Salt And Sacrifice manages to overcome a lousy first impression
Ska Studios' Salt And Sanctuary sequel is a bit ugly and off-putting on first glance, but there's an interesting world lurking underneath
Games Features Video games developed in Japan
Every Friday, A.V. Club staffers kick off our weekly open thread for the discussion of gaming plans and recent gaming glories, but of course, the real action is down in the comments, where we invite you to answer our eternal question: What Are You Playing This Weekend?
I did not like Salt And Sacrifice the first time I played it. Like, at all.
This was seven months ago, when the game’s PR folks first made available the alpha build of the game—a sequel to Salt And Sanctuary, one of the first titles to attempt to do the “Dark Souls but it’s a 2D side-scroller” conceit. Sanctuary has fallen out of the critical conversation in recent years, with titles like Hollow Knight and Blasphemous beating it on vibe, and Death’s Gambit and its ilk refining its spin on 2D Souls combat. But I still had enough lingering affection for Ska Studio’s original game (and their earlier efforts, which helped establish the “Flash Games made good” vibe of the old Xbox Live Arcade) that I wanted to see what the sequel was like…and came away from that first encounter deeply disappointed.
It’s churlish, even in this age of endless Early Access, to ding a game for the failures of a build that is, by its own titling, incomplete. But if managing impressions is important, then that goes doubly for first impressions, and the first impressions given off by Salt And Sacrifice were that its creators had hopped in a cryogenic freezing pod 20 minutes after the first game went gold, and had only re-emerged a few months earlier to make the sequel. The game’s world felt empty and under-explained; its animations stiff and rote; its combat unsatisfying. Nowhere was there an acknowledgement that this weird little sub-genre of a sub-genre had advanced in the intervening period; if anything, the new game felt like a step backward from a prequel that had been modestly pioneering, albeit for a definition of “pioneering” that meant “jamming two extremely popular things together and making it mostly work.”
I didn’t, thus, expect to get much more than a grumbling column out of it when I picked the game up again this week, this time on PS5, on the occasion of its full release. I certainly didn’t expect to be hankering, right now, to go back and play a bit more as soon as I’ve sent this piece off to our editors. It’s actually kind of frustrating; nobody likes having to un-write something off.
But the fact is that those seven months in the game dev oven have done wonders for Salt And Sacrifice. It’s hard for me to put a finger on what, exactly, has changed—I wasn’t making copious notes of my time with that earlier build—but everything about it feels smoother, and more like, well, a complete video game. Even the emptiness I observed in that earlier playthrough now feels more intentional; deliberate desolation, instead of unthinking emptiness.
The game’s not perfect, mind you—Salt only half-knows how to reckon with the difficulties of letting players avoid or mitigate damage on a 2D plane, when the Souls games they’re using as a template offer more three-dimensional avenues of escape. Meanwhile, several critical systems are still under-explained, and the art retains an off-puttingly amateurish quality. (Great monster designs, though.) And yet, Ska has found a compelling twist on the structures of the genre, building mini-missions into the game’s larger levels, and infusing just a jot of Monster Hunter DNA into the soup, inviting you to turn the monstrous Mages you’re tasked with hunting down into a shiny new set of pants. The end result is a surprisingly strong blend of exploration, challenge, and just a bit of that old “Grinding for the good loot” dopamine kick.
It’s enough to make me wonder if studios aren’t damaging themselves a bit by making such early sketches of their games available to press; I had a similar “Yeesh, too early” response to the first press-available builds of Rogue Legacy 2. (I’m still not convinced the latter has changed enough from the first game to justify its existence, but I’m certainly willing to give it a bit more time before passing judgement.) Mostly, though, I’m just happy to see the course correction. Salt And Sacrifice isn’t a masterpiece, but it’s a fine little indie game; I’m genuinely glad I went back for that second, fuller look.
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“I’m still not convinced the latter has changed enough from the first game to justify its existence”I don’t care at all for the notion that art needs to justify its existence. Like, how many games are really “necessary”?This weekend is for helping some relatives move, and will probably involve a few rounds of Smash Bros or Mario Kart in the process. If I find time for solo gaming though, I’ll be continuing my Prince of Persia series playthrough. Last week I fired up the Wii version of Forgotten Sands and was pleasantly surprised by just how good it is.It looks surprisingly good for a Wii game running on a 4K tv. The opulent environments rival its HD counterpart, all colourful tiles and arabesque patterns – it’s a cut above the variable textures in the PS2 trilogy.The platforming is some of the best in the series. Like Sands of Time, the levels are detailed traversal puzzles that yet maintain a strong sense of place – something Warrior Within rather struggled with. The “creation” abilities are fantastic, and suit the Wii’s pointer really well. They start out underwhelming, but late in the game become powerful, flexible tools for engaging with the space. They call to mind Portal’s Portal Gun, in how you feel almost like you can break the game, but the level design accounts for/expects whatever bullshit you might devise.My main flaw with the PS3 Forgotten Sands was how it felt like it wanted to be an action game, with a camera that shepherded the player forwards and abilities that required you to be moving the right way. Wii-FS is the complete opposite of this, with creative puzzles, secrets you have to actually look for and, most importantly, a setting to toggle how “helpful” the camera will try to be. You will need to look around to see where to climb, and that makes me happy.Because each entry in the series apparently needs a horrible flaw to hold it back from greatness, the combat controls are horrible. It’s motion controlled, with attacks mapped to swinging the remote and nunchuk, but there’s no connection between your movements and the Prince’s. It’s very clear that motions stand in for button-presses, and the result is clunky, imprecise and painful after a few minutes of flailing.If they’d come up with a button-driven scheme, or mapped different motions to different swings like Twilight Princess did with the same hardware, it could have been one of the Wii’s best games. As it stands, it’ll just have to settle with being a high point for the series.
I’m an X-Com slut so I’ve been lured to Warhammer 40k: Chaos Gate Daemonhunters. Man that is a long dumb name. The game itself is 40k Space Marine X-Com. There are many aspects that feel directly “borrowed” from the Firaxis games. The cut scenes are fun and the game plays well. They forgo hit percentages for damage modifiers based on range and cover which I know some prefer but I kinda hate. I want shots to miss. Especially since any hit passed armor causes a marine to be injury for days. Other then that I’m enjoying it. Will scratch the itch until the Marvel Midnight Sons game comes out later this year. I hope they are both big hits and lead to them finally making X-Com 3
I’ve been using my downtime at work to play through the original Blood (ie, the 1990s Build-engine shooter where your character is an homage to Roland from the Dark Tower who makes Evil Dead quips while lighting evil monks on fire with a flare gun, and the first level is an extended Phantasm reference). I got the CD-ROM from the bargain bin at Babbage’s in 1999, but this is the first time I’ve ever played the game without god mode. It’s a fun game and very cleverly designed (levels loop back on themelves in ways that are easy to miss if you’re cheating), but my favorite part is quickloading ambush rooms to see if I can escape without taking damage. I also started playing Scott Pilgrim vs the World for the zillionth time (on Switch, rather than Xbox 360 or PC), and it finally clicked. Better than Super Double Dragon. Kim Pine ftw.
This weekend I’ll be playing more of The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story, which I started last night. So far, it’s hard to form too much of an impression. The acting is very theatrical and deliberate, but you can tell the cast is skillful, since they’re all playing multiple roles. There also hasn’t been very much gameplay so far; it’s mostly just been watching filmed scenes.However, I’ll recommend not getting the game on Switch; the image is just a bit too small for handheld mode, since it uses a “cinematic” 2.39:1 aspect ratio. (This leaves room for UI elements above and below the film clips.) Plus, the investigative segments really feel like they were designed for mouse and keyboard. That being said, it runs just fine on the console, so maybe just play it in docked mode so you can see everything properly.
This week, I’ve been bouncing around a lot with a bunch of different games, but I did manage to complete two extremely short ones, first up: That’s a quick visual novel type game called Coffee Talk, where you play a barista working nights in a Seattle populated by fantasy creatures in the far-flung future of 2020. I was able to serve enough creatures the right drink to unlock 100% of the Steam achievements here.
I also got 100% of the achievements of this game from my backlog: In that screenshot, I believe I’m filling up a balloon with alien seal farts so that I can fill up a space taxi’s fuel tank and get home. Samorost 2 is very, very weird.
I also went through the tutorial of the ShaRkPG Maneater: Though once I got to the actual level, I immediately died to the first bounty hunter.
And thinking of bounty hunters, I played even more of the Bounty Hunter class story in Star Wars: The Old Republic as part of my Star Wars Saturday stream on https://twitch.tv/lost_limey Also streaming on there were the second and third episodes of Tell Me Why, and I got the Tyler ending on this play through rather than the Alyson one I got on my original playthrough.
Also, since I’ve promised myself not to buy Breath of the Wild until I actually finish Pokémon Shield, I’ve been playing some of that, but not nearly enough, though: Yeah, I got my first gym badge (and my second for that matter), so I only have six to go, plus the champion and both of the DLC stories. Bottom line, I’m going to be all over my Switch after work today…
That’s a quick visual novel type game called Coffee Talk, where you play a barista working nights in a Seattle populated by fantasy creatures in the far-flung future of 2020. I was able to serve enough creatures the right drink to unlock 100% of the Steam achievements here.But how good a latte-foam artist are you?Side-note: I just can’t quite grok the notion of purposefully seeking 100% on achievements/trophies/star stickers (do teachers still award those?), but that’s likely because I grew up in an era where video games were very withholding in their praise. You didn’t get a high score, kill-screen, or end-of-game “Congratulations!”?!? Well then I guess you better try again!
I sucked at the latte art mini game.And I don’t normally go for 100% achievements, but if I’m close, I might give it a try
Outside of a little dabbling with the new Wingspan DLC and a co-op playthrough of one of the April monthly picks in Escape Simulator, I’ve been all-in on Lightning Returns over the past week. After struggling to break past two of the three major bosses I had left, I managed to take down Snow and then just tear through the other two I had left, thanks in large part to Snow+ (I did him late enough that he got an upgrade) adding over 100 strength to my base stats. With that and all the other side quests I’d done for much smaller boosts combined, it finally felt like I was where I was supposed to be, and the combat seemed more fair than it’d been since day 3.Alas, as deep as I got, I don’t think you’re really meant to pass the game’s big, bad optional dungeon on the first playthrough, but NG+ lets you keep all your endgame stats and equipment, with new features to upgrade swords, shields, and head accessories. It really feels like you could initiate new loops endlessly if that’s what you needed to overcome the post-game content. I just hope the post-game content isn’t designed to require more than a second playthrough.My feelings on the plot have been pretty similar to the ones for base FF13’s plot: there’s a lot of heart in the character moments, but the fantasy anime bullshit is bad. There’s a “the church is enriching themselves at the expense of the dead they pretend to care about” thread that’s more nuanced than, say, Breath of Fire 2, but by and large the last hour of plot falls into that same old Final Fantasy hole of the final boss babbling incoherently about power in a modulated demon voice. There was a moment – a moment – when Lightning got pulled back from unnecessary self-martyrdom that would’ve made for a great closing thought. But that got completely eclipsed by the ridiculous amount of time spent on the mega-cheese of Dragon Ball/Power Rangers/Asura’s Wrath bullshit zero-gravity space battle where a beam of light made of the power of friendship disintegrated a golden theater mask with tentacles.Regardless, I thought the story did a fairly good job of tying a bow on the main protagonists’ arcs across the three games. It’s just the overarching story that tied those threads together that tried too hard to be grand. And now I’ll happily skip past even the most minor cut scenes while I make my arms more beefy, my swords more stabby, and my fire spells more toasty so I can coast through all the minor and major quests and story beats I didn’t see the first time.
Do you mean the underground dungeon thing? I think it’s a lot easier if you make everything extinct before going into it, since a lot of the floors end up being empty. I generally did it on the extra day, iirc.
Also, I know there is at least one new quest in NG+, although I never completed it. I’m sure it is doable on the second playthough, but I was never good enough to do it.
I hope the second playthrough treats you well!
Yeah, the underground dungeon. I had about a dozen extinct species before I went in, so some of the floors were mercifully empty, but I hit a wall with the Last One of one of the bigger minor enemies. I possibly could have bypassed it by skipping some floors rather than committing to fighting every Last One in order, but if I couldn’t kill that guy, I figured I didn’t have a chance with whatever superboss was at the end. I’m sure once I’ve gotten my repeat strength boosts from the strongest versions of all the major quest boss fights (through intentional delaying to level them up), I’ll have pretty good odds of plowing through with minimal problems.Right now I’m working on clearing Sazh’s quest and any other minor/bulletin board quests I have so that at some point I’m just going to be sleeping at the inn until it’s time to fight Snow++ and Caius+, etc. The minor quests go a lot faster when most enemies go down instantly to deprotect/heavy slash.
Yeah, that makes sense. It’s been a while since I’ve played, and had to look up what’s at the end of the dungeon. Yeah, it’s a challenge.
Now I want to play this game again. Soundtrack is really great as well.
Managed to update Sorceress based on what feedback I’ve gotten- mostly bug fixing, toned down some overloud SFX, there’s a pause screen now, etc. I’m keeping my ear out.For the most part it’s been a lot of Final Fantasy XIV and playing through the Shadowbringers expansion. And while it’s quite good and gripping, I have a certain quibble with the storytelling, and it’s quite spoilery, so just skip this if you haven’t played this far.Minfillia cannot catch a break, can she? Her original “death” was sorta poorly handled, like I guess they felt someone had to not come back from that big apparent massacre at the end of ARR and she drew the short straw. But then near the end of Heavensward you get some more closure on what happened and she goes off to this other world and you don’t know if she’ll ever be back and it’s kinda sweet. Then we actually go to this other world, and whoops she sacrificed herself again, but she might come back, but only if this innocent little girl dies! And you don’t want that, do you? So it’s very manipulative, and the narrative isn’t really focused on the WoL (despite the game doing a decent job centering your relationship to other characters thusfar), it’s about Thancred’s guilt. The very last(?) scene with her is touching, sure, but there’s still something dissatisfying about it, even compared to other major character deaths (say, the very end of Heavensward.) I feel she deserved better somehow.Beyond that it’s a good expansion.
I’ve been playing the hell out of Rogue Legacy 2 actually, it’s got everything I loved about the first game but more of it and better, the classes are all more distinct and interesting, the world design is better, and combat is fast and fluid (although sometimes frustrating when you fall onto spikes or an obstacle that you couldn’t see before you jumped) the music rules, the gameplay loop is really satisfying and with more interlocking reward loops (runes+rune upgrades, equipment+equipment upgrades return from the first game but are more interesting this time imo bc you have to manage essence and ore as well as gold, plus there’s challenges to unlock more long-term progression stuff, PLUS the game rewards you for taking characters with negative traits with extra gold which makes the decision much more engaging)… I don’t think I’m very good at it but since virtually every run ends with me getting stronger in some way it’s not really a problem :PI’ve also gone back to Noita which is a game I love despite it being kind of a mess from a game design perspective. It’s not really the kind of game you play to win, it’s the kind of game you play to fail in interesting and frustrating ways LMAO it’s a game for the fuck around and find out generation
Been busier than I would like in work, so it’s been a slow go chipping away at the end of Cyberpunk 2077. I’ve moved into Act 3, so it feels like I’m making the move towards end game, and I’ve enjoyed it. The refinements they have made to the game and the skill trees have been enjoyable, and it’s even easier for me to be a hacker / knife virtuoso on the streets of Night City. The game is quite more of a rush once you have all the points of interest done; no more searching out in the desert for stuff, it’s time to take it to Arasaka (I assume).
Not sure what else I might jump into: still pining away for NG+/DLC for Horizon Forbidden West (seriously, give me more of the side quests, I need more side quests of the level of this game provides. I will take one new side quest and be happy at this point), and I’ve sort of run aground in Rouge Legacy 2 (no motivation to defeat bosses due to story not being that great), and Dorfromantik is only a brief break, not something I can jump into for long sessions. I guess I’m in the God of War waiting queue now, since that seems like the only other game that I assume will pull me in with story and motivation to play. I can’t think of anything else out right now with that strong story + strong character connection to pull me in right now. And I’m looking, haha.
It really feels like this year in gaming is just really solidifying that I need strong story and character motivation in my games, or it just dies to me. I need reasons to want to try to defeat stuff now. Rouge Legacy 2 is a great example of this: fun characters to play, variety in weapons and spells and traits to keep things fresh. But I’ve just lost interest quick since I just don’t have the motivation from the game to keep going, there’s no connection to the characters and the story that provides me interest in seeing what happens when I defeat the next boss. But I can still fire up Hades whenever and be happy and get little tidbits of talk and story from in-game family and friends, even if the reward is somewhat non-existant (in game) at this point.
Maybe I’m just getting old and tired or something, but I want more talking and moments that make me think about life and myself and such in my games, and less wandering around an huge map, looking for another cave or another ghost to smack for some coins. As someone who also has over 1,500 hours in The Witcher 3, it counfounds me that I feel this way, but I guess I do now.
Playing some sweet tabletop action with some marvel crisis protocol Saturday and I’m also playing through dead space 2 since the remake got announced and I’m playing 40k chaosgate for some XCOM style action. Having a grey knights bum rush a cultist cut him in half and then shoot another guy down is cool as hell
Last weekend was Free Comic Book Day, so I hung out with some friends, went to local comic book shops trying not to trip over any of the collectors skulking about, and played some branded board games:Gargoyles: Awakening- Did you ever want to be one of Disney’s non-Hunchback of Notre Dame-related grotesques (or their one human friend) fighting a pitched battle with Xanatos, Demona, Coldstone, the Steel Clan, or an infinitely replicating horde of random bikers? Well, you sure can, after figuring out the sometimes overexplained, sometimes poorly explained rules and putting together the (mostly) ornamental cardstock buildings (which either have to be taken apart or stored outside the box after you’re done)! Interesting ideas, good theming, limited scenarios. This game is cooperative (as are the rest of the games mentioned below), but there is an “One vs. Everyone Else” adversarial mode that we never tried.Alien: Fate of the Nostromo- We never actually won a game of this cooperative survive-’em-up, but we did actually manage to exploit the game mechanics in a probably prohibited (either deep in the rules or in the errata) way: shooting a grappling line to bring the xenomorph close and then using the automatic flee response to move the character where they needed to be. The key seems to be keeping on top of morale, which the xenomorph will absolutely chew through as your team attempts to fulfill their randomized objectives; Jones the cat even shows up and does a small amount of morale “damage” if it pops up in the course of exploring the ship. AFAIK, there’s no way to recover morale, but you can mitigate it: flashlight and electric prod for the alien, cat carrier for Jones. Again, great theming, unsure of the replay value, plays a bit like The Thing board game sans the mission-based betrayal mechanic.Last but not least…Fast & Furious: Highway Heist- This was probably our group’s favorite, probably at least partially influenced by my friends’ mostly unironic love of the franchise. As the F&F virgin, I had the 9th one inflicted on me; it was a LOT…but I do have to admit it was fun. The game takes place on an small but ever-shifting strip of highway wherein both the nominal bad guys and our intrepid, spectacle-obsessed protagonists must move ever forward, lest their rides wreck or fall off the edge of the board. The “heroes” are either driving or “on foot”, which in this world means “standing atop the top or hood of a vehicle”. Random stunts of escalating difficulty/spectacle become available over the course of the game, as a way to both further your objective and gain precious “boost”, which can influence skill rolls. A blast to play for more off-the-cuff turn-by-turn play, limited scenarios, a bit of logical wonkiness in the mechanics (a car is considered manned until you actually take over another car, even if you aren’t actually in/on it).In other news, I’ve had some lower back pain lately that has made sitting for long periods of time painful, so I haven’t actually out too much time into Elden Ring, but I did actually mange to beat Starscorge Radahn this week! Granted, it was my slightly toned wizard throwing magic purple rocks at him while continually summoning a small army to run interference, but I’m perfectly happy with that level of cheese.
I didn’t even know there WAS a sequel to SaS (one of the few PS games I platinumed). Cool.
The best 2D soulslike game!