[PS4/VITA] Salt and Sanctuary (2D Souls inspired game)

[Chaos2Frozen]

This world has known war for centuries.

But peace is finally, preciously near.

We'd deliver the Princess to the kingdom across the sea, where a marriage alliance would save us all.

Failing this mission would surely plunge us into darker days...

Ska Studios’ Salt and Sanctuary coming soon exclusively to PS4/PS Vita

Salt and Sanctuary casts you as a sailor shipwrecked on a strange, purgatorial island, insulated somehow against a backdrop of centuries-old worldwide perpetual war. What hope remains is isolated in Sanctuaries, protected dwellings where travellers can band together under common creeds to take shelter from the hostile world outside.

Weapons can be one-handed and paired with shields or offhand crossbows for versatility, or wielded two-handed for added power, and every configuration has its own unique move-set. There are staffs for magic, bows for ranged combat, and belt-slotted consumables like throwing daggers and weapon-buffing Pitchfire. Of course, load-out weight affects your movement, rolling speed and stamina regen, so a good balance of defence and agility is key. Basically, it combines two things we love: fast, precise 2D combat and super strategic RPG depth. Also, there are curb stomps

[SineMora]

Not to mention that death here is crueler than souls... If you die and had excess salt (souls in souls series)not only you lose them, but make the enemy near your death stronger...

[Chosen_Hero]

I like how Soulslike has become it's own genre.

I Really want to play this game.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Here's Polygon's video preview with some info about the class/upgrade system for your character (and yes, you can play as a female)

Originally Posted by SineMora

Not to mention that death here is crueler than souls... If you die and had excess salt (souls in souls series)not only you lose them, but make the enemy near your death stronger...

It's an interesting twist to the death mechanic. Lords of the Fallen attempted their own twist when they let the player regen health when they're near their blood pool or something like that.

Originally Posted by Chosen_Hero

I like how Soulslike has become it's own genre.

I Really want to play this game.

Someone mentioned before it's like how the "Roguelike" genre came about.

[Chaos2Frozen]

The new trailer showed off a crazy ton of bosses and customization... More weapon variety than I've expected.

[Chosen_Hero]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

The new trailer showed off a crazy ton of bosses and customization... More weapon variety than I've expected.

Something tells me that Bloodborne left an impact on them after it released prompting then to make more additions (points to the shotgun/blunderbuss in the trailer).

[RWBladewing]

I am always looking forward to any Souls-like game, but man, between these trailers and the preview of the game with the devs on Giant Bomb a while back, I think this game is really pushing it in the "inspired" by Souls department. It's possible to be inspired by a game without lifting the entire aesthetic wholesale but that appears to be what they're doing in several areas. Environments and enemy designs are arguable (is that like, literally Bloodletting Beast in that new trailer?), but the general interface, the fonts, the menus, the character creation screen - I think they could have stood to be juuuuust a bit more original here.

I still have hopes this will be good though. Lords of the Fallen ultimately ended up being a huge disappointment for me.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Salt and Sanctuary Available March 15th, 2016

The day we have all been waiting for is here! Salt and Sanctuary will be available on PlayStation®4 on March 15th, 2016 and you can pre-order right now for 10% off. That’s in one week!

For all those wondering, Salt and Sanctuary is still in development for PS Vita, and will be cross-buy with PS4 when it’s released.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Launch Trailer!

[Kafriel]

This game genre has produced so much salt that the salt actually made it to the title. It doesn't look too hard, but you can only know after you've played it, so I'll wait a while before commenting on the difficulty.

[RWBladewing]

I actually found the game very easy overall but from what I've read I apparently stumbled across a very OP build. Will put in spoiler tags to not ruin it for anyone who doesn't want to know:

Spoiler:

GreatSwords and GreatHammers are extremely powerful and can kill several of the bosses in a single digit number of hits, especially if they are weak to the damage type or whatever elemental paper you apply, the end boss included. I've watched videos of people struggling with 1-handers and just been like "wow I literally killed that boss in 10 seconds". Pretty much every single fight just becomes "roll through enemy, hit once or twice, repeat a few times until dead."

Was quite enjoyable overall though. Spent pretty much all my free time on it for a couple days and beat it quickly. I still wish they had let up a little bit on lifting the entire aesthetic from Souls though, because the gameplay elements that deviated from it were pretty good (many surprising metroidvania elements and some pretty seriously hair-pulling platform sections among others), but I couldn't bring myself to take any of the lore seriously. It would have been more compelling if just a bit more of it had been their own.

[Chaos2Frozen]

I think depending on who you ask, people would find either the Dark Souls inspiration to be too much or just right. For me personally I felt that there was enough original ideas to have it's own identity- for example the Tree of Skills and Creeds/Sanctuary.

Even more divisive are the character design, I myself have zero issues with it but a lot of people were straight up put off by it.

[RWBladewing]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

I think depending on who you ask, people would find either the Dark Souls inspiration to be too much or just right. For me personally I felt that there was enough original ideas to have it's own identity- for example the Tree of Skills and Creeds/Sanctuary.

Even more divisive are the character design, I myself have zero issues with it but a lot of people were straight up put off by it.

I don't care for the character design (they remind me of those old Bratz dolls) but in general my character was so small and typically the last thing I was paying attention to at any given time so for me it was a non-factor.

[Chaos2Frozen]

It's been two weeks and I'm certain now that the game is now coming to PSN Asia so I bought it from a UK account.

In the beginning the game is only difficult as you're learning to rewire your brain for the new controls, I think I got used to it after the second boss.

Super Bunnyhop's review:

[Twi]

The game looks interesting.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Here's EpicNameBro and GermanSpy's playthrough if you need more gameplay videos, they do go more in detail with the design and mechanics.

[Twi]

Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation gave it a glowing review... at least as glowing as it gets for him.

[Twi]

Someone actually went out of their way to compile lore on the game: Here