The sting of another death wears off as I try to shake off my nerves. I’m preparing for a clash with a Sanguimancer I’ve tried to kill a dozen times. Maybe I’ll learn something new if I throw myself back into the fray, although I’ve walked this route many times on previous hunts and I know I’ll survive by sheer luck more than anything else. Salt and Sacrifice often lacks a sense of accomplishment for me, sullying the promising additions like bounties and crafting systems.
After choosing a class from a handful of options and customizing my sinister puppet-like character, I venture into an unwinnable encounter with a devastating beast and die as fast as I thought I would. Here Salt and Sacrifice shows that it wears its Dark Souls influence openly. A herbalist uses mystical arts to revive my avatar, which is now an “enchanted” being, neither alive nor dead, but somewhere in between. Those who restored me with this dark magic are Marked Inquisitors working in the name of their king to hunt down mages and destroy them by consuming their hearts.
Using a rune portal in the Inquisitor Settlement takes me to all the places I know the runewords travel. Damp and deciduous Ashborne Village, arid and ruinous Bol Gerahn, and the frozen highlands of Dreadstone Peak are just some of the destinations marked inquisitors can explore in search of mages. Although there are only a handful of locations, they are expansive. There are many caves and enclaves to explore and vertical landscapes to navigate through. In these lands I also smashed my teeth in battle, hacking and slashing the various trolls, spiders and wolves that dared to stand in my way. If you choose classes other than my Highblade, you’ll wield a thunderous hammer, crack a deadly whip, or cast arcane spells at your enemies instead.
I enjoyed learning the ins and outs of each location, such as where my loot was most likely to spawn and what plants I could harvest for valuable healing items. Key areas are locked by doors that require multiple Mage Hearts to open, or an object such as a grappling hook or parachute-like cloth to levitate to unreachable platforms. It’s always exciting to set foot in a new and probably treacherous place, and became a highlight of my time with Salt and Sacrifice, even making the requisite mage boss fights easier to swallow.
The mages who hunt Marked Inquisitors were once ordinary people until they took their magic too far. They have become monstrosities that embody whatever element they specialize in, such as pyromancy, poisonousness, or chronomancy, and each poses a significant threat to the player. track down these monstrous mages and kill the minions he summons before the boss disappears into another area. The process repeats itself until the mage settles in a final battle arena where their hearts can be consumed and their power removed forever.
Mage Hunts are at the heart of the Salt and Sacrifice experience, but in most cases they are very annoying. I’ve found myself properly leveled and equipped, with upgraded armor and weapons, and I still end up getting repeatedly caught by minions who cast me into oblivion or blast me off a cliff to my death. Against the mages themselves, battles consist of amazingly powerful attacks with uninteresting patterns from the towering threats that will take much, if not all, of my life in a single blow. I’m all for punishing bosses and challenging encounters, but mages are usually a snort to learn the patterns, and their cheap shots cause a lot of frustration.
Defeating a mage and consuming their heart grants a multitude of items that can be crafted into armor and weapons representative of that mage and its elements – physical, fire, cold, light, darkness, and/or poison. Mages can also be found outside of hunt quests, allowing for more materials to be gathered to craft a whole range of gear. I enjoyed pursuing specific objectives to land ingredients to craft the next gear I needed to make another fight bearable with the right elemental defenses. However, due to my character build, I cannot use most of these hard-earned weapons and armors without severe punishment.
Salt and Sacrifice’s progression systems are counterintuitive and limit any flexibility allowed by crafting new gear by locking the use of gear on the skill web. Leveling my character with the salt dropped by enemies grants a meager HP boost and Black Starstone, a currency to unlock nodes in the Tree of Skill. Some skills can be used to increase certain stats, while others unlock the use of weapons and armor and their subsequent quality levels. So while I got deep into the Highblade weapon and dexterity stat path early on, I couldn’t use any of the armor upgrades I built without exploring other segments of the skill tree to allow me to effectively wear that tier of armor. And in order to use my favorite katana’s flame-piercing special move, I must contribute to one of two magical paths of the web. I often want to try out the different weapon and armor combos I’ve gathered and crafted ingredients for, but the limitations in place make this blunt and difficult to do freely. However, if I’m prepared with the right gear and unlocked skill trees, attacking a mage can end up killing me instantly, making it a moot point anyway.
I want to like Salt and Sacrifice, and at some points I do. I enjoyed exploring the world, concepts of hunting and crafting, and the moody atmosphere that kept me going for dozens of hours. But its clunky progression systems and plenty of insane enemy encounters make those fun times quickly forgotten.
