Salt and Sacrifice – Zero Punctuation

Salt and Sacrifice review Zero Punctuation Yahtzee Croshaw Devoured Studios 2D Soulslike Monster Hunter clone
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This week in Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee reviews Salt and Sacrifice.

For more major games Yahtz has reviewed lately, check out Trek to Yomi and Ravenous Devils, Rogue Legacy 2, Teardown, Weird West, and Elden Ring.

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Transcript

You remember Salt and Sanctuary, it’s the top two ways to enhance a bag of chips. It was also the name of a game I played a couple of metric yonks ago and a 2D Dark Souls clone that was one of the early ones of those before the middle aged cruise patron that is indie gaming loaded up its buffet platter with a few too many of those particular chicken wings. Well for what it’s worth now we can enjoy the sequel, Salt and Sacrifice. And already we see the franchise evolving because Sacrifice is not one of the things that will improve a bag of chips, unless you’re sacrificing a jumbo sausage to the god of deep fat fryers. I said of the first game that it didn’t seem to have much ambition beyond aping Dark Souls after it’s been steamrolled flat and recreated in a sort of “some Psychonauts fanart fell into the vacuum cleaner bag” art style, but a sequel can often be the big chance for a clone franchise to finally spread its wings and find its own identity now it’s got an established name, the way Saints Row escaped the “GTA clone” label to become its own brand of madcap fun and Outlast 2 escaped the trite survival horror setting to become a huge pile of shit. And I’m pleased to report Salt and Sacrifice has successfully pulled the franchise away from 2D Dark Souls Clone. Now it’s a 2D Monster Hunter clone as well. You did it, boys.

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Author
Yahtzee Croshaw
Yahtzee is the Escapist’s longest standing talent, having been writing and producing its award winning flagship series, Zero Punctuation, since 2007. Before that he had a smattering of writing credits on various sites and print magazines, and has almost two decades of experience in game journalism as well as a lifelong interest in video games as an artistic medium, especially narrative-focused. He also has a foot in solo game development - he was a big figure in the indie adventure game scene in the early 2000s - and writes novels. He has six novels published at time of writing with a seventh on the way, all in the genres of comedic sci-fi and urban fantasy. He was born in the UK, emigrated to Australia in 2003, and emigrated again to California in 2016, where he lives with his wife and daughters. His hobbies include walking the dog and emigrating to places.