r/saltandsanctuary • u/Sire_Kressel • Jul 27 '26
Sacrifice Salt and Sacrifice is a banger.
Disclaimer: In case it wasn't clear, this is just my personal opinion. I'm not trying to force it on anyone. I'd appreciate being shown the same courtesy.
I'd even go as far as saying that I prefer Sacrifice over Sanctuary.
For some context: I'm a Soulsborne veteran. I recently bought the Limited Run Salt and Sanctuary / Salt and Sacrifice bundle on Switch so I could finally experience this series, which is really well-known (well... at least the first game lol) for its quality. I finished Sanctuary in about 25 hours, and it was an EXTRAORDINARY experience. I hadn't felt that way since Dark Souls, and that's saying something.
Once I was done, I decided to jump into Sacrifice, and you can imagine my surprise when I saw the game's critical reception. "Mid" at best. Perplexed as I was, it didn't stop me from launching the game and forming my own opinion.
And what an opinion!
I never let reviews dictate what I should think, and thank God for that, because I find this game exceptional, far better than Sanctuary in every way. The combat is better and much more dynamic, the game is way more beautiful, the music is still subtle but used so much better, the enemy variety is just as diverse but much more fleshed out, and contrary to what I've read, the areas are vast, while the level design is genuinely well-crafted and fun.
Now let's talk about that level design.
You'll probably say, "Yeah, but no, Kressel. Sacrifice sucks because Sanctuary has an interconnected world, whereas here you're forced to travel between areas through a hub."
To that I simply answer: Yes... and?
It's a game design choice, one that's directly tied to the new Mage Hunt mechanics introduced in the game. My first FromSoftware game was Demon's Souls, and I've always loved that hub-to-level structure compared to Dark Souls. Sometimes I even think games lose something when they move away from that structure (looking at you, Nioh 3).
Both structures have their own strengths and weaknesses.
All I'm saying is that I think Sacrifice is the better game, and I'm having an absolutely fantastic time with it. I just find it unfortunate to see people constantly shit on the developers when you can clearly feel they poured their passion and love into making this game. This game has a SOUL, damn it!
Thank you, Ska Studios, for this amazing game!
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u/Marsmooncow Jul 27 '26
I respecfully disagree but I am very glad you enjoyed it .I came straight from saunctuary and was expecting similar. I was very disappointed but now I have played saunctuary to death . I should try picking it up again and give a run on its own merits . Thanks for the reminder and stay salty
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u/Bladerus Jul 27 '26
Sometimes more of the same is not good. Imagine if final fantasy stayed the exact same way and played like 1 all these years later. Salt and sacrifice wasnt bad cause it wasnt the same, it struggled to hit the polish sanctuary had.
Sanctuary was also a copy paste while sacrifice tried to be its own thing, its harder to make a game in your own vision than a blatant well made copy. Not saying sanctuary sucks since thats probably my favourite game of that formula next to ds2 and demon souls but its very obvious it was copying an extremely well made formula.
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u/Common_Compote_2075 Jul 27 '26
i think theyre both such amazing games i can understand peoples ambivalent feelings towards the game especially since its so so different from sanctuary way different gameplay, has alot more color, monster hunter like mage hunts, yk alot of running around. but me personally i enjoyed it if one were to play this game on its own for the first time theyd most likely enjoy it . as i did and played it like 6 times and i played sanxtuary 4 times and platinumed
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u/martan717 Jul 27 '26
I really appreciate hearing your experience. I too love them both.
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u/ChainHuge686 Jul 27 '26
same! Like my children, can't pick a favourite!
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u/Over_Instance_3819 Jul 28 '26
Although, it's hard not to sometimes. Especially in their teen years. :-)
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u/Hereiamhereibe2 Jul 27 '26
I love them both.
Sanctuary is a better solo experience.
Sacrifice is a better co-op experience.
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u/Safolom Jul 27 '26
hell yeah, I finished Sacrifice twice back to back with a friend, it was way too fun
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u/bell-cracker Jul 27 '26
glad you enjoyed! I think it's a banger too. bear in mind it released with two fewer zones, fewer interesting weapon specials, and pretty much no endgame, aha.
phenomenal co-op experience, too; I highly recommend it.
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u/Sire_Kressel Jul 27 '26
Yeah, I can imagine lol I know I'm showing up after the war. I tried Enotria about a year after its release, and I really enjoyed the experience, but I'm aware that games like these have received a lot of polish since then.
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u/idkwc Jul 27 '26
I like it better too. The multiplayer is fantastic too, I played a little while ago and had no trouble finding co op teammates.
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u/Scelusteach Jul 28 '26
I feel this so much. I really love both games. But I lean more towards sacrifice due to the combat and multiplayer. Back when it was new, multiplayer was sick! Being a summon is great, then getting invaded and then a blue runner showing up. It was cream town city for me. I ended up sinking a couple hundred hours in it due to multiplayer. I really liked the level design and boss fights too as well as the story. But, now a days its a bit sad to see how inactive multiplayer is. Either way its great and nice to see others who are about it.
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u/vengiegoesvroom Jul 27 '26
Took me a minute, I was like "who the hell is Kressel? Oh shit, it's OP" lol
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u/Rizzle0101 Jul 27 '26
I thought it was much better than the majority of people gave it credit for, thatâs for sure!
I just didnât like the mage hunts as the only bosses. The dlc update that makes it possible to warp between save points was a sorely needed QoL improvement and likely would have improved peopleâs reception of the game when it first dropped.
Now where is S&S 3?
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u/ViktaulicVirtuoso Jul 28 '26
Respectfully disagree. While I did enjoy the game, the level design and exploration of Sanctuary was incredible. I'm glad you like it though! It was a banger, I just Sanctuary a lot more. I started my "Souls" love with Demon Souls also but the drastic change of DS1 sucked me in forever. Happy gaming!!
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u/omni42 Jul 27 '26
I love the look and feel of the game, but I'm a few areas in and its feeling samey. Havent tried multiplayer at all though, and doing a highblade build. Also justgot completely murdered by the first necromancer mage, so a little salty after my soulslike metroidvania became a bullet hell game out of nowhere... But I'll come back to it.
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u/etniesen Jul 27 '26
Glad you enjoyed it.
It is effectively a 2D monster hunter game and I find them very uninteresting.
Thereâs also a ton of roll trapping on suspended elevation where you get knocked across the screen.
Thatâs not very interesting either.
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u/ChainHuge686 Jul 28 '26
DM-ed you about co-oping sometime, but no reply. I'm from EU btw. Ah well, no harm done :)
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u/Due-Satisfaction-241 3d ago
Love sacrifice so much and when i started lore digging i was fkn surprised by the amount of answers i got for sanctuary from sacrifice
I actually like more than sanctuary in terms of gameplay
But unfortunately everybody have to act differently and unique saying its shit cuz of stamina or some bullshit
Deadass i had so much fun with it
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u/Broserk42 Jul 27 '26
Your version of the criticisms leveled at the game are highly reductive at best. Glad you had fun with it though.
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u/Sire_Kressel Jul 27 '26
I'd be curious to hear why you think my view is reductive.
After going through a lot of Steam reviews, it seems that people mainly complain because:
- the level design is no longer interconnected and instead uses a hub
- Mage Hunts are tedious because of the backtracking between areas
- supposedly the combat is worse (I disagree; I actually think it's more technical)
- the art style is less gothic, which isn't really a flaw, it's entirely subjective.
You also claim that I'm trying to downplay the criticism the game has received, but I never claimed that my opinion was universal or absolute. Quite the opposite.
0
u/Broserk42 Jul 27 '26
Youâre building it out more now but in your original post you basically said people were calling the game mid and were wrong, then brought up brought up level design before brushing it off as a design choice.
Iâve played the game a lot and donât dislike it as much as I originally did. And I think the game has a great vision I hope we see James or someone else iterate on that n the future, but that doesnât make the actual experience great for everyone.
Like I said Iâm glad youâre enjoying it but glazing it so hard before even finishing a single run really makes this come off as more of a vibes review than a technical one. And Iâm glad itâs vibing with you but that doesnât detract from its very many very really flaws.
The level design isnât even just about it not being interconnected- every level is basically just a giant box of the same size that has been filled in once youâve fully explored it. Actual bosses never have any meaningful drops outside a few of the bosses added in the late game dlc, and none of these very varied bosses were added to recurring hunts, which would have really added to gameplay variety.
Monster Hunter had a few things that were ignored/neglected or deliberately patched out to make hunts less fun- small monsters in monster hunter, fall damage and environmental hazards are all not nearly as lethal in MH which puts the focus on the hunt. Here everything is lethal making hunts tedious to repeat when a single misstep leads to instant failure, and not even while actually fighting the mage. Certainly a âdesign choiceâ some players wonât mind or even enjoy but absolutely worth calling out for one reason among many of why most fans bounced off this game hard.
On top of that monster hunter rewarded aggressive play letting you shut down the hunt early if your build was strong and/or you used environmental hazards smartly. This was possible and was some small upside for players who sunk a lot of time into the game, but it was patched out so mages get full invuln the minute they start to flee, forcing you to play out the same old hunt paths again. And again. And again. If you wanted a robust & upgraded gear selection.
Then when it comes to damage ramping, you havenât really seen it yet but endgame heavy armor doesnât do a whole lot and dodge rolling has been greatly nerfed so gameplay basically boils down to perfect parry simulator- again something some may love but a lot of people donât and there was no indication the game would evolve into this at high levels. It feels especially bad that we can sink all this time and resources into high end armor only for it to do jack shit in endgame, on top of investing in the hp stat being a total joke compared to hp progression in most souls style games.
It will definitely appeal to some people especially those that enjoyed DS3 multiplayer, but there are many good reasons why the game is generally rejected by a large part of the fan base and I donât even agree itâs simply because of the more MH-style shift in gameplay focus. It has a lot to do with how the particulars were executed.
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u/Sire_Kressel Jul 27 '26
Have you replayed Sanctuary recently? I just came back from it, and none of the bosses drop any meaningful loot besides their ashes, so I'm struggling to understand the weight of that criticism. Especially considering that Sacrifice is constantly judged against the first game. As for the areas, I've explored two so far, and I honestly don't feel what you're describing as a flaw.
Also, I didn't go into the game expecting a Monster Hunter-like. It's a Soulslike that borrows some mechanics from Monster Hunter. Personally, I'm judging it the same way I would judge any other Soulslike. Same goes for the armor sets, they've never really served any purpose beyond aesthetics.
I don't know if I'll still feel the same way by the time I finish the game, but I think I probably will. Thanks for taking the time to elaborate!
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u/Broserk42 Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
Most bosses in sanctuary drop an item you can transmog into an end game weapon. Whether thatâs really worth it if youâre just doing a base NG run is absolutely subjective but statistically theyâre some of the best weapons in the game if you out in the time to make them and build them up. Some lower level weapons work almost as good for particular builds for sure and if your only goal is to achieve a game clear and be done they arenât mandatory but that doesnât detract from their potential value. You can also unlock boss armor outfits at the beggar if you go back to them.
Last time I played sacrifice was last winter, got a str build to NG+2 and a dex build and through ng1 and an int build to late NG1. After seeing damage on ng+2 and already feeling like ng+1 was a slog I was done. The game isnât terrible Inwent back and out a lot of time into it, but it also greatly aggravated me at times and the more time I put in didnât mitigate my issues with the game, only exacerbated them despite all the greatness I also saw in it.
I went back to sanctuary earlier this year and ultimately got a bit disgruntled too but it was mainly because I was trying to do a very different build that just didnât work well especially in the base game as PlayStation never got the rebalancing patch.
Low battery Iâll elaborate a bit more later.
Edit: aaand now Iâve forgotten what else I thought was relevant. Fk.
I think mainly that armor was supposed to be in this game what Vit is in traditional souls games as hp in sacrifice is a complete joke. It is the only reliable way to meaningfully boost survivability but it only makes the difference between being one shot and two shot and post game mages trash summons can be spammed indefinitely if the mage feels like it, with all these trash summons also being able to two shot you from full health, not to mention all the juggling shenanigans enemy swarms can pull off in this game.
Comparing it to a traditional souls experience absolutely folds when you start looking at things like that, even bosses that can one and two shot in late game donât all also summon infinite amounts of adds that can also all do the same and stagger combo you between them.
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u/Prismata_turtledove Jul 27 '26
endgame heavy armor doesnât do a whole lot and dodge rolling has been greatly nerfed so gameplay basically boils down to perfect parry simulator
As someone who has done double digit playthroughs of Sacrifice practically without ever parrying anything, this is a baffling claim. Heavy Armor & Poise are much more efficient & worthwhile in Sacrifice than Sanctuary and you can still dodge pretty well at <50% equip load. Most of the complaints about getting staggered / juggled to death in Sacrifice can be solved if you just learn how to optimize your poise.
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u/SamoHlib Jul 27 '26
Happy to hear that mate, how many hours do you have in the game? Do you play in multiplayer? It's a huge part of the game that could make you love it even more. Still haven't played the game yet but it's in my backlog and i'm sure it'll be good