Condiment Carnage
Salt & Sanctuary isn't so much Dark Souls in two dimensions, but Castlevania as one would hope to imagine it in 2016. Ska Studios, up until now synonymous with anarchic 2D fisticuffs, have produced their most ambitious and complex title to date. Through the filter of From Software's dark fantasy franchise, Salt & Sanctuary effortlessly combines elements of 2D platformers, brawlers, character action games and RPGs into a gleefully brutal mixture.
The adventure begins with your heroine/hero at sea on a mission to forge peace between warring lands. Accompanying you is a princess who goes missing when you are inevitably shipwrecked and washed ashore onto a strange island. Your immediate concern is to search for her, but as one might imagine the matter is not so simple, especially when the island in question is populated by savage monsters and the grotesque remnants of civilisations fallen into corruption and madness. It is a wonderfully gross spectacle, full of death and decay. Foreboding castles, poisonous swamps, and blood-stained torture dungeons litter a land that seems bent on making all its inhabitants suffer. It even has what appears to be slain player characters hanging from gallows, like macabre trophies to the island's own perverse glory.
It helps then that the game has a sense of humour as otherwise all this darkness and despair might be a little too overbearing. When you name your skill tree the 'Tree of Skill', you clearly aren't taking things that seriously. The cartoon art style also gives the game a strange cutesy charm in amongst all the horrible bleakness, yet does not undermine that atmosphere of sorrow and despair. Ska Studios are no strangers to making dark and sanguinary imagery, and their getting into bed with Dark Souls has paid dividends in the creation of a gloomy world that whilst a loving homage to From Software's own brand of doom and anguish, isn't a simple photocopy.
One thing that was copied for sure was the superb world design; areas in the game have multiple connections with each other and the entire island is this wonderfully labyrinthine network of secret passages, clever shortcuts, and hidden treasure. Exploration is encouraged and handsomely rewarded, with progress only making the intricacies all the more impressive as everything starts to link together like a beautiful spiderweb.
Combat likewise is nuanced and varied. Although generally fast and visceral, Salt & Sanctuary is certainly no arcade button masher. Enemies are quick to take advantage of gaps in your defence and will mercilessly slaughter the unwary or over-zealous. What counts is skill; one's ability to anticipate and react to dangers effectively. Stamina management is crucial, as even though it recovers very quickly, the pace of battle requires that you do not overlook it. Blocking, dodging, parries and ripostes all play a vital role, as does your choice in both weapons and armour. It's a dynamic system, where the enemy variety and level design add extra layers of complexity and challenge. Those looking for Dark Souls' more considered pacing may well be disappointed by the more light footed approach here, but battles in Salt & Sanctuary are no less thrilling as a result.
Certainly one thing it has over Dark Souls is the use of jumping. There is a fair degree of platforming in Salt & Sanctuary and the verticality it offers grants an added dimension to both exploration and combat. Getting about can be its own challenge at times and successfully navigating a set of tricky platforms can be as rewarding as beating a particularly tough enemy, especially as the game's secrets are often located in these out of way, hard to reach places. Additionally, progress grants new abilities, or 'brands', which allow for new ways to travel, unlocking new areas and opening the path to secrets within locations previously explored.
In terms of its RPG elements, Salt & Sanctuary is very much Dark Souls. Experience points are counted in salt as opposed to souls and you lose them when you die, then needing to be retrieved without dying a second time to avoid losing them forever. Sanctuaries are the equivalent to Dark Souls' bonfires, acting as respawn points and allowing you to restore health and access services such as upgrades, items and fast travel, albeit here via single use items that summon vendor NPCs to that location. The menus, the types of weapons and armour on offer, even the various consumable and miscellaneous items all seem like they've been directly filched from Lordran or Drangleic. Upgrades are handled in roughly the same way by trading in experience points plus upgrade items, however levelling does take a slightly different approach where each level automatically upgrades your health, but where each level grants you a point to spend in its heavily Path of Exile inspired skill tree. It is through this that you improve attributes like strength, equipment load, stamina etc. as well as unlocking additional heal potions and access to higher class equipment.
It's a well designed system and allows for very fluid development of one's character. Skills on the tree are very close to one another and it doesn't take much to change the focus of your build, and with the ability to gain items that allow you to reallocate points there emerges a real flexibility to adapt you character to the needs of the moment.
When added all together, the desire to copy so much of the furniture you'd typically find in a Souls game has a benefit that goes far beyond simply making you feel as though you're playing a 2D celebration of that series. The consequence for so much Souls worship is that Salt & Sanctuary, already a great Metroid/Castlevania style adventure, transcends its usual peers to become something altogether deeper and more satisfying. The role-playing elements are far more integral to the gameplay here, where even the quantity and variety of loot on offer is impressive considering the modest resources available.
It does have some technical issues however. Traversal at times can be a little finicky, especially in the later stages where dying can cost you a lot of salt and gold. Jumping to catch that awkward ledge doesn't always feel as precise as it ought to, and its telling that the majority of deaths came from falls rather than some grisly impaling. Also, curiously, enemy attacks in certain places can sometimes have the effect of finding oneself clipping through the world, needing either a teleport item or a restart to escape this most odd of purgatories. These occurrences are rare however, and more amusing than anything else.
Salt & Sanctuary is a fantastic experience. It manages the difficult task of incorporating so many elements from other much revered games and genres, but rather than produce a confused mess, Ska Studios have somehow made one of the best games you can currently play in two dimensions. It's perhaps a shame that the link to Dark Souls may well ultimately overshadow its own achievements, but for what it is, Salt & Sanctuary is more than a match for its much beloved inspiration.
