Salt and Sanctuary

Metroidvania com souls HYPE Gostosinho de jogar, amo a exploração do game e a estética sombria! Será meu promeiro jogo perfeito do Steam, YAY

After getting all achievements within 50 hours of gameplay, I obviously can say that I really like this game and do recommend it. Very few souls-like games have given me the same feeling of playing Dark Souls for the first time: Being thrown into a strange, obscure, melancholic and hostile land where every cautious step comes with the awareness of death at every corner. In fact, I consider Salt and Sanctuary the best indie souls-like by a very wide margin, and the gold standard for any game in that category. But my recommendation comes with the recognition of some major flaws. Firstly, the game has several strong points, mostly when it comes to its understanding of the souls formula, with a massive variety of builds and playstyles, unique and memorable bosses, satisfying skill expression and character progression, rewarding exploration, so on and so forth. All of this make for a game that is very enjoyable on a first playthrough, but even more so in subsequent ones, since you're unlikely to even experience all of what the game has to offer on a blind playthrough, so you can always come back to it with an entirely different approach and playstyle in mind. There's a good reason this game is popular with challenge runners, as in fact, the game has built-in challenges, including a randomizer, for those who want to come back to it over and over again. The issue is, this game tries to be a lot more than just a 2D souls-like, and attempts to branch into metroidvania and platformer territory. As much as the lack of a mini-map is a recurring issue to some, I find it completely fair. The map is not particularly large or confusing, and after my first playthrough I had a generally good idea of where every location existed in relation to others, since every area is distinct, and backtracking isn't exactly required either. But if you do want to backtrack, it's going to be a little bit of a chore, since movement mechanics are kind of limited and the difficult areas are usually a pain in the ass to explore at a reasonable pace, especially in the later stages of the game. As for platforming, it's inexcusably bad, as movement options being scarce and your character's physics being affected by a weight system means that jumping around feels janky and inconsistent, along with failing to land a jump usually meaning instant death in places like the pitch woods (the worst area in the game by far). Also, too many blind jumps and mandatory fall damage, including in the very last area, for some baffling reason. Overall, it's a fantastic game for those who want a content-rich souls-like experience, but do play it with the awareness that it does come with a fair share of frustrations.