Salt and Sanctuary Review (TE)
Salt and Sanctuary
This is a 2D soulslike metroidvania developed by a small indie studio. And we know that there are not so many good 2D soulslike games, and at least this game can be put into the group of not bad ones.
Storyline
The adventure begins when the protagonist finds himself aboard a ship carrying a princess of an unknown kingdom. She must marry the monarch of a rival state in order to prevent an impending war. As fate would have it, the ship is ambushed by a gang of raiders, who ruthlessly massacre the crew. In the next instant, the protagonist is confronted by a colossal sea creature known as the Kraekan. Regardless of the outcome of the fight against these enemies and the mighty Kraekan, a tragic end awaits the ship, and the protagonist ends up on a mysterious island.
You can forget about the princess, you will never find her, only her clothes. The island, "filled" with different worlds/ages, has mysteriously entrapped a lot of creatures and places. And now it's up to you alone to find out why and who did it. You will explore different locations, you will meet many enemies and friendly creatures, sometimes they have their own story to tell or some goals they want to achieve with or without your help.
Good sides
The gameplay is superb. Firstly, it's a souls-like game, and it keeps the quality, the fights feel good, you have all the mechanics from souls (parry, dodge, block, spells, checkpoints, blood stains, etc.) and they are done perfectly. All the effects, impacts are very nice, the character moves the way you want it to without any problems. Also, it's a 2D platformer, and all the necessary mechanics are done well. The character can save your ass by climbing onto a platform if you miss, but close enough. As already mentioned, the movement is excellent, moving in all directions is comfortable. For 2D this is one of the important aspects, and here it is done perfectly.
Another plus is the amount of everything. During the game you will encounter a lot of things: spells, enemies, locations, weapons, armor, bosses, consumables. There is plenty of content in the game.
Bad sides
It's cool in the beginning, it gives some pleasure when you start your journey. The first locations are made in the style of the opening locations of the first dark souls, it's very attractive: forgotten buildings, blood-soaked dungeons, etc. But the more you play, the more you notice that the game is very repetitive.
All enemies/bosses always have 3–4 attacks, and sometimes that's okay for a regular enemy, but when you encounter a boss that has a lot of health and does the same moves throughout the fight, it gets boring. And as time goes by, the bosses start to meet more and more often. In the last locations the bosses meet every 10–15 minutes, because of this the feeling of fighting something great is lost. The atmosphere of the first locations is also lost the more you play. The locations become more and more the same, only with different textures and enemies, but the core of the locations is always the same, without any new "challenges" to beat (with some exceptions).
New enemies and bosses have different animations and appearance, but they behave the same. For example, similar boss attacks: when the boss simply rams the entire arena (running left or right, dealing damage on impact) or when he throws homing projectiles at you, sets fire to some part of the arena, etc.
The game becomes very repetitive and boring, and eventually you want to finish it as fast as possible.
Conclusion
Eventually, it's a good game, and someone will like it. Especially those who like soulslike, metroidvania and platformers. The game has a good setting and nice quality of mechanics, but the quality of enemies and locations (not the visual part) is not so good, quality > quantity. I enjoyed the beginning part of the game, and the others are just really boring to me.
Score: Unique C