NG+ now completed in Salt and Sanctuary. Got the second ending as well, Dominion, and it was as bland as the first one. During this playthrough I discovered three optional bosses and two optional areas (although one of them can hardly count as an area). The bosses were pretty lame, two of them were really easy and the third was a ganker. The ganker boss took a couple of tries, but all in all, it was not like they made me sweat. The hardest boss in the game was Witcher in the Lake and when I say hard I mean fucking brutal. Spamalicous with her arcance/holy/whatever magic she wields there is hardly any room to breathe. I think it took like 30 tries before I killed her. In NG I killed her on my second try so a bump in difficulty there I will say.
Salt and Sanctuary is a disappointment. It´s impressive that the game is supposedly only made by two people, but I think it falls short of what it tries to achieve in more ways than one. First and foremost it´s very easy. I thought this was going to be a challenge but the game is a cakewalk except a few awkard difficulty spikes. The game has a lot going for it, and it was fun in the beginning but I gradually lost interest much thanks to the world and areas who are so boring. It´s fun to kill all the bosses but after my second round it was just meh at the end. I was excited over the possibility with different builds but I´ve been trying out a couple of weapons and none of them is particular fun. So I just wield my sword and shield because they are the best.
The gameplay and combat is solid, so is the exploration. But I think it all boils down to the bland areas, the weak storyline and the easy difficulty that kinda makes this experience somewhat soured. The game also presents zero own ideas or even an own identity. It´s a clean cut carbon copy of Dark Souls, except it is in 2D. And I´m sure Ska Studios thought "If you love Souls then you will love this." Yes, I love Souls but this? Why do you, as a creator, want to create something that´s entirely based off another persons work? For example, Hollow Knight drew influences from both Dark Souls and Castlevania and it still managed to be its own thing but S & S is just a flat out copy, from lore to areas to mechanics to bosses to world building to everything. Maybe I´ll grow to appreciate it more in a couple of years, after this has settled and the game has faded into memory but as for know, all I see is a soulless copy of a much better franchise.
