It made me feel a little iffy about going out of my way to further explore which totally defeats the purpose of a Metroidvania.

Moving through the environment doesn’t feel super satisfying. The playable character also doesn’t move particularly fast. It’s second nature in a game like this to refer to a map. Many times I would instinctively click the start button to pull up a map, but I was always let down. Even getting to see where you are in relation to a checkpoint is impossible. Salt and Sacrifice doesn’t give you that luxury. It allowed you to maybe skip over spots you’ve been to several times where you knew they were fully explored. I could fast travel to that spot and get there even sooner” was very convenient. Opening the map and saying to yourself “okay I have been there, I have to head all the way over there. It was always very fun to see two areas close together with an obvious connection point, and then having to go and find it. Mainly because all of my exploration was rewarded with further places to trek. I played a lot of Metroid Dread this year and found it wildly satisfying to play. So my question is, why doesn’t this game have a map or fast travel? It has a sprawling labyrinth with very punishing stamina based combat. Salt and Sacrifice is Metroidvania meets Souls-like. Unfortunately, for every positive feeling I have towards this game, I have a negative that takes away from the positive.

You’ve got some foundation, but the moment it comes to hitting the dancefloor you look like a fucking crazy person and get kicked out of the club.įortunately, I have many great things to say about this game. Starting from scratch feels like trying to breakdance after you’ve mastered swing dancing. I haven’t played Salt and Sanctuary, so I had to start from scratch. I already had dodge timing and attack windows ingrained into my muscle memory. You see, learning the rhythm and tempo in games of this style is always a challenge, especially after recently finishing my third play-through of Elden Ring.

Immediately, I added a layer of challenge to my first playthrough. I picked one of the most up close and personal classes in the game. I intended to play a Samurai in Elden Ring and didn’t wind up doing that, so I decided it’d be fitting to give it a whirl in Salt and Sacrifice. I decided to play the Highblade class which is a dexterity focused Samurai build. This game is punishing right off the bat. I can’t believe I’m about to say this in my first ever written review, but it’s really all about those Dark Souls influences.

Salt and Sacrifice instaling