Salt and Sanctuary

I love kraeken

One of the earlier examples on how gaming turnt into mass production of mimicry.

于我而言虽不至回味无穷，但也相当舒畅。稳赚不赔的体验

melhor, metroid souls.

It’s abundantly clear playing Salt & Sanctuary that the developers took a good, hard look at Dark Souls then attempted to recreate it as faithfully as possible on a 2d-plane. And while they absolutely nailed the general aesthetic and level design, I was less impressed with the imprecise combat and finicky platforming sections. You’ll begin in true soulslike fashion by picking a starting class and item before being thrust into the thick of things with a nigh-unbeatable tutorial boss that wrecks both you and the ship you are on before you can even quaff a healing potion. You awake on a faraway misty shore; and are immediately pestered by an old man into choosing between one of three possible creeds. Now, this is where Salt & Sanctuary begins to differentiate itself from its role model, as instead of a single hub you will be creating dozens during your time spent on the island, claiming each empty sanctuary for your creed and populating them with a range of NPCs; from the traditional blacksmith and merchant, to an alchemist who can transmute boss souls into unique weapons or leaders who dole out short collect-a-thon side quests. The more you increase your devotion to a particular creed, the more rewards you can rack up, including extra potions or other consumables. You will also discover additional creeds while exploring, and although I was occasionally tempted by the gold-loving House of Splendor or the Game of Thrones-inspired Iron Ones, I ended up sticking with my starting creed that was the best fit for my cleric build. Additionally, each NPC adds a passive bonus to the region you are in, so a leader adds a 10% increase to attack for example, whereas the alchemist adds a general defence boost. These NPCs are added to your sanctuary by offering up an effigy found in various locations around the map, though they are plentiful enough that I could fill all my sanctuaries with people by the time I reached the end of the game. The character art is a bit bug-eyed and cartoonish, but the environments on the other hand are, for the most part, stunning. I’m not sure the game gives off a great first impression as the opening areas are rather dull and dark, but once the it opens up you are treated to a much wider colour palate, from the amethyst hues of Hager’s Cavern, to the greens of The Watching Woods or the ethereal blue of Siam Lake. This is also probably a good place to point out that Salt & Sanctuary is a massive game, with dozens of different locations to explore, and if you enjoy investigating every little nook and cranny, it’ll take you a good thirty hours to complete. Another positive point is how these environments fit together. I love the feeling in a souls game where you spend hours traversing a dungeon only to unlock a shortcut back to another area, or, even better, to a previously unreachable locked door or sanctuary. Developers Ska Studios have really nailed this aspect of the game, and even though in typical souslike fashion there is no map, you’ll soon get a rough idea as to how everything fits together. Levelling up is done through a final fantasy 10-style grid sphere, which was mostly fine, though it was occasionally annoying to be forced to unlock a point in a stat I wasn’t invested in just to be able to wield more weapons or wear better armour. Unfortunately, where Salt & Sanctuary falls shy of greatness is in the gameplay department. I traditionally gravitate towards heavier weapons, and none of them felt quite right here, with weird hit boxes that meant I sometimes damaged enemies without even touching them, and other times watched my little line of sprites go right through them without damaging them at all. Blocking is finicky too, and I ended up relying on the dodge roll to avoid most attacks, which is a shame. Item and spell selection is another frustrating hassle. All your spells, items, and healing flasks are mapped to a single bar of icons that you have to scroll through with the directional buttons. This is annoying during exploration, but especially egregious during boss fights where you have to take your eyes off the centre of the screen for a moment to scroll through sometimes up to seven or eight icons to get to the spell you want to use. As I reached the end of the game, I had five buffs and three different potions, and attempting to select them all during the more aggressive boss fights was insane. And speaking of insanity, the knockback from bosses and some of the larger enemies is crazy. You’ll be sent flying across the screen to land in an undignified heap far far away. This is fine during boss fights, but not fun when you are traversing poison-filled pits, spike traps, and insta-kill holes. To be clear, I was playing on the “Expanded” combat mode which was introduced in a later version of the game and is now selected by default, it’s possible the original, or “classic” combat was very different, although earlier reviews don’t lend much credence to that. Finally, in a metroidvania-style twist you’ll unlock some traversal upgrades along the way, and these are generally fun and easy to use, though I did find that much like in Blasphemous 2 they diminished the more gritty, realistic dark fantasy Ska Studios was attempting to create. Still, Salt & Sanctuary is, for the most part, Dark Souls on a 2d-plane, successfully transposing it’s dark setting and labyrinthian level design, but failing to capture its signature combat and gripping enemy encounters.

Jogaço da porra! Fiquei com essa merda na minha cabeça e tiltei muito com os bosses, mas valeu cada centavo! Nunca achei algo parecido! Só não gostei do sistema de multiplayer, porque limita muito o P2. E do That Stench Most Foul, boss filho da puta!

基本满意，很好玩，也很有趣。