Salt and Sanctuary is a beloved game, and rightfully so. It has everything a souls-like should have, tight combat mechanics, challenging bosses with varied move-sets and phases, interesting lore and a large map with various different areas, each having their own unique style and visual differences. Not to mention the sheer amount of content that the game offers you. Especially considering the fact that the game was developed by 2 individuals, which in itself is commendable. To come up with an entire souls-like must've been a daunting task indeed.

But honestly the game doesn't come without it's shortcomings and since I've already got a lot of the positives out of the way, I want to focus on the more negative aspects here. First off, the balancing of some bosses is off, like way off. For example, the boss Witch of the Lake has a very interesting move-set, which is heavily based on the use of arcane magic and she can just... one shot you, a lot, in fact it happens even when you have an armor set equipped that has high arcane resistance. We can also take a look at bosses like The Nameless God and The Bloodless Prince, one of which has moves that just happen in an instant, with no telegraphing on the moves or anything, while the other one has a move that you practically cannot dodge, at all (thankfully it doesn't do as much damage as WotL's arcane machine guns but still). Then you have bosses like Tree of Men which just feels inspired by The Bed of Chaos from Dark Souls 1. I feel like the bosses could've used a bit more polishing because there are some excellent bosses within it which I really liked. Such as the first boss of the entire game, The Sodden Knight, the telegraphing on his attacks, the varied move-set, and how he has subtle phases to him, which I found absolutely amazing and he's not the only one, but the point I'm trying to make, is that such wonky design issues on bosses could've been polished a little more.

The OSTs in this game are a mixed bag for me as well, there are some very atmospheric tracks present in it but for a game that's this massive, I feel like there was a severe lack of soundtracks for different areas and bosses in general. Moving onto mechanics, I would like to focus on just one since a lot of the other mechanics are fairly polished and balanced, but the ledge climbing mechanic is kind of messed up and it feels as if it's dictated by RnG as to when it does want to snap your character to the ledges and when it doesn't. I'm sure that isn't the case, but that's what it felt like. A lot of the platforming (there's a lot of platforming in this game) is dictated by that mechanic and when it doesn't work, it can make the game-play feel incredibly frustrating.

Those are all the issues I had with the game, and genuinely, I still really enjoyed it. For all it's shortcomings, the game has a lot more to offer and you can just see how passionate the developers are for this genre. They've really went all out with this title, there's a LOT to like here and you're getting a bang for your buck. All my criticisms are the things that I personally found annoying and frustrating and I feel like they should be pointed out. Anyways, definitely recommended if you're into the souls games or the souls-like genre, or if you just like passionate projects like this. It's not perfect, but it's worth it.