Salt And Sanctuary (2D Dark Souls clone (Demon's Souls successor clone (Dark Souls 2 predecessors clone (Dark Souls 3's predecessors predecessors clon

[Vulpes Absurda]

The new game from Ska Studios has come out on PS4 (PC and Vita coming this summer) and is getting pretty good reviews.

 

Bullet points include:

 

-It's basically a 2D souls game

 

-It plays well

 

-it's not just a Souls ripoff

 

-I ran out of space for the joke in the title and decided it was funnier that way and left it

 

That's all I got. I haven't played it yet what do you want? ;P

[Dewar]

Oh man, I had no idea this was out on PS4. Any PC news?

[Vulpes Absurda]

Just some time this summer as far as I can tell. I don't think Ska Studios has a lot of PC dev experience so who knows.

[Vulpes Absurda]

I've played about an hour and so far it's a game of almost. It's almost just Dark Souls in 2D. It almost plays really well. It almost makes sense. It's skill tree is almost lifted out of FFX. It almost isn't kind of ugly. All and all it seems pretty solid and I can see it getting a lot better as I get used to the systems more. I would say it's well worth checking out.

[J.C.]

I bought this last night and put in about an hour. Got the first boss down and died horribly to the second one since its room wasn't clearly marked and I was far from prepared for it.

 

So far, it's quite good! I kind of wish instead of stopping mid-air to do an attack, it would do a slam attack (unless you can do that some other way?). I keep hitting attack when that's what I want to do, and obviously it doesn't do that.

 

I can't tell if pressing attack with the shield up is supposed to be a parry, or a shield bash, or both depending on your timing. If it's a parry, I've yet to figure out the timing.

 

I haven't had the opportunity to check into different weapons very much, but I'm hoping to dive into that a bit more soon.

[Dewar]

I'm so bummed that this is a PS4 exclusive at the moment, but I guess I have plenty of games to play anyway.

[dartmonkey]

-it's not just a Souls ripoff

Everything I've read and seen suggests it is exactly that, though. A very good one - lovingly made, transplanted into 2D - but a brazen doppelgänger. Does it have anything of its own? (genuine question - I'm not being facetious

[Vulpes Absurda]

Not really? At times it feels like one of those Chinese theme parks based on World Of Warcraft. Like all the serial numbers are filed off but just barely. The biggest differences aside from the perspective are the places where they don't live p to From's standards. Mostly in the art department.

 

I will say that when people say it's not just a souls ripoff I think what they mean is it's not a cash grab. It's a very earnest attempt.

[Reyturner]

eSports has forever tainted what "salt" means to me in relation to video games. 

 

And I'm not entirely convinced I'm not supposed to make that connection here. 

[eot]

I always think of Saltybet.

That was great fun for two weeks.

[Gormongous]

eSports has forever tainted what "salt" means to me in relation to video games. 

 

And I'm not entirely convinced I'm not supposed to make that connection here. 

 

Salt used to have the iconic meanings of purity and hospitality, now it means bitterness and regret. Language!

[marginalgloss]

Allow me to be the inevitable jerk who butts in to the conversation to add '...but they already made a 2D Dark Souls, and it was called Symphony of the Night!'

 

I watched a bit of footage of this and, as a fan of those From Software games, I'm certainly intrigued. But to call it a 'loving homage' would be generous. They even went as far as to replicate the little screen rumble you get when you do the fat roll. You've got to admire the gumption if nothing else. I'm really interested to see what people make of this.

 

I've got some pretty mixed feelings about the art style. I like that it has a certain ramshackle papercraft punk DIY album art aesthetic, but I'm not sure it entirely fits with the feel of the games it's clearly trying to imitate. It's a bit like going to see a tribute band and they end up playing the radio edit of your favourite song rather than the album version and it leaves you wondering whether they really understood what was great about it in the first place. 

 

I'll probably play it at some point, but at the moment I've still got the Bloodborne DLC to play, and I really want to play to Scholar of the First Sin at some point. But if they get the Vita version running nicely, that might totally destroy me. A portable Souls-em-up would be perfect for my commute.