Salt and Sacrifice

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Critics Recommend

Average Score

Total Reviews: 40

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Salt and Sacrifice is an impressive attempt at a 2D Soulsborne, with beautiful art and rewarding exploration. But it’s held back from some frustrating design decisions – e.g., the controls – and it struggles to feel enjoyable in today’s saturated market.

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Critics Recommend

Critic Reviews: 40

Critics Consensus

# Reviews: 40

Salt and Sacrifice is an impressive attempt at a 2D Soulsborne, with beautiful art and rewarding exploration. But it's held back from some frustrating design decisions - e.g., the controls - and it struggles to feel enjoyable in today's saturated market.

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Critic Reviews for Salt and Sacrifice

Critic Reviews

Distribution

40

Reviews

High Score - 90/100

90%

Average Score - 75/100

75%

Low Score - 60/100

60%

7/10

Mitchell Saltzman (IGN)

Salt and Sacrifice is an ambitious sequel that attempts to integrate Monster Hunter mechanics into an already crowded Metroidvania/Soulslike formula. It’s not a great mix, but the strength of its core combat, customization, and refreshing co-op still make it worth at least a look.

May 10, 2022 |

Full Review

Another impressive attempt at a 2D Soulsborne but a less entertaining game than Salt And Sanctuary, with some frustrating combat that doesn’t always feel entirely fair.

May 9, 2022 |

Full Review

6/10

GameCentral (Metro GameCentral)

9/10

Mick Fraser (God is a Geek)

Salt and Sacrifice may not be the best Metroidvania ever made, but as a 2D distillation of the Soulslike formula, this is pure gaming alchemy.

May 9, 2022 |

Full Review

Mitchell Saltzman (IGN)

7/10 - (Read Review)

GameCentral (Metro GameCentral)

6/10 - (Read Review)

Another impressive attempt at a 2D Soulsborne but a less entertaining game than Salt And Sanctuary, with some frustrating combat that doesn’t always feel entirely fair.

Mick Fraser (God is a Geek)

9/10 - (Read Review)

Salt and Sacrifice may not be the best Metroidvania ever made, but as a 2D distillation of the Soulslike formula, this is pure gaming alchemy.

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Read the Reviews (40 total)

Outlet	Author	Score	Date	Quote	Read
But Why Tho?	Arron Kluz	7 / 10	05-09-2022	Salt and Sacrifice is still a very worthwhile sequel to the original. While some of the elements don’t work as well as others, the game’s combat and build variety offer players a great sandbox to play around in.	Read review
Chalgyr's Game Room	Richard York	8 / 10	05-31-2022	Overall I did have a lot of fun with Salt and Sacrifice, although there were a few moments where it got rather frustrating. With the new change up to how the game plays out, I expect a lot of people to be upset with the new direction. It’s not a bad direction, just new. I really appreciate the devs branching out in a new direction, and hope they continue to do so from now on.	Read review
COGconnected	Mark Steighner	90 / 100	05-09-2022	Occasional minor frustrations with the controls aside, it’s hard to find fault with Salt and Sacrifice’s challenging combat and level design. The original was one of the best 2D Soulslikes, and this follow-up has a more appealing style and plays even better, with more varied mechanics and deeper choices. While recent FromSoftware games have encouraged more assertive approaches to enemy encounters, Salt and Sacrifice has an old-school vibe that demands patience, determination, a willingness to grind and the ability to find satisfaction in doing so. Fans of the original won’t be disappointed, and more recent Souls converts will find a new addiction as well.	Read review
Eurogamer	Hirun Cryer	Not Recommended	05-16-2022	Salt and Sacrifice is a riff on what came before, but not an entirely successful one. A tense, fraught combat system with gallons of customisation options carries Ska Studios’ sequel, and boss fights are entertaining if overly tough at times, but the storytelling and narrative designs of Salt and Sanctuary can’t hold up their end of the bargain.	Read review
Fextralife	Fexelea	8.8 / 10	05-09-2022	Salt and Sacrifice is a passion project that seamlessly merges aspects of much larger games and delivers a focused and unique experience. Humbly priced, its addictive gameplay and multiplayer aspects will leave you feeling like you got a great bargain and asking for more.	Read review
Game Informer	John Carson	7 / 10	05-17-2022	I want to like Salt and Sacrifice, and in some stretches, I do. I enjoyed exploring the world, concepts of hunting and crafting, and the moody atmosphere, which kept me continuing for dozens of hours. But its clunky progression systems and many maddening enemy encounters quickly make the fun times easy to forget.	Read review
Game Revolution	Jason Faulkner	3.25 / 5 stars	05-25-2022	Unfortunately, Salt and Sacrifice discarded way too much to place the focus on multiplayer. The aspects I do like, the exploration and combat, are carried over from the original game. The core Mage Hunt gameplay loop is tedious, and the lack of fast travel made me sick of seeing the same scenery repeatedly. You’ll probably find something to love here if you have a friend to place this game with and enjoy the original. However, as a solo adventure, it’s severely lacking.	Read review
GameMAG	Unknown	8 / 10	05-25-2022	Salt and Sacrifice is a good game that takes some ideas from FromSoftware games, as well as other popular projects, but does it very neatly, while offering an interesting visual design.	Read review
Gamers Heroes	Johnny Hurricane	7.5 / 10	05-13-2022	Salt and Sacrifice has a lot going for it, but some bad design choices hold it back. I’d recommend watching some gameplay footage – especially of its bosses – before buying.	Read review
Gamersky	心灵奇兵	6.8 / 10	05-14-2022	Salt and Sacrifice is a bad combination of Souls like, Metroidvania and Monster Hunter, making it feel chaotic.	Read review
GameSkinny	John Schutt	8 / 10	05-09-2022	Salt and Sacrifice is a labor of love, one that will scratch any Souls veteran's itch for more mysterious worlds to explore, even if it doesn't succeed at everything.	Read review
GameSpot	Richard Wakeling	7 / 10	05-16-2022	Salt and Sacrifice imbues its Souls-like formula with elements from Monster Hunter, creating a peculiar mixture that falls just short of realizing its full potential.	Read review
GameXplain	Adam Conner	Not Recommended	05-09-2022	Video Review	Read review
Gaming Nexus	Henry Yu	8 / 10	05-20-2022	Salt and Sacrifice to Salt and Sanctuary is like Dark Souls 2 to Dark Souls 1. It diverges a lot from the original, with some ideas that work well and some that don't. All in all, it's still an excellent 2-D Souls-like Metroidvania that brilliantly infuses Monster Hunter elements with challenging combat. Despite some poor design choices and questionable difficulty spikes, it's still astonishing to think this game was created by a team of just two people.	Read review
GamingBolt	John Cantees	7 / 10	05-12-2022	Salt and Sanctuary checks all the boxes for what a 2D Soulslike should have but doesn't do much beyond that, delivering a worthy, albeit conventional addition to the sub-genre.	Read review
GamingTrend	Richard Allen	80 / 100	05-24-2022	Despite my minor complaints, Salt and Sacrifice is an insanely fun Souls-like featuring brutal challenges, great level designs, beautiful hand drawn graphics, interesting enemies and boss fights, cool gear to find and upgrade, a fun leveling system, and one of the most enjoyable co-op experiences I've had in quite a while. The fact that this game was designed by so few people and is of such high quality for a relatively low MSRP of $19.99 is nothing short of astounding. While not perfect, Salt and Sacrifice kept me entertained for well over 20 hours and made me excited for the next entry in this incredible series.	Read review
God is a Geek	Mick Fraser	9 / 10	05-09-2022	Salt and Sacrifice may not be the best Metroidvania ever made, but as a 2D distillation of the Soulslike formula, this is pure gaming alchemy.	Read review
GRYOnline.pl	Hubert Śledziewski	8.5 / 10	05-11-2022	Salt and Sacrifice is like Salt and Sanctuary, just less ugly – at the same time, it's definitely more than just '2-D Dark Souls.' Indeed, this game blends the Souls, Hollow Knight and Monster Hunter in nearly perfect proportions.	Read review
Hardcore Gamer	James Cunningham	4 / 5 stars	05-18-2022	While the opening can be off-putting, Salt and Sacrifice is a huge game that picks up almost instantly once you're past the beginning, with multiple large areas that will each take a good amount of hours to explore and track down all the Mages that roam there.	Read review
Hey Poor Player	Kenny McKee	4.5 / 5 stars	05-10-2022	Salt and Sacrifice isn’t just a great game, but a great sequel. It’s the result of building upon the things that worked so well in the first game, tweaking the things that might not have worked so well, and cleverly taking the occasional mechanical risk here and there in order to ensure that Salt and Sacrifice truly felt like its own game instead of just “Salt and Sanctuary 2.” It’s fun, frantic, and frustrating in all the right ways, and I’m incredibly happy with what Ska Studios has given us. Salt and Sanctuary was able to build such a large community around it and stick around for such a long time because of how high-quality it was at the time of its release. I’m sure that Salt and Sacrifice will manage to surpass those heights.	Read review
IGN	Mitchell Saltzman	7 / 10	05-10-2022	Salt and Sacrifice is an ambitious sequel that attempts to integrate Monster Hunter mechanics into an already crowded Metroidvania/Soulslike formula. It's not a great mix, but the strength of its core combat, customization, and refreshing co-op still make it worth at least a look.	Read review
IGN Italy	Diego Cinelli	6.5 / 10	05-16-2022	Rough, sometimes intriguing, sometimes frustrating: Salt and Sacrifice does its job, but it doesn't always go smoothly. The Mage hunting sequences are clever, but the pieces of the puzzle sometimes simply don't fit together.	Read review
Metro GameCentral	GameCentral	6 / 10	05-09-2022	Another impressive attempt at a 2D Soulsborne but a less entertaining game than Salt And Sanctuary, with some frustrating combat that doesn't always feel entirely fair.	Read review
NoobFeed	Azfar Rayan	60 / 100	05-19-2022	Even though Salt and Sacrifice is a good game, many adjustments have been made that take away from the game's unique character while favoring more formulaic gameplay. It's a game that, in general, is enjoyable and entertaining, but its accomplishments are weighed down by several innovations that stay instead of contributing, giving the feeling that it has gone a step backward.	Read review
PC Invasion	Jason Rodriguez	7 / 10	05-10-2022	Salt and Sacrifice is enjoyable in short bursts. It retains certain core concepts from the original, including a fairly controversial one: the lack of a map. This is further compounded by repetitive Mage Hunts that become tedious after a while.	Read review
PlayStation Universe	David Carcasole	8.5 / 10	05-20-2022	Salt And Sacrifice is every bit the sequel I could have wanted for Salt And Sanctuary. Everything about the gameplay has been elevated a polished better than any previous title from Ska Studios. With excellent combat, and a flexible progression system that lets you alter your build and playstyle how you like, mixed with amazing art, creature design, and atmosphere, this is the latest must-buy indie title.	Read review
PSX Brasil	Rui Celso	90 / 100	05-21-2022	Salt and Sacrifice is a game that can be frustrating for those who are not used to it, but it manages to be very fun, addictive and with a considerably high replay factor, thanks to New Game Plus. In the end, it is worth the investment for fans and for those looking for a 2D action RPG with a good duration.	Read review
Push Square	Stuart Gipp	6 / 10	05-23-2022	It's a shame, because so much of what's here is still so enjoyable. The combat is intense, challenging and varied, with a huge number of enemy types to battle against. You've got a ton of weapon options to tailor your build, and the capacity to level up seemingly hundreds of different stats in order to bring the fight to the Mages. It's just that those fights can be so unfair and one-sided due to the more random elements that can throw a spanner in the works. A brave attempt at something new, yes, but ultimately misguided.	Read review
Rock, Paper, Shotgun	Rymarr Williams	Recommended	05-09-2022	A sidescrolling metroidvania with beautiful art and rewarding exploration, kept just shy of greatness by some frustrating design decisions	Read review
Saving Content	Ed Acosta	4 / 5 stars	06-13-2022	Salt and Sacrifice is a worthwhile sequel to Salt and Sanctuary. Where it does more of the same, it does so where it needs to and where it freshens things up, like the map change, it does it well. I still wish I had access to an inworld map, though. If you’re looking for a new souls-like to get into after something like an Elden Ring, I can’t see you going wrong with this one.	Read review
Shacknews	TJ Denzer	8 / 10	05-09-2022	Salt and Sacrifice does a lot of cool things on top of the Soulsborne 2D action-platforming system created for the first game. The focus on hunting mages is a cool twist and getting their components and making new gear was the stuff that’s made Monster Hunter a blast for decades. Even then, there’s plenty to explore in each biome between the mage hunts. I’m not fond of collecting berries for my healing flask and I feel it can get unfair when mages team up on me. However, getting stronger and coming back with enough might that not even multiple mages could stop me made Salt and Sacrifice’s 2D Soulsborne exploration and mage fights an intoxicating quest to wield the very power I was hunting.	Read review
SpazioGames	Silvio Mazzitelli	7.5 / 10	05-12-2022	Salt and Sacrifice doesn't innovate as much as it could have done, but is an interesting entry in the 2D soulslike niche.	Read review
The Escapist	Elise Avery	Not Recommended	05-16-2022	Video Review	Read review
The Games Machine	Marco Bortoluzzi	8.3 / 10	05-09-2022	Despite some flaws here and there, much like its predecessor Salt and Sacrifice is a solid soulslike that will keep fans of the genre diving into it, one "obliterated" after the next. Everyone else should be wary of its often unforgiving enemies, though.	Read review
Twinfinite	Zhiqing Wan	4 / 5 stars	05-09-2022	As it stands, Salt and Sacrifice continues to nail down all of the moving parts and elements that go into creating an impressive Souls-like game. For most players –especially those just discovering the genre for the first time– this is an easy recommendation. But for the rest of us, it’s not quite enough anymore.	Read review
VGChartz	Paul Broussard	6 / 10	05-31-2022	The Salt games are in an awkward spot now, having mish-mashed several wildly successful ideas from other titles, but being unable to make them fit together into an identity of their own. Hopefully, if we get a third entry, Ska Studios will be able to make it all coalesce.	Read review
Video Chums	A.J. Maciejewski	7.2 / 10	05-18-2022	After thoroughly enjoying the greatness that is Salt and Sanctuary, Salt and Sacrifice is a somewhat disappointing experience. It's still a good game, though, and one that you'll be compelled to play until it starts to overstay its welcome about 10 hours in.	Read review
We Got This Covered	David Morgan	3 / 5 stars	05-09-2022	Salt and Sacrifice is a Souls-like that would've made a killing a decade ago. Failing to learn from its contemporaries, it struggles to feel enjoyable in today's saturated market.	Read review
WellPlayed	Jordan Garcia	6.5 / 10	05-10-2022	Salt and Sacrifice makes a number of changes to its general design and structure that are absolutely not worth the cost, and while the game is still enjoyable, it ultimately feels like a step backwards from the charming 2016 original.	Read review
ZTGD	Jae Lee	6 / 10	06-02-2022	Salt and Sacrifice is a greatly ambitious title, melding a number of gameplay elements from other popular series but it comes at the cost of overall polish and focus, leaving a frustrating experience that feels like a step back from its predecessor.	Read review

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Game Info

Game Description / Storyline:

Explore a new era and region, as well as a new role: a Marked Inquisitor. A Marked Inquisitor is a criminal condemned, yet spared the hand of justice in exchange for a lifetime of service in the unending war against Mages: twisted, irredeemable creatures of elemental malice.

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