Salt And Sanctuary (2D "Souls" game)

[---]

Just discovered that exist combos and not just sequences of strong/normal attacks. Cool.

 

[Mozg]

I like slow, grounded Souls movement but in a true 2D Metroidvania gimme a double jump and an airdash. Fun air movement redeemed my purchase of the otherwise pretty bad Rogue Legacy.

(edit - and then I looked at an S&S wiki and it eventually has double jump, wall jump, and airdash)

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

I am not impressed so far. Jumping is awful for a 2d platformer and combat feels clunky. Lots of cheap attacks from even basic mobs. Range attacks will track you like a fucking google maps. Some bosses attack patterns are simply rage inducing. They dont feel hard just fucking cheap. The worst are follow-ups on knockdowns. I dont know what is worse when they wait to hit you the exact moment you get on your feet or when they do damage when you helplessly float in the air. Rolling through a boss is also completely random. Sometimes i roll with no problems sometimes he knocks me back or i just get stuck on him and cant move. Most of the bosses basic attacks have no wind up and there is little to no distinction between combos like two froward slashes or forward and backward slash.

Characters are ugly and landscapes are rather meh. Child of Light looks like a fucking AAA game compared to S&S. I will trudge for couple more hours cause main quest seems interesting but so far nothing really stands out and all those elements they ripped straight from Souls games feel lazy and not very fresh especially since i am paying simultaneously DS3.

 

[GrainWetski]

Just discovered that exist combos and not just sequences of strong/normal attacks. Cool.

Yeah, there are a lot of combos for the different weapons. Try holding up and doing light attacks, some weapons have 2-hit combos that way for example.

I am not impressed so far. Jumping is awful for a 2d platformer and combat feels clunky. Lots of cheap attacks from even basic mobs. Range attacks will track you like a fucking google maps. Some bosses attack patterns are simply rage inducing. They dont feel hard just fucking cheap. The worst are follow-ups on knockdowns. I dont know what is worse when they wait to hit you the exact moment you get on your feet or when they do damage when you helplessly float in the air. Rolling through a boss is also completely random. Sometimes i roll with no problems sometimes he knocks me back or i just get stuck on him and cant move. Most of the bosses basic attacks have no wind up and there is little to no distinction between combos like two froward slashes or forward and backward slash.

Characters are ugly and landscapes are rather meh. Child of Light looks like a fucking AAA game compared to S&S. I will trudge for couple more hours cause main quest seems interesting but so far nothing really stands out and all those elements they ripped straight from Souls games feel lazy and not very fresh especially since i am paying simultaneously DS3.

This is a game that separates the dumbfucks from the not so dumb fucks.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

Just discovered that exist combos and not just sequences of strong/normal attacks. Cool.

Yeah, there are a lot of combos for the different weapons. Try holding up and doing light attacks, some weapons have 2-hit combos that way for example.

I am not impressed so far. Jumping is awful for a 2d platformer and combat feels clunky. Lots of cheap attacks from even basic mobs. Range attacks will track you like a fucking google maps. Some bosses attack patterns are simply rage inducing. They dont feel hard just fucking cheap. The worst are follow-ups on knockdowns. I dont know what is worse when they wait to hit you the exact moment you get on your feet or when they do damage when you helplessly float in the air. Rolling through a boss is also completely random. Sometimes i roll with no problems sometimes he knocks me back or i just get stuck on him and cant move. Most of the bosses basic attacks have no wind up and there is little to no distinction between combos like two froward slashes or forward and backward slash.

Characters are ugly and landscapes are rather meh. Child of Light looks like a fucking AAA game compared to S&S. I will trudge for couple more hours cause main quest seems interesting but so far nothing really stands out and all those elements they ripped straight from Souls games feel lazy and not very fresh especially since i am paying simultaneously DS3.

This is a game that separates the dumbfucks from the not so dumb fucks.

You seems triggered. You shouldnt take neither my signature nor my critique of this Dark Souls knock off so personally

 

[Zewp]

meanwhileInPoland, yeah I noticed that boss attacks were often cheap. I played around with the sodden knight and noticed that hitboxes aren't very accurate. His sword can pass over your head and still knock you down. It seems in general you have to roll through enemies instead of away from them because you can never be sure if you're going to roll far enough. Invincibility frames are also much shorter than in Dark Souls.

As for being hit on knockdowns, I think that's due to the 2D nature of the game. The enemies can only hit in two directions, unlike Dark Souls where a boss will often have chain attacks that hit in various directions so that you don't get pummeled straight after you get up.

 

[GrainWetski]

Just discovered that exist combos and not just sequences of strong/normal attacks. Cool.

Yeah, there are a lot of combos for the different weapons. Try holding up and doing light attacks, some weapons have 2-hit combos that way for example.

I am not impressed so far. Jumping is awful for a 2d platformer and combat feels clunky. Lots of cheap attacks from even basic mobs. Range attacks will track you like a fucking google maps. Some bosses attack patterns are simply rage inducing. They dont feel hard just fucking cheap. The worst are follow-ups on knockdowns. I dont know what is worse when they wait to hit you the exact moment you get on your feet or when they do damage when you helplessly float in the air. Rolling through a boss is also completely random. Sometimes i roll with no problems sometimes he knocks me back or i just get stuck on him and cant move. Most of the bosses basic attacks have no wind up and there is little to no distinction between combos like two froward slashes or forward and backward slash.

Characters are ugly and landscapes are rather meh. Child of Light looks like a fucking AAA game compared to S&S. I will trudge for couple more hours cause main quest seems interesting but so far nothing really stands out and all those elements they ripped straight from Souls games feel lazy and not very fresh especially since i am paying simultaneously DS3.

This is a game that separates the dumbfucks from the not so dumb fucks.

You seems triggered. You shouldnt take neither my signature nor my critique of this Dark Souls knock off so personally

Very triggered.

You do realize you sounded exactly like the average retard after they played their first Souls game for half an hour? "Controls are bad, combat feels clunky, enemies are cheap! Bad game!"

I actually felt the same way when I was fighting the first boss of this game for the first time, but then I learned to play the game and I realize I was just bad at the game.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Seriously, this is probably one of the most well built and fair games you could hope for. Nothing seems to be random aside from AI patterns and item drops (which are fairly secondary to exploration to find hidden stuff). Hitboxes are fine, you're probably getting hit by the shockwaves that most boss attacks send out if you think they missed, but those are visible and have very defined ranges. The melee combat is very solid, and includes multiple combos and rolling attacks and such, along with a wide variety of weapons. Probably my only real gripe is that they did the Souls thing where it's really not viable to wield a huge weapon AND heavy armour- which is counter intuitive and weird as fuck. Equip burden should tie in to Strength I think, instead of being purely it's own stat. But hell, maybe being a plate armour dagger master will be a fun playthrough.

 

[Abu Antar]

Hitboxes can be bad at points and the platforming isn't always perfect, but when I died, I rarely felt that it was cheap. Some cheap deaths were some traps here and there.

Btw, how is performance on PC? Haven't started that version yet.

 

[GrainWetski]

Never drops below 60. Not exactly a demanding game.

 

[Ellef]

Feels kinda like a poor man's Soulsborne mashed with a poor man's SotN. Well worth a playthrough and the price tag.

 

[---]

Btw, how is performance on PC? Haven't started that version yet.

I'm playing it on the worst laptop that you could imagine and it's super fluid. My only problem is mouse-related: when I am in the inventory or in the menu, I often need to click more than once to open item descriptions or other pages. I'm playing m+k, no problem at all during combat/exploration

Feels kinda like a poor man's Soulsborne mashed with a poor man's SotN. Well worth a playthrough and the price tag.

It's a little masterpiece, surely one of the best games released during this year, IMHO. Even more extraordinary the fact that only two people created it
Plus, the game is HUGE. Tons of equipements, areas, enemies, all very well implemented. The clock signs 6 hours and I've only beated 3 bosses (they are 23, from what I heard )

 

[Ellef]

Didn't know it was just two people, pretty impressive.

 

[---]

Yeah, two people, wife and husband

 

[Zewp]

I'm playing it on the worst laptop that you could imagine and it's super fluid.

How bad are we talking? My laptop has a HD4400 chipset and I find that often even rudimentary 2D games don't run great on it. I can't go near flash games. It would be a great game to play on the go if it runs on my laptop.

Overall it's really not a bad game, it's just a little cheap at times. Despite the fact that I ragequit last time I played I keep thinking about it and feel like firing it up, just like when I play the Souls games. I have to echo the sentiment that controls are not great, though. The default layout on controller was awful, but not an issue as I could just rebind most stuff. I set it up to be closer to Dark Souls controls because I kept hitting the wrong buttons out of habit. What does bother me is that it feels like there's a slight input lag with the controller that there isn't on the m&k. It hasn't gotten me killed, but I have had to be more careful about how I time my rolls.

The game is miles ahead of Dark Souls 2, though.

 

[DwarvenFood]

You could get a refund (steam) if it doesn't run well enough on your system;

 

[Damned Registrations]

So I just beat the game- I actually intended to explore some other stuff I'd clearly missed, but accidentally triggered a fairly obvious one way ticket to the new game + cycle. For what it's worth, the NG+ difficulty is very satisfying. Even the earliest enemies and bosses were a real threat to me, died more vs the sodden knight than I ever did on a first run through.

I'll probably take this chance to play through as a mage now, since I know where to get a bunch of the kickass spells and relevant gear. Though at the same time, I'm really curious about playing a poison based thief. Stuff with poison damage kept showing up even endgame, and I'm curious if it stacks when you apply in continually to bosses. Seemed like a lot of powerful ranged equipment too. Gah. Not enough time for all these playthroughs. Priest looked interesting too, though more geared as a support thing considering what one of the highest level spells did.

 

[---]

The game is miles ahead of Dark Souls 2, though.

Even ahead of DS3, imho.
And for the laptop, the specs are so bad that I would be embarassed if I posted them.

So I just beat the game- I actually intended to explore some other stuff I'd clearly missed, but accidentally triggered a fairly obvious one way ticket to the new game + cycle. For what it's worth, the NG+ difficulty is very satisfying. Even the earliest enemies and bosses were a real threat to me, died more vs the sodden knight than I ever did on a first run through.

I'll probably take this chance to play through as a mage now, since I know where to get a bunch of the kickass spells and relevant gear. Though at the same time, I'm really curious about playing a poison based thief. Stuff with poison damage kept showing up even endgame, and I'm curious if it stacks when you apply in continually to bosses. Seemed like a lot of powerful ranged equipment too. Gah. Not enough time for all these playthroughs. Priest looked interesting too, though more geared as a support thing considering what one of the highest level spells did.

Impressions? How long it took?

 

[DwarvenFood]

And fun factor versus Binding of Isaac (which I know you enjoyed) - almost off the fence with this one, was thinking of Exanima, but that one is still early access;

 

[Damned Registrations]

Took me ~18 hours I guess. I missed at least one area, not sure how large, and one of the factions. Skipped some sidequest stuff, and haven't taken the time to drink in all the lore text (there is so, so much of that. The skill tree alone could take you an hour or more to read I bet.) Haven't made nearly as many weapons as I'd have liked; not sure if that is because the upgrade materials are truly that scarce or I just missed that much of the end/post game. But overall? I mean, I finished after playing about 20 hours (including the other character) and immediately wanted to start 2 or 3 more. Not sure I can praise a game more than that. And this is on the heels of me having finished DS3 as well.

Going through with magic now. So far, it's... passable. There's really only 1 good spell so far (and it's one of the lowest tier), and I'm a decent ways in already (just got the 2nd brand.) Here's hoping the endgame stuff is amazing (some of it did seem to have potential based on item descriptions, it wasn't just bigger fireballs.) Fire has been really underpowered so far, only like 2 damned spells for it and they're both garbage. Haven't made myself a spell scaling weapon yet, I imagine that would help a lot for certain enemies. The lack of scaling for the focus potions sucks, going to make the lategame a chugfest at the very least.

Melee was very very powerful if you used the right weapon type; wouldn't recommend focusing on swords though, you need both slashing and blunt to be effective. Though you could just use weapon buffs for the resistant enemies in a pinch. I went with greatsword and great hammers/axes. The greathammer in particular is a stunlocking machine and does a ton of damage. Others are a bit faster, less attack power but slashing type works better on certain foes. I ended up dumping a lot of points into endurance/armour levels as well just so I could move well while holding such heavy weapons. Very briefly tried using some heavy armour when I got a lucky high tier drop and upgraded it a bit. The armour definitely needs to be upgraded to make you tanky, and it's heavy as fuck, not sure if it's a worthwhile investment. The shields get really heavy too, never bothered with them.

Have fooled around with poison a bit on my new game. Seems like a viable option if you go whole hog on it, use a permanently poisoned weapon or just always have it buffed (or both) and make it a fast one to apply constantly. The poison definitely stacks up but I'm not sure on the exact mechanics, if further hits are effectively doing more damage than previous ones or just burning through their 'dose' more quickly.

Also I managed to kill the tutorial boss. Was a rough fight, but the rewards are awesome- so good that I decided to start my mage run on the paladin I had finished it off with.

 

[Zewp]

Wow, that's hectic. People told me heavy armor classes are one of the hardest to do Sunken Deep with and that Thief is the easiest because of the mobility. Did you do him with armor or did you take it all off?

 

[Damned Registrations]

Naked. Makes no difference anyways; you're flung and near dead from a single hit either way. Paladin had the best weapon and pretty good bombs.

 

[GrainWetski]

Priest looked interesting too, though more geared as a support thing considering what one of the highest level spells did.

I'm using prayers on my first character. The buffs and heals are obviously good and the offensive stuff you get on rank 3 and 5 so far have been good. Guardian Blade seems amazing against bosses while Sprites is pretty good against random trash. Only used Guardian Blade against That Stench Most Foul so far, but it did a decent amount of damage. That boss might just be weak against holy though.

 

[Visperas]

Anyone knows how to properly aim ranged attacks on k+m?

 

[Rivmusique]

Finished as a paladin with hammers/axes, heavy armour, shields and a bit in prayers (got to level 2). I think Heavy armour was a waste, for the most part I kept my burden below 75% and that required me wearing a mix of level 2 and 3 gear, when I had bought all the way up to 5. My defences didn't even seem that high, was probably better off naked. Shields were odd, I pretty much stuck to a level 1 shield with 100 slash/strike defence and later used a level 5 tower shield with the same + wildly magic resistances and I used a 100 fire defence shield at some point, level 1 also I believe. So all those other levels were useless, I probably would've been fine without that tower shield as well. Prayers were okay, I only used an armour buff, a stam regen buff, wound-heal, light and HP heal + wound heal. I would've used bless weapon too, but I got 2 items that did that every time I rested, so no need.

Game was very fun, loved the map design, was constantly amazed at how everything was linking up.

I started again with a new character just to smash my head against the opening boss, damn it was annoying having to quit out and restart every time I died . Got him eventually though. I hope that isn't the only source of shimmering pearl, or my first character will never be able to transmute his mace into the 100 000 salt one .

Now, to continue with NG+ or my new guy that killed the prologue boss? I'm liking the dagger/light armour/prayer/shield that I have him on so far...