GAME REVIEW: Salt and Sanctuary (2016)
The more I write reviews of video games, the more I feel inclined to revisit certain modern favorites and write them up too, since I reference them fairly regularly. I’ve only been writing game reviews for the past 4 years or so, meaning that many of my favorite games aren’t included in my reviews yet, be they modern or classic. I wanted to start remedying that and the first game that came to mind is Salt and Sanctuary, because its sequel, Salt and Sacrifice is already in my review archive. So with that in mind, let’s talk about one of my favorite modern metroidvania video games! This game was released in 2016 by Ska Studios and is a 1-2 player adventure/exploration game.
First and foremost, Salt and Sanctuary had two things going for it: a Souls-like environment with a metroidvania setting. I will say upfront that they did both of these things absolutely spectacularly. The world map is a brilliant thing, reminiscent of classics like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, that you must explore multiple times due to its various blocked paths and hidden routes. You open many paths from the other end later in game, or by obtaining a new power—classic metroidvania done perfectly, no complaints! This is true also of the Souls-like gaming. Souls games do often have similarly interconnected worlds but in 3D, so the world setting feels absolutely perfect for this sort of gaming and the difficulty absolutely matches. There were many bosses that I struggled to defeat on my own, as I’m not the most technically skilled gamer around and I’m right about the least patient gamer you’ll come across, so the difficulty level was really challenging.
Regarding the gameplay, the player gets to choose from a few races and styles in the setup that don’t mean much of anything at the start of the game (some give starting items that are more helpful than others), but these details slowly start to tell you more lore as you play through the game a few times. Immediately on landing on the island, the player meets an old man who introduces the concept of creeds, which are similar to the Dark Souls covenants, in that they offer certain boons based off gameplay style. We ended up exploring all of the creeds when playing and the way you can change them and adapt the people inside the sanctuaries as the game progresses is really fun and innovative.
Regarding art and music, this game is also absolutely spectacular. The hand-drawn quality of the world and characters is really beautiful and the style adapts to creepiness magnificently, as needed. The music is subdued and not even noticeable at times, until it is, and when it is, you feel like you need to know it. However, one of the main lures to this game was the fact that it has the option for couch co-op. My partner and I have played this through together at least twice now and I’m not convinced that we won’t return to it again, especially considering how disappointing/half-assed we found the sequel. I’d rather replay this game any day than revisit an inferior copy, even if it was released by the same studio.
Mechanically, the game does a good job as well: there are different outfits that you can use à la Souls-gaming that give you different buffs and debuffs based on your needs; the same goes with weapons. The battles are very challenging but there wasn’t a whole lot of BS—most of the times I was screaming at the TV were because of my own errors, though there were some particularly bitchy bosses in there, I won’t deny (I’m looking at you, Witch of the Lake, with an unimpressed snarl in my eye). The ending of the game is exactly as mystical and weird as I would hope it would be, both atmospherically and with regard to the battle itself. It was also fun to explore different types of gameplay, from fighters to magic users, there were a lot of different playstyles to explore.
Story spoilers in this paragraph: The island that the game is set on is a strange, esoteric, dream-like space that has pulled awful places of legend from the game’s “real world.” As the player proceeds, they meet others who have been cast adrift and landed on this island who recognize some of the locations from legends of their own worlds. The character starts aboard a ship, which is attacked by some sort of eldritch “kraeken”—this is a battle you can win, but you don’t need to (I did once go through the trouble when I was trophy hunting on the PS4 though and it was a fun challenge), as it’s really just there to set the scene for the rest of the game. There’s an unsettling scarecrow that threatens you as you proceed through the game and does appear to be the avatar of the final boss, the Nameless God. The story seems centered around the existence of “saltborn” and “lightborn” entities, the Nameless God being the former, striving for an unattainable divinity that can only be achieved by the lightborn. In the end of the game, you may choose to escape the island via a well and end the mysterious cycle of war created by his existence, or you may take up the mantle of the Nameless God and take his place: classic Souls-like storytelling!
Ultimately, this game was exactly everything that it was trying to be and I’m not sure how often I can say that about a game. It takes inspiration heavily from Dark Souls and Castlevania, but executes everything with class and a unique flavor that’s all its own. I’m of the opinion that Salt and Sanctuary easily stands on its own feet as an entity, without feeling like a derivative rehash—it puts those aspects of Soulsborne and metroidvania gaming to work in its own way and the addition of couch co-op multiplayer is just the icing on the cake that made this game into a more or less flawless release.
