![]() When the time finally came for me to put aside my pot and apron and become the greatsword-swinging warrior I suppose I was born to be, for instance, the transition wasn't quite as fluid as it might have been in Dark Souls on account of a sprawling skill tree in the style of Path of Exile and Final Fantasy 10. Whenever Salt and Sanctuary elects to let go of Miyazaki's hand, it runs the danger of losing its way. He eventually fell to my iron pot of doom, but not before I'd had to adjust to Salt and Sanctuary's little idiosyncrasies, such as how attacks make my salty chef pause for a second in midair. Just when I thought I'd learned his rhythm, he shook it up by attacking more swiftly and ferociously. ![]() The fight demonstrates Salt and Sanctuary's commitment to Mega Man-style memorization, but it also highlights the volatility of its approach. When he slammed lightning on the ground, I'd jump over it. The brawling itself is never quite as demanding as it is in the games that inspired it, but neither does it ever devolve into mindless hacking and slashing.I initially saw it all come together in the first boss fight, where a hulking chump called the Sodden Knight waits atop a rickety tower. Light attacks and strong attacks, blocks and rolls, charged attacks and shifts to hold a one-handed weapon in two hands-all share time in the spotlight here. Though the action has shifted to profile view, the core abilities remain the same, although mapped a little differently by default when played with a gamepad. Remarkably, this kinship extends to the combat as well. (A little hilariously, "Praise the Salt!" is a common one.) It does, however, feature a workable couch co-op option that can make boss battles much breezier. The main-and huge-spot where the comparisons falls short is in the absence of PVP combat, although you can leave bottles for other players with messages composed from a limited set of words. Death, particularly on bosses, comes swift and easily. Here, too, is the minimalist story, imparted only by sparse NPCs who seem more interested in being cryptic than being helpful. The difference? They're called salt here, and in a nod to Bloodborne, you have to kill the enemy who killed you to get them back if you lose them. There are, for instance, the souls themselves, which drop from enemies and serve as currency for leveling and weapon and armor upgrades. Name almost any feature common to Hidetaka Miyazaki's punishing games, and it almost certainly asserts itself here in some form or another. It's what Terraria is to Minecraft and with similar success. The Apprentice or The Master?But otherwise this is very much Dark Souls in 2D form. If I were to choose an old-school sidescroller to base this kind of experiment on, I could think of no better source. Beyond that, Salt and Sanctuary brilliantly recalls the earliest Castlevanias, right down to the zigzaggy side-on stairs and the bats who swoop down and try to knock my Chef Belmont down into the abyss. The color palette may be wider than what we find in The Dishwasher, but it’s nevertheless dull and earthy, thus punctuating the idea of the menace of its world even if the circly heads and strangely drawn beards do not. Inspired by comic strips and angry marginal doodles in high school notebooks, the aesthetic allows for spectacles of blood splatters and gore that might otherwise be disturbing if paired with a style more inclined toward realism. It establishes much of it with a rough-brushed art style, which greatly resembles that used by developer Ska Studios' own Dishwasher series. It's not without its own identity, even if that, too, rides on the shoulders of other giants. In less capable hands, it might have devolved into parody, but instead Salt and Sanctuary establishes itself as a lovingly crafted reimagining that usually succeeds in capturing the spirit of From Software's adventures in a format that initially seems incompatible with it. Salt and Sanctuary pulls liberally from From Software's series for this 2D adventure. Sound a little like Dark Souls? It's no accident. Gordon Ramsay never unleashed such spite.Īt last I made it to the deck, where I faced off with what looked like Cthulhu himself. Larry never brained Curly with such vigor. It's one of the eight starting classes, after all, and thus, clad in apron and armed with a three-foot iron pot and a handful of potatoes, I left the sanctuary of my galley to slay the pirates stealing our princess from our ship and murdering my crewmen. Forget about mages and warriors-in an RPG with a name like Salt and Sanctuary, I figured it was only appropriate to save the world as a chef.
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