have little value.