A Solid 16/10 - Let's Play Salt and Sanctuary

Salt and Sanctuary is a 2D Metroidvania-style game developed by Ska Studios, a husband and wife development team. Even a brief glance will make it clear that it’s also strongly inspired by From Software’s Dark Souls franchise, both in terms of overall atmosphere and specific mechanics. However this game is no mere copycat (cough Lords of the Fallen cough) as it utilizes what it takes from Dark Souls very well, usually putting its own unique spin on it. Amusingly enough, in the transition from the third dimension to the second, the game ends up replicating the feel of the Koji Igarashi-directed Castlevania games. Oddly appropriate, given that the Dark Souls games are often referred to as “how a 3D Castlevania should feel.”

This LP will be a mostly comprehensive playthrough of the game. I will be attempting to show off all of the different playstyles available, as well as a wide variety of gear and weapons. I will also be showing off all of the game’s areas, however I may end up missing a chest or two; there are a lot of secrets in this game and I do not have them all memorized. But you can expect to see a majority of the game’s content in this playthrough.

Updates are planned for every Monday and Friday, around 5 PM EST.















5 Likes

Today’s update:

Nice to see you join us, Lotus. :3:
I liked this game quite a bit, despite all its flaws.
Like that one part. You know the one.

YOKU BLOOOOOOCKS :angry:

Very nice and informative, I’ve been really wanting to see an LP of this game. :slight_smile:

Glad to see this LP make the migration. I’ve seen some way into this game, but never seen it completed or finished it myself. Should be fun to see where the game goes.

I’m a huge fan of Ska Studios and I sank a bunch of hours into this game, but it never clicked with me the way the rest of their stuff did and I didn’t get too far. I think I just don’t enjoy the Souls formula myself, but I love informative-style LPs of Souls games and I’ll definitely be following this one closely.

Today, we die.

The absolute dominance of the Warhammer was one of the big things that soured this game for me. At first it was satisfying to instantly triple my damage output and one-shot every new enemy type I was coming across, but I eventually got sick of it and wanted to try something new. By then, though, the game had gotten quite difficult and I’d learned none of the requisite skills besides “run up and attack,” and I couldn’t find anything with even half the attack power the Warhammer had after a few upgrades. I was able to ween myself onto Shrouded Bulwark a bit, but that thing’s also crazy overpowered and near-identical in practice anyway.

I didn’t enjoy the massive weapon imbalance myself, but I really like that you’re showing off how other weapons can be a means to the same end.

Started this LP last night and I’m really enjoying it. I tried this game because I’m a huge fan of the Souls series and it was similar enough to feel familiar, but different enough to throw me off guard. Gonna catch up with this LP and give it another shot because you’re doing a great job explaining the mechanics.

I’m keeping an eye on this LP, especially for the play style variety; not to bash Highwang’s LP, I’m keeping track of that one too, but I like seeing variety in gear and playing around that.

Yeah, despite the obvious Souls influence it doesn’t really play much like them thanks to the 2D plane and a more combo-focused mashy combat system.

Also, new update:

I’d never seen the attack of the Probably Clay Phantom before.

Apologies for the slight delay, today. Episode is currently processing and should be up soon.

Missed Friday’s update, but I’ll be one update ahead from now on so that shouldn’t occur in the future.

Today we got a cool new area with some unbelievably annoying enemies.

Time to visit the land of stink. It’s a Souls-inspired game, it has to have a poisonous bog.

That armor set is the Boatman’s set. Remove the o.

Another double boss-a-reeno. Goes pretty smoothy thanks to our ::skull_crossbones:JAWS OF DEATH:skull_crossbones:, though.

I kind of like the lore behind these two bosses.

Mainlined the LP over a couple of days and I’m loving it so far. Started playing on my own and I’m enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would, never been a big of actually -playing- souls style games but they always appealed to me because I was a sucker for the Kings Field style games.

It’s kind of charming how hellacious the human models and animation are, and then the environments are kind of gorgeous in a Darkest Dungeon sort of style. This game really feels like such a mixed big, but instead of being angry when it shits on the floor you just have to put your hands on your hips and roll your eyes. It means well, and it certainty has passion put in it, but now and then you have skeletons teleporting all over the place and the odd one will give you a swift kick to the jimmies.
It reminds me in a way of GunGirl 2 (god what a horrific name) where everyone is just straight out gross crawled out of newgrounds style and the level assets are just big blobs of whatever defaults came in whatever pack they were using. But underneath all that is a fairly fun metroidvania in the vein of cave story, with all sorts of bonkers weapons and secrets to find. Also the music owns so there’s that.

Saw the recent patch just gave Reapers a proper execution now, so I’m already plotting and planning how to swing that kind of playthrough. Thanks for giving me the resource to come back to when I eventually forget some important bear ass I need for upgrading stuff or missing some sweet ass piece of fashion in the bottom of a pit.

King’s Field is the shit. Fast question, don’t think about it: which is your favorite KF?

I was not aware there was a recent patch. I was planning on using another reaper soon anyway so that’s pretty fortuitous timing.

Anyway update time. 100% optional areas.