INTRO:
When something grows from a cult following to a smashing hit, knock-offs and copy-cats are inevitable. Perhaps these are intended to just sponge off the popularity of the “originals”, or they are more earnest adaptations or tweaks to the winning formulae.
Salt and Sanctuary is both. It is ‘inspired’ by so many games that have gained considerable reputation, the Souls games and Castlevania being notable examples.
PREMISE:
The game begins with some monologue about a world at war, and a political marriage that would hopefully bring about peace. Unfortunately, this would not happen, yet would ultimately not matter much in the narrative of the game. After all, the story is a tribute to the bleak backstories of the Souls games. Besides, it is also written by people in Ska Studios, and they are definitely not known for writing cheery stories.
Whether or not the player character manages to defeat the Lovecraftian monstrosity that appears in the pre-prologue segment of the playthrough, he/she washes up on a rather misty island.
Eventually, the player would learn more about the nature of the island. Yet, like the Souls titles, the story is very much incredulous and in the grand scheme of things; it takes a back seat to the gameplay. Even if one tries to get into the story, it can be observed that quite a number of things are analogs of whatever are in the Souls games.
(By the way, there are snippets of writing that strongly suggest that this game is set in the same universe as Dishwasher Samurai, albeit ages before.)
CHARACTER CREATION:
This article could describe the various options available for the generation of the player character, but the truth is that most of them would not matter at all.
There are options for the player character’s origins and gender, but no other NPC will ever acknowledge the differences. The player can pick the “class” for the player character, but like the player characters in the Souls’ series, this will not affect the narrative.
Thus, the only options that matter to class selection are the starting equipment of the player character and where he/she begins on the “skill tree” (more on this later). Starting gear is important, because gear pieces are far and few in between in the early parts of the playthrough.
That said, the options that matter are the player’s starting class and “effects” (as in the “effects” in the phrase “personal effects”). As for where he/she begins on the “skill tree”, this can determine the majority of the player’s playstyle.
Just like the Souls series, the player can choose options that make thinks more difficult or slightly easier before the start of the playthrough. Whichever the player’s choices are though, they should match the player’s intended playstyle.
ONLY TEN CHARACTERS:
The player can only ever have ten characters, at least not without making (preferably labelled) back-ups of the character files. This can be a bit dissatisfying to players who have a penchant for coming up with “builds”, and it so happens that this game does have the formulae for doing that.
CONTROL SCHEMES:
Players who have had less than great experiences with computer games that had been originally designed for the home consoles would notice almost immediately that this game is one of those. The splash screen alone, with its default “Press A” message, would already give that impression.
Fortunately, there has been effort by Ska Studios to adapt the game’s controls for the computer platform. For one, the aforementioned splash screen can be skipped using the left mouse button, after which the game detects the presence of the player’s mouse and keyboard set-up. It will then display button prompts in the user interface accordingly.
Still, the game’s design is such that movement and evasion are best performed using console controllers, and aiming spells and ranged weapons is better done with the mouse. Unfortunately, the player cannot opt for a combined control scheme, mainly because the game’s coding considers multiple devices to be the province of multiplayer.
PRESENCE OF MOUSE CURSOR:
If the player is using a mouse and keyboard scheme, the mouse cursor appears only when the player brings up the floating menus. This is useful for fiddling around with the player character’s loadout.
The mouse cursor is also used for aiming with ranged weapons. However, for this to happen, the mouse cursor has to be visible all the time. Outside of fiddling with the menus and aiming with ranged weapons, the cursor is useless and would only obscure the game’s visuals.
For better or worse, to address this issue, the mouse cursor’s visibility is restricted to just the menus by default. The player will have to manually free the mouse cursor whenever the game is run, unless the player changes the INI files of the game.
Even so, having it turned on all the time would be detrimental to playthroughs with melee-oriented characters. Not only will the mouse cursor be useless outside of the menus, the player character would make attacks in the general direction of the mouse cursor. This is pointless, because it does not contribute to the sophistication of melee attacks at all.
If the player is alternating between playthroughs with melee characters and those with ranged ones, having to toggle the visibility of the mouse cursor frequently can be tedious.
AIMING WITH MOUSE CURSOR COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER CODED:
That said, without the mouse cursor always visible, the player should not be playing ranged characters at all. The keyboard controls default to Contra-style aiming, which is just atrociously inadequate in such a game where enemies can aim freely at the player character without any problems.
All of the aforementioned problems of aiming with the mouse cursor could have been addressed with better coding, such as having the mouse cursor only visible when the player character has a ranged weapon.
AIMING WITH CROSSBOWS BUGGED:
Unfortunately, there are other problems with aiming that would reinforce the impression that Ska Studios is somewhat sloppy at implementing mouse controls. Chief of these is that aiming with the mouse does not work for crossbows, at least when the player character’s feet is touching the ground. It is a shame that this bug remains a problem at this time of writing.
HEALTH & HEALING IN THE FIELD:
The player character is one of the kind that performs at full functionality as long as he/she has a single hit point left.
The method of healing that the player would use are similar to those in the King’s Field successors. There is an equivalent of the limited but refreshable Estus flasks; indeed, there are cosmetic variants of these, a few of which are references to King’s Field successors. The animations for their consumption are quick, but the healing happens over time, meaning that the player should consider taking evasive action while the healing is in effect.
There are some “prayers” or “incantations” (more on these later) that can provide healing too. Like the renewable consumables, they are limited in number of uses. They also compete with other forms of magic for the same resource; this will be described later.
Less renewable means of healing also happen to be less potent, but they can be hoarded. Chief of these is the Red Shard, which is practically a healing draught.
Then there is leeching, which is a mod that can be applied on certain weapons. The amount of health stolen from enemies that are hit with the weapons is small, making this method only useful to a player that is deft enough to mitigate the risks.
WOUNDING:
As the player character takes damage, some lasting damage is inflicted. The amount of lasting damage seems to be proportional to the severity of the hits, and the frequency of hits taken. The lasting damage cannot be freely healed without rest at shrines or sanctuaries (more on these later).
This gameplay element is implemented to offset the notable capability of the player character to take a lot of damage – something that Souls-like games do not do readily. The implementation of this element made for a better balance of making the player character more capable of withstanding short flurries of attacks, but still fragile enough such that tactical mistakes would be punishing in the long term.
STAMINA:
The Souls titles and their ilk have always resorted to some means to prevent clumsy players from mashing away on buttons to get out of sticky situations or deft players from working an undefeatable combo of attacks. This game does virtually the same, at least when it comes to tough enemies.
The stamina element in this game has been implemented much like health is: forgivable enough not to render the player helpless at terrible moments, but punishing enough to discourage recklessness.
To elaborate, stamina restores at a considerable rate after slightly more than one second of not doing anything other than standing still or moving around. This happens regardless of how much load that the player character has, or his/her level of Endurance. Comparatively, the first two Dark Souls titles have a lot of things that can hamper stamina regeneration.
However, almost any attack gobbles considerable stamina. Continuous attacks and evasive manoeuvres will eventually drain stamina completely. If the player character is attacked while he/she is low on stamina, he/she would be knocked down. (There will be more on knock-downs later.)
That said, there are few other ways to restore stamina, and there would be no need for them either. If the player is wise enough, spending time doing nothing in an enemy’s blind spot instead of attacking would give enough opportunities to regain stamina. That is so, unless the player character is a magic-user; this will be elaborated further later.
FATIGUE:
Stamina does have more designs than just being a short-term variable. As the player spends Stamina to do just about anything, the maximum stamina level drops by a small amount from its default level. Some actions, such as casting spells, drain maximum stamina more than the others. The game refers to this as “fatigue”.
This means that unnecessary acts, like rolling all over the place instead of just merely running, would have small consequences that compound onto each other over time.
Fatigue can be removed, but only with the use of certain consumables, some of which are not even available to certain playstyles. There are generic consumables that can be purchased and hoarded, but they are rather expensive.
BALANCE:
Another element that the first Souls title introduced is “poise”, or how much punishment that a character (player or enemy) can take before he/she/it reels from the onslaught. There is such an element in this game, and it is called “balance” in-game, though the documentation also uses this word interchangeably with “poise”.
In this game, balance also appears to be lost when performing attack combos. However, it only takes a fraction of a second for anyone to regain balance.
Enemies have no stamina to worry about, but they do have balance. As they perform their attacks, they consume their balance. When their balance is almost completely drained, the next hit is likely to deplete their balance and cause them to go into their staggered or knocked-down animation.
In the case of the player character, losing balance is usually bad because it causes the player to lose control of the player character momentarily while he/she reels. Any further hits usually inflict considerably more damage and knocks down the player character. More powerful enemies may even hurl the player character far away, possibly off and into a falling hazard.
Unfortunately, the game repeats the same mistake as first few Souls games: balance is not visually shown in any way. Considering how important it is in combat, this is a major design oversight.
INVINCIBILITY FRAMES FOR KNOCKED-DOWN PLAYER CHARACTERS:
The first Dark Souls title was aggravating to players who are particular about how hitboxes work. For one, the player character remained vulnerable to further attacks when he/she is knocked down, meaning that being knocked down is just as bad as being dead.
This game is more forgiving, or at least avoids a point of aggravation that even “get good” remarks cannot deflect so readily. When the player character is knocked down, he/she is rendered impervious to attacks until control is returned to the player.
However, the player character does not gain any invincibility frames when he/she is being staggered, i.e. the player has lost control but the player character is still on his/her feet. This rarely ends well.
KNOCKED-DOWN OR STAGGERED ENEMIES:
Knocked-down or staggered enemies can do nothing for a few seconds. During this time, the player character can either get some distance away from them, or outright kill them with the press of a button. The latter case would also freeze everyone else and gives invincibility frames to the player character while the execution is being performed.
This generally only applies to non-boss enemies. Bosses are a different matter.
FLINCHING BOSSES:
Bosses do consume their balance when performing their attacks and when they are hit. Yet, when they do lose their balance, they merely flinch. Half a second later, they revert to their default poses, and can immediately start another attack animation. This is the main risk when fighting bosses, especially for melee-oriented characters.
On the other hand, player characters that have a lot of stamina and have their weapons geared towards causing imbalance would be able to repeatedly stagger bosses, rendering them helpless. Indeed, one of the screenshots in this article shows an example of this.
FOCUS:
The third resource that the player has to manage is his/her Focus. This is a variation of the system of mana, magical energy or “MP” that is prevalent in video games that happen to have expressions of magic in their gameplay. However, Focus works a bit differently.
Casting spells reduces Focus, of course. However, doing anything that requires Stamina also reduces Focus, albeit by small amounts. Furthermore, any reduction of Focus also immediately pegs Stamina by the same amount, i.e. an immediate and significant gain in Fatigue. All of these limitations have been implemented to balance the advantages that magic-using player characters get.
Focus cannot be restored automatically, which also means that the Fatigue that is inflicted from burning up Focus also stays. This can severely limit the player character’s Stamina usage.
However, Focus can be restored through the consumption of “energy potions”, which appear as blue-coloured consumables; Fatigue is also removed. However, energy potions are generally only for magic-using player characters, mainly because of how the “skill tree” works. (There will be more on this later.)
SALT:
Salt is very much the game’s analogue of the “souls” in the Souls games. The lore behind salt is only revealed after some time into the game and after the player has read the descriptions of associated items. Suffice to say for now that salt is coveted by any sentient/living thing on the island.
Just about any enemy drops salt when defeated. Salt can be gained from containers that have salt, but never from anything else. Salt is also automatically collected when it is yielded, which is convenient.
Gameplay-wise, Salt works as both a currency resource and experience points, just like the souls in the Souls games. However, it is not the only currency around because there is gold, which will be described later.
DYING & LOSING SALT:
Again, not unlike the Souls titles, dying causes the player character to lose all salt that has been collected but yet to be spent. The enemy that killed the player character absorbs the salt; the salt can only be recovered by slaying the enemy. This can be a tall order if it is one of the bosses.
If the player character is killed due to an environmental mishap, or some other means that do not involve getting hit by an enemy, the lost salt reappears as a hostile bat-like creature that happens to be quite tough, as well as rather poisonous. Since it can fly too, it can be a problem if the player character died somewhere inconvenient. For all the forgiving game designs that Salt & Sanctuary has compared to the earlier Souls games, this is a nasty gameplay element.
LEVEL-UPS & GEAR UPGRADES:
Salt is used for level-ups and gear upgrades. Despite the few number of uses and relative abundance of salt due to respawning enemies, divvying salt between them will be significant decisions that the player has to make. The exponentially rising costs for both level-ups and gear upgrades will make these decisions more difficult. Besides, the player has to hoard increasingly more collected but unspent salt just to afford the next power-up.
SKILL TREE & PEARLS:
Level-ups grant the player Black Pearls. Black Pearls are needed to unlock nodes in the “Tree of Skill”, which would be familiar to players that have played Path of Exile. The tree is the visual representation of the player character’s potential, represented as nodes that are connected to each other with intricate patterns.
Like the passive skills in Path of Exile, the Tree of Skills allows the player to improve and/or expand the capabilities of the player character. Each class starts at a different region in the tree, with generally two nodes unlocked. To power-up the player character, the player unlocks more nodes by spending Black Pearls on them, gradually colouring the initially grey tree.
The player will also find Gray Pearls throughout the game. This allows the player to retract the expenditure of a Black Pearl, consuming the Gray Pearl in the process. In other words, the player can undo an earlier decision. However, there are not many Gray Pearls to be had, so the player should be careful about the expenditure of Black Pearls in the first place.
JACK-OF-ALL-TRADES IS GIMPED:
Usually, each class begins at a region with nodes that can bolster that class’s intended playstyle. The player could have the player character diverge away from this region, but this is generally not a good idea unless the player started with the Cleric class (more on this later). Jack-of-all-trade characters would have a hard time maintaining the damage and durability power-ups that are needed to survive later enemies.
There are a variety of class builds that can be developed, but this review would only mention several, especially the “pure” builds that concentrate on abilities that concern specific aspects of the gameplay. These will be mentioned in later sections.
MAIN STATISTICS:
The player character’s hit points are determined by his/her level. This is fortunate, because it means that hit points will not be an issue to any build. To gain increases in the other statistics, the player needs to unlock the corresponding nodes in the Tree of Skill.
Strength, Dexterity and Magic are meant for determining the potency of the player character’s damage-inflicting implements. Strength and Dexterity, in particular, are needed for the damage-scaling on most physical weapons.
Magic also affects the effectiveness of prayers and incantations (which are the analogue of buffs or summons in this game). Wisdom also does that too, and there are a few weapons that happen to use Wisdom for damage-scaling.
Willpower increases the stamina and focus of the player character. Interestingly, it also increases the item drop rating.
Endurance has only one function: increasing maximum equipment load. Equipment load will be described later.
Such simple devolution of the main statistics can seem a tad underwhelming to players that have experienced games with more complex systems. However, they are easy to manage.
NODES WITH MULTIPLE LEVELS:
Nodes that grant improvements to main statistics can be further invested with Black Pearls to increase their contribution. The yields are linearly proportional, so there are no diminishing returns. However, this means that the player is not opening branches in the skill tree, so this should only be done after the player is satisfied with the player character’s current build.
SOFT CAPS:
Most of the main statistics have their effects throttled at 51 points and onwards; this also applies to any apparent amplification from gripping weapons with two hands, which will be described further later. This is not communicated to the player, however.
The only main statistic that does not have its effects throttled is Endurance. This allows player character builds to eventually incorporate the use of higher tier gear (more on gear tiers later). Higher tier gear tend to be heavier, so the continued proportional effects of increasing Endurance is much welcome.
DEFENSE:
The player character’s gear determines the protection that he/she has against enemy attacks. The protection from his/her clothing and/or armour is automatically granted and stacked together. His/her weapons also provide protection too, provided that they can be used to perform a blocking stance. Certain rings also provide defensive bonuses.
The player character’s level also automatically increases defense ratings across the board, thus ensuring that player characters without any armor or clothes can still soak some damage. The exact equation for calculating how damage is not told to the player, however.
Defense ratings will not mitigate reductions of balance. This is important to keep in mind, because there are weapons and incantations that can inflict a lot more balance reduction than they do damage.
MONEY:
Interestingly, on the island, money is still a viable currency because there are sane people who are still around. That said, money is quite abundant, thanks to it being dropped by respawning enemies.
Money is generally spent on purchasing consumables or getting gear that the player character does not already have. Some vendors may also offer gear pieces that are incredibly expensive but otherwise do not include salt in their prices.
Enemies do not steal the player character’s money when they kill him/her; most of them are monsters who have no concept of economics anyway. The player character also does not drop any coinage when he/she dies. However, there will be a “mysterious cleric” who recovers the player character’s body and drags it back to the last sanctuary that he/she visited. The cleric takes 10% of the player character’s money, presumably as a non-negotiable payment for his/her service.
SECTIONING IN THE GAME WORLD:
The island has borders that demarcate regions and sections. This is implemented for the purposes of applying background textures, lighting and other aesthetic assets. There is generally no load times between them, because the game has already loaded just about everything into memory.
This also means that characters can move back and forth between sections without problems, including enemies. Indeed, some enemies can pursue the player character into other regions.
SANCTUARIES:
The titular sanctuaries are where the player decides on how to further develop and equip the player character. The bulk of the player’s salt and money are spent here.
Each sanctuary has an altar. This is where the player character rests and restore all statistics, as well as removing any extant de-buffs; buffs are retained. The altar is also the user interface for levelling up and expanding the skill tree.
The rest of the space in the sanctuary is for NPC vendors; up to four of them can be in a sanctuary. Some sanctuaries already have these vendors, whereas some are initially devoid, especially the unclaimed ones.
Each of the aforementioned sections in the game world is placed under the influence of a sanctuary. Any vendor NPC that the sanctuary receives would (somehow) impart an effect on the region that is associated with the sanctuary, generally to the benefit of the player. For example, the merchant NPC would impart a bonus to the gold that enemies drop.
This also applies to the locales at which boss fights occur, so the player might want to consider populating sanctuaries with the appropriate vendors prior to tough boss fights.
ENEMIES IN SANCTUARIES:
As mentioned earlier, enemies can pursue the player character across the game world, if they can reach anywhere the player character is. Usually, the immediate areas around sanctuaries are devoid of enemies, but the player could unwittingly or deliberately lure them over into the sanctuaries. Until said enemies are slain, the sanctuaries could not be used.
If the sanctuaries already have vendor NPCs, the NPCs will automatically attack the enemies. This usually ends quickly, unless the player somehow managed to lure a powerful one over. NPCs that are killed are permanently dead. They can be replaced, but statuettes are rare loot.
CREED:
Early in the game, the player is quizzed about the player character’s religious allegiance. If the player intends to have the first sanctuary up and running so that the early game does not become an unpleasant experience, the player would have to do this.
This would not have been a problem if all creeds are available to the player from the start. This is not the case. The player only has three options.
That said, whichever creed that the player character takes, he/she gains a relic that can somehow copy itself for the occasion when the player claims an empty sanctuary.
The main benefit of having a creed is the ability to staff a sanctuary with vendor NPCs, if the sanctuary is aligned to the player character’s own. This is done by offering stone statuettes to the altar. Speaking of stone statuettes, these are rare finds, so they should be spent carefully.
Another benefit is the variety of goods that the vendor NPCs sell; having greater devotion to the creed means having more variety of goods, which may include higher-tier gear.
DEVOTION:
Proving one’s devotion is simple. The player staffs a creed-aligned sanctuary with a leader NPC. Then, the player gathers proof of having slain enemies that are despised, abhorred or pitied in the teachings of the creed. Next, the player turns these over to the leader NPC at the specified amounts.
In addition to having greater variety in goods, each level of devotion earned grants the player character a boon in the form of items that can be replenished whenever he/she is revived or rests at an altar of the same creed. These items are generally consumables, many of which are unique to the creed.
CREED-UNIQUE CONSUMABLES:
As mentioned already, when the player character rests at an altar, the player regains any renewable consumables. Chief of these are the health- and stamina-replenishing items. Almost all creeds have these, with merely aesthetic differences between them. However, some creeds have different properties for these.
For example, the House of Splendor’s healing wine poisons the player character. For another example, the Order of the Betrayer’s healing item adds to the player’s “corruption”, which begin to make the NPCs at non-aligned sanctuaries increasingly hostile to the player character. These setbacks are introduced to balance against the advantages that these two Creeds provide.
Speaking of which, the most coveted advantages that Creeds provide are their unique consumables. For example, Devara’s followers can have the Orange Phial, which combines the effects of many beneficial consumables.
SWITCHING CREEDS:
The player can have the player character switch to another creed wherever they are found; it is likely that the player would have to do this for the creeds other than the three options that the player gets at the start of the playthrough.
This makes the player character an apostate to his/her former creed, thus wiping out all past acts of devotion and the boons that had been earned, if any. The slighted creed is still forgiving though, and will not deny the use of sanctuaries to the player character. However, their NPCs will not do any deals with the player character.
The player character is prevented from rejoining that creed until he/she literally pays the price for the offense. There will be more on this later.
DESECRATING A SANCTUARY:
The people of various creeds generally tolerate each other in the name of providing sanctuary to any who seek it, but there might be religious zealots who insist on conversion – forceful or otherwise. The player character can be such a zealot.
There are items, like Stained Pages, that can be used in the sanctuaries of other creeds. This somehow immediately inflames tensions; presumably, using the items declares the player’s intent. Any NPCs in that sanctuary becomes hostile, and additional enemies will be spawned to deal with the transgressor. The player character is also locked in the sanctuary until it has been fully expunged.
If the player character manages to slay everyone, the sanctuary is rendered empty; the player can then claim it for whatever creed. Any vendor NPCs would also have been killed, so the player needs to restore them manually. The NPCs in other sanctuaries of the creed that the player transgressed against will also become permanently hostile too. Their sanctuaries also become unusable.
Trespassing into hostile sanctuaries will automatically begin the conversion process, which may be what the player wants anyway.
SIN:
When the player character abandons creeds or desecrate the sanctuaries of other creeds, he/she accumulates sin. Sin, however, can be cleansed.
To do so, the player needs to find a certain NPC who accepts the player character’s penance in the form of salt. Having a habit of abandoning creeds would ratchet the prices higher, so the player might want to do some research on what each creed offers before making a decision. Desecration of sanctuaries carry an even higher price.
Having cleansed any sin, no one would even remember what the player character has done. All sanctuaries then become fully functional, if they are not expunged already.
SANCTUARY VENDORS:
Vendor NPCs at sanctuaries are recognizable due to their lack of any proper names. Yet, they will introduce themselves as still-sane people, albeit made despondent due to the fact that they had been trapped on the island for a long time.
Some sanctuaries already have NPCs, whereas some others, such as already claimed ones, do not have any. To get more, the player has to offer stone statuettes to the altar, which somehow summons vendor NPCs over.
Every sanctuary has space for only four vendor NPCs, however, so the player might want to make his/her choices carefully. Nevertheless, the player should have at least one sanctuary that has a guide NPC, because the guide NPC is the only means of travelling from one sanctuary to another.
There are other vendor NPCs in the game. They appear outside of sanctuaries and they have names. In addition to offering goods that are different from those sold by sanctuary vendors, their variety of goods expands as the player defeats more bosses. Furthermore, they have things to talk about their experiences or happenings on the island.
SHRINES:
In addition to the creed-aligned sanctuaries, there are candle-lit shrines that the player character can visit and rest at. These appear to be creed-universal places too. (The lore of the game would eventually reveal that this is indeed the case.)
Shrines function much like sanctuaries, with the exception of not having any vendor NPCs and omitting the service to level-up and expand the skill tree. That said, shrines will replenish any boons that the player character has obtained from his/her creed.
AUTO-SAVES:
Each player character only has one game-save, which is automatically updated when the player character has his/her statistics restored by a sanctuary or shrine. This can happen from a visit – or a death.
Due to how the game-saves work, the player could make back-ups of them prior to setting out from a shrine or sanctuary, if the player has no issue with save-scumming.
EQUIPMENT SLOTS:
Like the Souls titles, the player can have as many items and gear pieces in the inventory as he/she wants. Their presence only matters when they are visibly equipped on the player character’s person.
That said, there can only be so many things that can be equipped. There are headwear, torso-wear, legwear and arm-wear, as well as the two weapons that are in the player character’s hands. These count towards equipment load, which will be described in the next section.
In the case of weapons, the player character can have two sets. For most characters, both sets would be different weapons that are still within the same category, e.g. two different melee weapons for a melee-oriented character. Only the set that is currently being used will count towards equipment load.
AMMO, CHARMS AND SPELLS:
Observant players might notice the oddity of there being a third slot for each weapon set. This third slot was implemented to accommodate the inclusion of supplementary or necessary items, like ammo for ranged arms and spells for wands and staffs. In the case of melee weapons, they can have charms attached to them. Charms usually grant buffs, which can compensate for the need to get close to enemies.
EQUIPMENT LOAD:
The player character’s equipped gear weighs him/her down. The effect is based on the percentage of the maximum equipment load that has been achieved with the player character’s current load.
The range of percentages is in turn broken into quartiles. The first quartile (0 to 25%) gives the best mobility, though this is not always desirable because a portion of the gameplay involves platforming segments with sometimes narrow ledges. The second quartile has reduced mobility, and more so for the third. The fourth quartile turns the player character sluggish. Interestingly, anything above 100% load still counts as the fourth quartile.
ROLLING AND MOVEMENT SPEED:
The player character can run and roll – the alacrity of which depends on equipment load. A lesser load means faster running speed and greater rolling speed and distance. Stamina consumption for rolls and jumps are less too.
Ideally, the player will want to maximize running speed and rolling speed and distance during boss fights; keeping distance or getting to the bosses’ blind spot is often key to victory.
Outside of boss fights, the player might want to avoid maximizing speed and roll distances. This is because fall hazards are plenty, making high speed movement an issue. Furthermore, movement speed does not contribute to jumping distance or height.
PLAYER BUILDS - OVERVIEW:
Much of the player’s gameplay experience would revolve around gear and skill builds. Although there are many potential builds, most of the straightforward ones are the least hassle to use because they do not require too many equipment changes. Most enemies can be defeated with these as long as the player is aware of their advantages and disadvantages.
However, as mentioned earlier, the different builds may require different modes of mouse-enabled controls. If the player wants to play multiple characters alternatingly, the player may have to change the controls as frequently as he/she alternates between characters.
MELEE BUILDS:
Melee and magic builds appear to have been given the most attention by the developers. This is especially so in the case of melee builds, because there is a tremendous variety of melee weapons in the game. Some of them include cooking utensils, which of course are references to Ska Studios’ previous games.
Perhaps due to some leftover code from the Dishwasher games, the player character can perform attacks in mid-air – something that none of the player characters in the Souls titles could even do (because they cannot jump much anyway). They also move forward a bit when making mid-air attacks, which can be used for some platforming segments.
Other than damage output, there are other things to keep in mind when selecting melee weapons for use. There is their stamina consumption per attack; lighter weapons usually but not always cost less stamina to use. There is also the animation duration of melee attacks; typically, the final attack in a chain takes the longest to execute and recover from, even for light weapons.
There is their reach, too. For example, whips conveniently have longer reach, less stamina consumption and faster animations than most other melee weapons.
Interestingly, melee builds occur at regions of the skill tree that have a considerable number of nodes that grant healing potions. This is just as well, because melee-oriented characters are the most likely to get hit.
SHIELD BUILDS:
Since shields occupy the same slot as wands and crossbows, they cannot be used with each other. This can be a dissatisfying limitation. For one, the Souls titles have long solved the issue of equipping any weapon or shield into any slot by automatically adjusting control inputs to match the permutation.
That said, shields are mainly there for when the advice “don’t get hit” is easier said than followed. Most shields can shrug off a lot of damage when they are used to block attacks, but of course, considerable stamina is lost by doing so.
MAGE BUILDS:
Mage builds are the other kinds of builds that the developers have focused on. There are a considerable number of spells and incantations, each of which is different from the others. However, the early sections of the playthrough do not have a lot of them. When they do begin to appear, the player would have a burgeoning number of tactical options.
There are only two types of magical implements: wands and staves. Both can fire spells, but they have different versatility. Wands can only be loaded with one spell and can only be equipped as a secondary weapon. Staves can be loaded with two, each using one of the two control inputs for making attacks; staves can only be used for casting magic, when it is loaded with two spells.
Managing focus and stamina drains will be a major concern for mage builds. Furthermore, the player has to divvy the expenditure of Black Pearls between nodes for healing potions and nodes for energy potions.
Another important concern is how the spells target enemies. The early ones merely require the player to point and shoot at enemies. Besides, these spells are not affected by gravity and are therefore relatively easy to predict where their hits would land. However, they often have limited range, either exploding or fizzling out when they reach their maximum distance of travel.
The other spells may either automatically seek out enemies or just douse an entire area. Automatic seekers may seem handy, but they may not always target the weak spots of enemies (and certainly will not go around shields) and area-effect spells are often wasted on small targets. (Most bosses are large enough to be hammered with them though.) Therefore, it is usually a wise choice to reserve one weapon set for spells that are manually directed.
Yet another concern of mage builds is elemental imbalance, which will be described later.
RANGED BUILDS – IN GENERAL:
There are three types of ranged weapons: bows, crossbows and flintlock guns. Dexterity is the primary statistic for ranged builds, yet dexterity is also the statistic used in the damage scaling of light weapons like daggers and whips. In the case of builds with flintlocks and crossbows, a melee weapon in the primary hand is typically the norm.
Bow builds require both hands for any bow. Therefore, it might be wise to have such characters wield melee weapons as an alternate set, thus giving the player some versatility in dealing with enemies.
For any ranged build, ammunition is not cheap, at least in the early parts of the first playthrough. Frequent misses can be particularly consequential, because the player would be deprived of funds for the purchase of other consumables.
Fortunately, for bow and crossbow builds, there is a game design that mitigates this issue: any arrow or bolt that has struck an enemy will be guaranteed as an item drop, specifically as a regular arrow or bolt. This rewards accuracy on the part of the player. However, any special arrow or bolt is not returned, because as mentioned already, regular arrows or bolts drop instead.
BOW BUILDS:
Bow builds require the player character to be armed with nothing else. Bows can be used for blocking, but they are terrible at doing so. Most importantly, the player also has to figure out the effect of gravity on the arrows that the bows fire.
The major advantage of bows weapons is that arrows have no enforced maximum range; they can continue travelling until they hit something. Distance travelled does not affect the damage that they inflict. This means that if the level design permits it, the player can hit enemies from afar, sometimes with impunity if their behaviour scripting fritzes out because the player character is too far away.
PRAYERS AND INCANTATIONS:
Prayers impart considerable buffs, whereas incantations can summon magical hazards or even magical constructs with which to damage enemies.
Prayers and incantations are the most expensive magic in terms of focus and stamina. Each one can gobble tremendous amounts, and they do not last long.
PRAYER BUILDS:
Prayers grant only buffs that do not last very long. Therefore, builds that are purely about using these and building up wisdom are often not viable up until after the mid-point of the playthrough. After all, there are not a lot of weapons that use Wisdom for damage-scaling. (As preposterous as this sounds, there are certainly these in the game.)
Thus, most workable builds that use prayers will use prayers to buff their primary means of attacking. For example, melee builds are likely to go for incantations that increase their damage output.
STRONG ATTACKS:
The default attack uses whatever has been placed into the primary weapon slot: this can be a one-handed weapon or a two-handed one. In either case, the player character can perform a “strong” attack, if the weapon is not a staff.
Strong attacks, as their name suggests, inflict more damage than regular attacks. However, they tend to be slower and consume more stamina, thus making them risky to use. Indeed, it might be wiser not to use them at all if the player resorts to mobility to defeat enemies.
ALTERNATE ATTACKS:
The player character may have a build that uses a one-handed weapon for the primary attack, and a secondary weapon for the off-hand.
As mentioned earlier, there can only be shields, crossbows, pistols and wands in the off-hand. All of them work differently from each other, yet all of them use the same control input. This means that if the player wants to use a mixture of them, the player needs to arrange them as different weapon sets.
NO DUAL-WIELDING:
There is no dual-wielding whatsoever in the game. The player character cannot even dual-wield daggers, which is the most ubiquitous of dexterity builds.
Considering the calibre – or lack thereof – in the coding of control inputs for attacks in this game, this omission perhaps should not be a surprise. It is still disappointing, however.
GRIPS:
If the player character is only wielding a one-handed weapon in one hand without anything in the other hand, the player can enable a double-handed grip.
Double-handed grips increase the apparent Strength or Dexterity of the player character with regards to damage-scaling. Any two-handed weapons use double-handed grips by default. The same amplification of apparent Strength or Dexterity occurs for their case too. However, this only works for Strength- and Dexterity-dependent weapons, of course.
Interestingly, a two-handed weapon can also be wielded with a single hand, as long as the weapon is one tier level lower than the player’s highest skill level for that kind of weapon. However, this results in a slow attack, which may not be in the player’s interest.
Double-handing and single-handing have to be toggled through the inventory screen instead of a dedicated control input; the Souls games have such a control input. Perhaps this is the price to be paid for having implemented control inputs for platforming.
BLOCK/OFF-HAND ATTACKS:
If the player character is using a shield, blocking with the shield can negate a lot of incoming damage – as long as he/she still has stamina. Blocking with shields work in mid-air too, but the player character will be shoved back further.
Conveniently, the player character will automatically block any attacks from any direction, as long as the shield is brought up. The player character will automatically turn around to block any attacks on his/her rear facing.
If the player character is using a crossbow, pistol or wand, using the control input for blocking will have him/her use the off-hand weapon instead. As mentioned earlier, aiming with the mouse does not work for crossbows.
GEAR LEVELS:
In the Souls games, primary statistics are used as the main factor in determining whether the player character can use a piece of gear properly or not. In the case of this game, certain nodes in the skill tree determine that instead.
The player must have the correct node unlocked in order to use their associated gear properly. Otherwise, any attempt to use said gear would result in a clumsy embarrassment.
Fortunately, the nodes do more than just unlock the use of gear pieces. They also provide bonuses to the player character’s primary statistics, usually those that are associated with the gear pieces.
The player must unlock gear level nodes sequentially. To elaborate, it may appear like the player could pick a route around a node for a lower gear level to reach a node with a higher gear level. However, the player must unlock the lower level node before the higher level one.
MULTIPLES OF THE SAME GEAR PIECE:
Generally, the player would only find one unit of any type of gear piece in any playthrough. It is possible to get multiples of the same gear piece, either through game-save and multiplayer exploits or through options in the character creation phase.
For example, the Palatine’s set of gear is available to anyone who picks the Palatine during character creation. A full set can be found much later in any playthrough, and only after some platforming.
MULTIPLE RINGS:
Generally, there is only one equipment slot for each category of gear piece. In the case of rings, there are several. Thus, it is possible for the player character to wear multiples of the same ring. However, their effects do not stack. This can be observed in the effects of the Grasping Ring, which can be selected as a starting gear piece and can be found a short while into any playthrough.
CONSUMABLE WEAPONS:
In addition to the consumables that benefit the player character, there are consumables that can be used to hurt enemies. Chief of these are throwing daggers and grenades. These can be aimed with the mouse, though they are particularly affected by gravity and the player character can only hurl them so far. (Having higher strength does not equate further throwing distance.)
The first few types of throwing weapons are underwhelming, however. For the trouble of using them (and their cost), they are not particularly potent.
The later types are much more potent, though they are more expensive and are more of a hassle to get. For example, there are the particularly poisonous throwing daggers that one of the creeds grants. These daggers can inflict tremendous poison damage, assuming that the player could fully poison enemies and those enemies are not resistant to poison.
SELLING ITEMS:
Surplus items can be sold to the merchant NPC in the sanctuary; the merchant pays in gold, and not salt. However, the player is only paid a portion of the item’s actual worth, as is often the case in video games. Furthermore, any sold items are gone, permanently.
PRESSING BUTTONS TO SET AMOUNTS:
The player can buy multiples of the same item from any vendor; they do not have stock limits. However, the player has to press buttons to increase or decrease the amounts of the multiples; there is no feature of convenience to exactly set the amounts, not even with the keyboard.
WARNING BUILD-UP OF DE-BUFFS:
De-buffs do not work like the typical status effects in other video games. In this game, they work more like those in the Souls games. The deleterious effects of de-buffs are not applied immediately. Rather, a meter that represents the de-buff appears at the centre top of the screen to show the progress of having the de-buff applied.
Again, this can seem like a bit too much copying, but the implementation of the de-buffs in the Souls games is indeed one of the most pleasantly balanced.
APPLIED BUFFS DO NOT STACK:
Applied buffs can generally categorized into a few types, depending on where on the player character’s person that the buffs are applied. There are buffs that affect the player character’s sprite, and there are buffs that are applied on his/her weapon. Generally, the former kind of buff is usually healing over time from healing consumables, and rarely if not never anything else. That said, the healing over time buff cannot be stacked from consuming other healing item while the buff is in effect. It is merely replaced with the buff from the consumed healing item.
The latter kind of buff is obtained from consumables that are applied on the weapon; the weapon has additional visual effects to indicate the buff that is applied. There can only be one of this kind of buff applied; applying another replaces the previous buff.
ELEMENTAL IMBALANCE:
Mages generally can only use spells from two types of elements: fire and lightning (called “sky” in the lore). Due to some lore about these two elements, mages have to be careful about the use of either element.
Using spells of one element causes “elemental imbalance”: the mage’s body is saturated with residual energies from that element. This is indicated in a meter at the top of the screen. Any further spell of the same element has a damage bonus, the amount of which is proportional to the amount of fill that the meter has on its side that is associated with that element. This might seem advantageous, but if the meter fills completely on one side, the player character immediately dies.
The imbalance on one side of the meter stays indefinitely, until the player character uses spells of the other element. The spells of the other element do not gain any penalties while the meter is being reduced.
This gameplay mechanism is only ever applied on the player character, of course. Magical enemies generally have no issue spamming spells of the same element.
TRANSMUTATION:
Some gear pieces cannot be obtained through purchases from vendors or getting into nooks and crannies on the island. This is usually the case for most tier 4 and 5 gear pieces. To get these, the player needs to use “transmutation”. Some lower tier gear pieces can also be obtained through transmutation, if the player can find the materials for these processes. Transmutation can only ever be done on weapons, armor and shields.
Only the alchemist vendor can perform transmutation. A transmutation process requires a specific type of weapon, the remains of a specific monster, a specific type of transmutation catalyst and considerable salt. Usually, remains of rarer monsters require more salt and rarer catalysts, so the player should expect any process that uses the remains of bosses to be particularly salty and exhausting.
That said, it is unlikely that the player would be doing a lot of transmutation. Thus, the only other good reason to have the alchemist vendor around is for the bonuses to the player character’s defence ratings.
METROVANIA ELEMENTS:
As mentioned much earlier in this article, the game has elements from the earlier Castlevania and Metroid games. Specifically, the player character will gain capabilities that allow him/her to traverse locations that are previously inaccessible (and terribly fatal to attempt otherwise).
The following sections will describe the hazards in the platforming segments and the tools that the player character can have for dealing with them.
A LOT OF FALLING HAZARDS:
Death from long falls is possible in this game, and there happen to be so many falling hazards in the game. They are especially pervasive in the last stretches of the playthrough, which can be frustrating.
If there is a silver lining, it is that enemies are susceptible to gravity too. Even the biggest of them can die if forced off a platform, or they make the mistake of making jumping attacks too close to the edge. The player will not get their gold, but their salt will be automatically given upon their death.
DARK & LIGHT:
Light from the sky does not reach the island so easily, so many places on the island are either gloomy or outright dark.
The player needs light to see, but enemies do not. There is no “Grue” mechanism (from Zork) in this game, but getting hit by enemies that are in the dark is unpleasant. More importantly, the player character risks succumbing to falling hazards.
Therefore, the player needs to have some light sources at the ready for the player character to use. There is a ring that emits light. Some weapon buffs emit light too. The ring, in particular, is the most reliable source of light.
Then, there are torches, which are easy to get early-game and provide the greatest radius of lighting, albeit with an orange tint. Any torch requires one hand to be held, thus preventing the player character from holding weapons with two hands. Torches are also required for dealing with two types of obstacles, which will be described later.
FLASHING PLATFORMS:
For better or worse, Ska Studios has implemented an infamous ages-old trope in platforming: platforms that disappear and reappear. Fortunately, the level designers have fine-tuned the apparition frequencies of the platforms, such that there is a rhythm that can be followed with enough practice. (Of course, each failed attempt would send the player character plummeting.)
The toughest of challenges involving these platforms requires the player to have some of the “brands”, which will be described later. Indeed, the most elusive Creed can only be obtained after succeeding in this one.
FRAGILE PLATFORMS:
Yet another infamous trope in platforming games has been implemented in this game. This is the breakable platform.
These platforms eventually break if the player character stands too long on them; enemies do not seem to affect them. A heavier player character causes them to break faster, but the difference in time is so small that quick reaction on the player’s part is needed anyway if the player is using a light build.
One of the most frustrating things to learn about these breakable platforms is that entire stretches of these platforms share the same breakage condition. Long stretches are rare, but they do appear in the optional platforming sequences (which are understandably some of the most challenging and aggravating in the game).
BRANDS - OVERVIEW:
Movement capabilities are implemented through the gimmick of “brands”, specifically the patterns that are burnt onto one’s skin through the application of a hot poker with a shaped end. The lore behind the brands is not exactly well explained, but suffice to say that anyone who has received a brand can perform the ability that is associated with that brand.
Usually, the brands are provided by certain NPCs that are at locations just beyond places where bosses reside; they are usually next to campfires that so happen to have those patterned pokers. Again, why they are there is unclear.
Anyway, these brands are generally needed in order to advance in the playthrough. It is possible for players to have only a few of them and use exploits to get past barriers, but following the intended progression of acquiring them generally poses the least risk.
VERTIGO (REVERSED GRAVITY):
The first brand applies reversed gravity. This can only be used at specific places, which are usually demarcated with dark obelisks that have purple lights. The brand can only be activated at these obelisks.
Using the obelisks also activates cancelling devices that are set here and there. These devices project their effects along invisible lines that are perpendicular to the surfaces that they are on. Crossing these lines cancel sthe gravity inversion.
These cancelling devices are mainly there to ensure that the player character does not bring the effects of gravity reversal outside the areas as intended by the developers. This can seem a bit disappointing. Furthermore, gravity reversal generally has no use during combat. (It might even seem disorienting.)
That said, there is still some innovation. For one, the cancelling devices does not reverse falling momentum. Normal gravity would eventually reduce the momentum gained earlier from falling in reversed gravity. That said, thankfully, falling damage is calculated based on the falling speed of the player character, and not the distance that has been fallen through, This is used in certain platforming segments to get onto platforms that cannot be reached any other way.
SHADOWFLIP (WALL-JUMPING):
The Shadowflip brand allows what is essentially wall-jumping. Segments that require the player to wall jump usually have vertical walls that are clearly contrasted against the surroundings, unless they are part of a “secret” route. Furthermore, obtaining the brand also allows the player character to stick to walls to slow down a fall, if the player character could get close enough to those walls.
This can also be used during combat, usually to get away from enemies that otherwise cannot climb walls. However, most boss fights occur on long platforms with no vertical walls, so Shadowflip is not helpful in these cases.
REDSHIFT & HARDLIGHT:
There are bright red barriers that bar movement at some places on the island. There are clouds of blue vapours that would have been solid platforms that allow the player character to progress further.
These two obstacles are handled with the Redshift and Hardlight brands. The Redshift one dispels the red barriers, whereas Hardlight make the blue vapours solid. To do either, the player character needs to have a torch.
Of course, there happens to be platforming challenges involving one or the other. There are more challenges that involve the latter, especially after the player character has obtained the Shadowflip brand.
One would think that both brands could be used together within the same platforming segment. However, this cannot be, mainly because torches take a while to be lit. Although there is one platforming segment that requires the player to douse torches just after passing through a Redshift barrier, this one has no falling hazard.
DART BRAND (AIR DASHING):
By default, the control input for combat rolls does not work when the player character is in mid-air, for obvious reasons. With the Dart brand, the control input for rolling creates an air-dash when done in mid-air.
In the platforming segments, this is generally used to increase the horizontal distance of jumps; it can also be used to change directions. Interestingly, it can also be used together with Shadowflips to climb up walls. However, the player character can only air-dash twice before having to land on a horizontal surface. Of course, this is meant to prevent the player from circumventing obstacles that the developers want the player to deal with as intended.
In combat, air-dashing allows the player character to jump over enemies that are human-sized or smaller, if rolling past them is too risky. Otherwise, there is no reason to do so. Besides, the player character does not gain any invincibility frames when doing an air-dash.
ENEMIES – OVERVIEW:
There are enemies galore on the island, all of them invariably hostile to the player character and somehow united in their hatred of him/her. Each type is often unique, and more often than not, endemic to the region that they are in. Only a handful of enemy types appear in more than one region on the island, usually because they fill some tactical niche as the level designers see fit.
In the Souls games, there is often an individual of an enemy type in an isolated portion of a level. The player character has to pass through this portion, and the hostile encounter would be the new player’s introduction to this type of enemy.
Unlike the Souls titles, there is no “soft” introduction to each type of enemy in this game. Previously encountered enemies can appear in considerable numbers. If the new player is not careful, he/she would draw the attention of multiples of enemies that he/she is not even familiar with. This rarely ends well, making the experience of learning things the hard way all the more frustrating.
(Of course, the player could just read the wikis for the game and watch playthrough videos to familiarize oneself.)
REAR FACINGS:
Since this is a 2D game, characters have far fewer facings than those in 3D games. That said, most enemies in this game are guaranteed to be vulnerable to attacks from their rear, unless they are using shields. Those that are bringing shields up will automatically change their facing when hit, not unlike the player character if he/she has a shield.
That said, most enemies could not make attacks on their rear facing; this can seem like a far cry from enemies in the Souls titles. (On the other hand, From Software’s earlier Souls games were infamous for having frustrating hit detection.)
Therefore, most enemies can be defeated by rolling past them and hitting them from behind – assuming that there is enough space for rolling past them. Enemies that are too big can be difficult to roll past, however. In their case, failure to roll past them causes the player character to be repelled back – possibly into their attack arcs.
RESPAWNING ENEMIES:
Most enemies respawn when the player character returns to a sanctuary or shrine for whatever reason. This allows players to farm enemies for salt and gold, but most enemies are often some distance away from shrines and sanctuaries such that travel time will be a significant matter in the efficiency of farming.
FLYING ENEMIES:
Some enemies can fly. Moreover, like the typical flying enemies in 2D games, they ignore layers in the foreground or any other solid obstacle for that matter. This advantage makes them some of the most annoying enemies in the game, because they can pursue the player character across entire levels. They can end up being killed while they are flying through obstacles or solid layers, causing anything that they would drop to be lost.
Virtually all flying enemies have to stop moving in order to begin an attack animation. This would be fortunate for player characters that are melee-oriented.
BOSS FIGHTS:
Impending boss fights tend to be indicated by the conspicuous presence of a rather grotesque but unlit candelabra. This indicator is important, because the player character will be locked into an arena with invisible walls.
The bosses themselves are ludicrously huge, not unlike those in From Software’s games. It is unlikely that the player character could ever jump over them. However, the player character can certainly roll past them, and just like most other enemies, most bosses cannot make attacks on their rear facings. On the other hand, a number of them can change their facings during their attack combos, usually after they have entered their next “phase”.
Speaking of “phase”, most bosses become fiercer as they lose health. They gain additional attacks, change the pattern of their attacks, or just gain a general power-up. Again, this is an ages-old game design trope, though one that has yet to be generally unwelcome. Defeating each one would grant some relief, at the very least.
Bosses happen to yield the most gold and salt among enemies. Therefore, meticulous players may face the indecision of having to kit out gear for maximized yields or for optimal combat performance.
MULTIPLAYER:
Multiplayer is by default only local co-op. In the computer version of the game, only the first player can use the mouse and keyboard. Everyone else must use a controller.
To initiate multiplayer, the primary player must place down a Sellsword statuette at a sanctuary. The NPC then allows access to a user interface that lets the other player select his/her character. Since multiplayer is local co-op by default, the game searches the players’ machine for game files of characters.
ONLINE MULTIPLAYER:
The developers have released a work-around that lets the game check more than one machine and, more importantly, let PC players play with each other online. (The PS4 version of the game also has a work-around for this.) However, online multiplayer is still affected by limitations that the local multiplayer setting has, such as having to share the same screen.
Furthermore, the non-primary player has a lot of limitations, such as not getting copies of certain items. In fact, they will not progress in their own playthroughs, because the players’ session is set in the primary character’s game world.
That said, there are some conveniences that have been implemented. For one, bringing up the menus automatically causes one character to warp over to the other character.
If the secondary player character has progression-enabling items, specifically keys and brands, he/she can open the way for the primary character. This can circumvent the sequence of progression, which can be advantageous for the primary character.
WRITING:
Ska Studios is a Swedish game company, but its two individuals (the Silva couple) had been making games for English-speaking audiences for a while. They also have friends in game development circles, some of whom are English writers. Thus, most of the English writing in this game is competent, or at least convincing in giving an impression of medieval fantasy speech. There are still some typos here and there, of course; there is a lot of writing in the game to check, after all.
That said, these are mainly found in the lore descriptions of items. Some are included as snippets for the nodes in the skill tree. Nodes that impart similar bonuses do happen to have snippets that belong to the same set of lore.
Fortunately, the main plot points are delivered by actual characters instead. Therefore, the game does not repeat the issue that was in the first few Souls games, which is that most of the backstory has to be gleaned from the lore snippets in item descriptions.
VISUAL DESIGNS:
Salt and Sanctuary is the most ambitious game by Ska Studios to date. Indeed, a major sign of this is the artstyle of the game, which is substantially more refined than those seen in its earlier games, especially the Dishwasher titles and Charlie Murder. The artstyle of this game does retain certain characteristics of the older artstyle, namely the comical bodily proportions of humans (and former humans) and their facial structures.
However, this is just it. Everything else seen in the visuals would not seem out of place if they were in a Dark Souls game, if that game was 2D. The atmosphere of any location is demure, foreboding or oppressive, or all of these. For example, the Red Hall of Cages is a noisome place full of torture implements (as well as insane denizens), and it shows this with its foreground and background objects.
Another major sign of departure from previous games is the extensive use of layers of artwork and sprites for the game world. For the most part, the parallax in the layers give a convincing sense of visual perspective.
At times though, the player is reminded that he/she is playing a game with 2D platforming – sometimes in disappointingly typical ways. One example of this is the obscuring of platforms with layers in the foreground, which is an ages-old trope in the design of “secret” areas in 2D games with elements of exploration.
Not unlike other 2D indie games of its era, Salt and Sanctuary has its characters implemented as sprites with spliced-together body parts. Most of the human or humanoid characters are animated quite well, especially when compared to the gangly and overly comical characters in Charlie Murder.
Of course, being a game that is inspired by the nightmarish settings of the Souls games, there are plenty of things that are as hideous as they are bizarre. The “Kraeken” monstrosities are particular examples. On the other hand, many creatures in the game have visual designs that would seem all too familiar. Indeed, the very first inhuman monster to be encountered in the game is a knock-off of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulu.
SOUND DESIGNS:
There are no legible voice-overs that can be heard; all dialogues and monologues are delivered with text bubbles. The player may hear grunts, groans, screams, howls and roars from certain enemies, but these are all the utterances in the game.
The music composition is perhaps the most obvious homage to the King’s Field successors. For example, the track for the main menu would not be too far off from those in the Souls games. For another example, the track that plays in most boss fights is an ominous orchestral track with an illegible choir.
Fortunately, the other tracks are more original. For example, there is the melancholic guitar solo that plays when the player character is at the sanctuary.
The sound effects would also sound a tad familiar to anyone that has played the Souls games. For example, the chimes that play whenever the player navigates the menus are not far off from those in the Souls games (though the Souls games were not the first game to use chimes for menu navigation, of course).
Having had experience making nasty sounds for the comically violent combat in Ska Studios’ earlier games, Ska Studios has produced a satisfying set of sounds for the one in this game too. The most satisfying of these sound effects are those of enemies disintegrating as their salt is released.
CONCLUSION:
At first glance, this game might seem like a 2D devolution or deconstruction of the King’s Field successors. It is actually more than that, though it does so by using elements from other acclaimed games, especially Castlevania and Metroid. There are also flaws, such as subpar programming of the control inputs for attacks and multiplayer that is not developed thoroughly well.
Still, the end result is functional and more importantly, entertaining and convincing enough to be a competent implementation of Souls-like gameplay in a 2D format.