Salt and Sanctuary Review: This Ain’t Dark Souls

Salt and Sanctuary

Developed by: Ska Studios

Published by: Ska Studios

Available for:  PS4

With the rising popularity of the  Demon’s/Dark Souls/Bloodborne games, it was only a matter of time before other developers began aping the formula. While we already have Lords of the Fallen on the AAA fr, Ska Studios’s Salt and Sanctuary is the first 2D side scroller foray into what is now a genre. However, unlike Lords of the Fallen which, for better or worse, tried to forge its own path with some of its own ideas, Salt and Sanctuary makes very few attempts set itself apart. Unfortunately, it misses the most important thing that makes the Souls games special to me and that’s the gameplay.

Anyone familiar with Dark Souls will immediate recognize the surrogates on display in Salt and Sanctuary. Instead of souls, the player collects salt; in lieu of bonfires we get sanctuaries. There are elemental buffs for your weapons, flasks that refill your health, even the health and stamina bars look nearly identical. There is a light and strong attack, parrying and riposting, the whole nine. Your equipment weight affects your movement, the armor you were has specific stats regarding resistance, shortcuts opened with switches, etc. At first it was all pretty neat and fun to point out the similarities of which they are legion.

That’s not to say the game is devoid of new and interesting ideas, however. There are totems you can offer at the sanctuary to bring NPCs into the safe zone such as vendors, blacksmiths, guides (that allow you to fast travel to activated sanctuaries to name a few. Also, Salt and Sanctuary has an absurdly deep skill tree that can be added to every time you level up. To which, leveling up is handled very differently from Dark Souls. Instead of adding points into specific stats which then raises your level, you simply raise your level which gives you a black pearl which can then be added to a specific stat on the skill tree. Looking at the Skill tree, it’s virtually impossible to fill it out in one playthrough, so New Game + is necessary if you want to see the higher, deeper tiers. Dying will remove your accumulated salt, and you’ll have to kill the enemy that felled you to regain them, while falling to your death will spawn a monster in the world at the location of your death that you’ll have to kill to regain them.

Visually, the game has a simple, hand-drawn art style not unlike Ska’s previous games The Dishwasher and Charlie Murder. In stills it’s quite striking, but in movement it’s stiffly animated and now very appealing.

Movement is fairly standard for a side scroller which includes one button jumping and climbing, which is also not something that isn’t featured in Dark Souls which requires you to run first and then release and tap the run button to leap across gaps. Here it’s standard platforming. The map layout is very much like Metroid with deep vertical and horizontal branches so reaching new areas will require walking either left or right, jumping, climbing ladders, or dropping to paths below.

Combat is the activity you’ll be engaging in the most and here is where the game became the antithesis of fun. What I truly love about the Souls games is that the combat is fluid, mechanically sound, and requires timing, skill and paying attention to the enemy movements and attacks and wait for your opening. While this is partially true in Salt and Sanctuary, it’s not nearly as fluid, often clunky and unlike the Souls games death can often be not your fault and cheap. The reason for this is that boss attacks can still hurt you while you’re downed and the attacks extend beyond your roll which means rolling isn’t as viable as it should be. In Dark Souls getting knocked down by an attack, you rarely take damage while down (unless it’s part of the enemy’s attack animation) or while you are getting up. In Salt and Sanctuary you will and often. Countless times I was knocked down and because it’s a sidescroller, the only path enemies can attack are right and left which is where your vulnerable body will be.

Also, in Dark Souls you have invincibility frames that are there to exploit and allow the player to get out of harm’s way, provided the timing is right. Many bosses )and even some larger in world enemies) in Salt and Sanctuary have attacks that extend well past the area you will roll which means you’ll take more damage. This makes combat more frustrating that rewarding and that’s not something I enjoy. So much so that I often wouldn’t bother returning to where I died to retrieve my salt. That’s not a good thing. Sure, some will try and say that it’s part of the challenge and the appeal of the Souls games, and that’s true, but the controls in the Souls games are much tighter across the board.

I generally don’t like to compare games that aren’t part of the same franchise, but when a game goes to such lengths to be like another game, those comparisons are warranted and valid. In that regard, Salt and Sanctuary comes up extremely short for me. Instead, I’ll stick to the Souls games.

A review copy was provided for review from the publisher