Mandragora

In my previous review I discussed indie games inspired by other indie games, and how there are times where even the most well acclaimed titles don’t have many successors. Disco Elysium was a good example, because despite there being games inspired by it like the Citizen Sleeper series we haven’t seen games exactly like Disco Elysium. As it turns out attempting to replicate such a game proved to be too difficult. Outer Wilds is another really good example in my opinion. It’s a timeloop adventure with a heavy emphasis on exploration and discovery. We’ve seen timeloop games since like The Forgotten City and ones before such as The Sexy Brutale, but I have yet to see a timeloop that gave me the feeling Outer Wilds did. The game I’m surprised hasn’t gotten a true successor ten years after it was released is Salt and Sanctuary. A small indie title bigger than what a lot of people hoped, and one of the biggest surprises of 2016 retrospectively. It was one of the earliest soulslikes to have been made. Testing the question on whether  you could convert the Souls formula into a 2D environment. Thankfully it did and we have seen a ton of these kinds of games since. Ender Lilies, Vigil: The Longest Night, Death’s Gambit, etcetera.

A good chunk of which are in my top twenty-five range for favorite metroidvanias, but despite the love I hold for these games I’ll admit there hasn’t been one exactly like Salt and Sanctuary. Now I am not the biggest Salt and Sanctuary fan in the world. I prefer all the games that have come after it, because most of them managed to formulate an identity outside of the Souls series. Whereas everytime somebody talks about Salt they always say, “Yeah, it’s 2D Dark Souls.” It’s not just visuals and themes, but also gameplay because I’ll be honest some aspects of Salt have not aged well enough. Every metroidvania has a map, but Salt does not mean there’s no proper way to keep track of where you’re going or what you haven’t explored. The platforming felt just kinda there. I understand falling into bottomless pits, but a 2D game punishing players with fall damage for misplacing a jump just because Dark Souls had it isn’t fair. Bosses sometimes tip the line between being challenging and frustratingly designed. Some areas don’t have much visual distinctions due to how gray and bleak the art direction is. Salt and Sanctuary is flawed, but you have to remember it’s one of the first of its kind. It did have good ideas, and I’ve been wanting to see a game that improves its system while also being faithful to what the studio wanted.

That game did come around and it was named Salt and Sacrifice. Otherwise, one of the biggest disappointments of the 2020s. It wanted to be grander in scope, but ended up being a big, poorly designed, and confusing mess. Unable to choose what type of game it wanted to be. I just don’t like Salt and Sacrifice. My review back in 2022 scored it a 7/10, but honestly it’s a game I can’t think anything but anger towards. There hasn’t been a true successor to Salt and Sanctuary. No game wants to replicate it, because the game itself was a replica that did enough to stand. So then every game after moved further hence why more of them aged well. That’s what I believed, but then we did receive a successor. A game that much like Salt and Sanctuary managed to surprise me despite some of the frustrations it produced along the way. Mandragora, a 2D soulslike made by indie team Primal Game Studio. Yet another developer who wanted to take a crack at this now somewhat oversaturated genre. They initially tested it with people, and feedback was lukewarm at best. Iron Pineapple covered it briefly in his Steam Dumpster Diving series and his statement was not the greatest. Mandragora had a lot of room for improvement, and so the devs spent even more time tweaking away. Eventually releasing 2025, but opinions at the time were still mixed. With the game currently sitting with a 7/10 user score on Steam. 

A score I don’t understand now having played Mandragora. Is Mandragora splendid enough for me to declare it one of the subgenre’s best titles? No, but I believe it’s far from being mediocre. My time with Mandragora was well spent. There were times I stopped following the main objective and simply explored the world. Uncovering everything it had to offer, so I could grow stronger and make the next bosses more manageable. The world is full of style, variety, and color compared to the drearyness of Salt. This may be one of few soulslikes I’ve played where your starting class actually matters. As the game has pretty neat build diversity and rewards the player for sticking to a class category. 2025 which is when this game was a pretty great year for the metroidvania genre. Hitters like Hollow Knight: Silksong, Ender Magnolia, and Constance which I have yet to play. I think Mandragora got mixed reception for how it focused more on the RPG aspects rather than the metroidvania side, but for what it is this is a compelling metroidvania RPG. There are flaws to discuss, but to me this might be the first truest successor I have seen to Salt and Sanctuary. Going as far as to say it’s better. Let's discuss Mandragora and why it deserves your attention.

Story

The world has been torn asunder as monsters continuously ravage the planet. Killing those who walk into their wake  and overcoming former townships. The people who remain bar themselves behind wood doors hoping to stay protected during these troubled times. Even that wasn’t good enough as rebel gangs and thieves took this as an opportunity to inflict further terrors. The only place people see truly safe is Crimson City. Capital of the land for which they live upon. Home to their all knowing ruler the King Priest.  His guiding hand and mastery of divine magic allows the walls of Crimson City to fend off from the surrounding masters. However, the King Priest is both old and stern. Ruling with an iron fist and defaming anyone who speaks against his rule as a heretic. Making examples of them to reinforce his rule. Such a case is today’s trial. A team of Inquisitors managed to locate and secure a witch. Being the King Priest label responsible for all the chaos going on. The witch is brought upon a public where the King Priest attempts to torture and purify it of all the sin it’s created. Energy beams from the witch, and you an Inquisitor who was supposed to stand by and help with the trial decide to intervene. Not wanting to risk what’ll happen if the witch continues leaking energy, they decide to cut down the withering fiend.

Energy once leaking into the skies enters your body, and the citizens of Crimson City watch as it occurs. Labeling you as another sinner worthy of being burned. However, the King Priest decides to let you live lying to the public saying the gods above have blessed you with power. He knows what’s probably happened, but withholds information from you. Instead seeing potential, and an answer to a current problem they’re facing. He wants you to locate a second witch nearby, and maybe this power of yours can assist in the matter. You’re sent out of the city with supplies and gear to aid in your journey. The goal now is to locate the witch and kill her under any costs. You find a blacksmith while navigating a windy trail, and together you set up. A base of operations where future allies can further assist. Yet, not all is well. Ever since the witch’s energy entered your body you’ve been hearing whispers. A voice speaks to the Inquisitor saying not all is what it seems. The world and ideologies you were raised upon are lies, and slowly you will uncover the truth.

A history of fabrication, and the reason why the world is the way it is.

Gameplay

This is the truest successor I’ve seen to Salt and Sanctuary, and if you’ve played Salt already you know what to expect from Mandragora. A combination between metroidvania and soulslike, so you’ll explore a vast interconnected world while growing stronger with each level up. Few parts of the world aren’t explorable instantly. You’ll need the grappling hook or maneuver abilities you unlock with story progression. All you can really do for now is jump across gaps and climb up certain ledges. I wouldn’t call in wall climbing, but with clever usage of ledges you can leap to spots you can’t normally get to by simply sprint jumping. Careful exploration of areas will open up shortcuts or unlock secrets. Some may include new weapons, gear, spells, and diagrams for stuff you can craft. Shortcuts are incredibly important as Mandragora much like any soulslike is a hard game. With enemies being able to get the jump on you if you’re not careful. The biggest addition to Mandragora outside of any soulslike I’ve seen is your camp. Throughout the game you encounter special characters, and these characters can be sent to the witch tree you chose to stay at. These include a blacksmith, tailor, jeweler, chef, map maker, arcanist, and botanist. They can craft tools for you as long as you have the supplies and upgrade their tents. This is done by finding diagrams or crafting. The higher their stations, the better stuff they got.

That’s why it’s pretty important to explore as you may find the materials you need. Combat is a central part of Mandragora as dangerous monsters always lurk about. You fight back using your weapon of choice, and pressing the attack button uses stamina. Trying to attack with no stamina left sees your character struggling to swing. That’s why it’s not always good to hack and slash as you may need to time your dodge rolls correctly to avoid attacks or reposition. Weapon variety is not as large as Dark Souls, but you have a good amount of options. Swords, maces, greatswords, daggers, and greathammers. All of whom’s attack powers scale differently based on what stats you level up. Experience points are gained from killing enemies, and can be spent at checkpoints. If you die you lose experience points, and have to run back to where you died to retrieve them. Die again before doing so and they’re gone for good. Leveling is not the same Dark Souls and is akin to what it was like in Salt and Sanctuary. Instead of a table of stats you instead have a tree. Multiple tree in fact depending on what your starting class was. Each tree dictates what skills and stats you can level, and some gear can’t be utilized unless you purchase the skill three they’re assigned to once you hit level twenty five. This is what I meant when I say classes matter.

My chosen class was the pyromancer who wields an assortment of fiery spells. I can shoot balls of fire, whip off a flaming blade, spray a stream in front of me, and inflict a burning ailment. The pyromancer skill tree prioritizes mainly magic and strength, whereas an assassin would prioritize dexterity and knowledge to maximize damage output with daggers and poison. Some nodes on a skill tree will include perks, and others can have three points invested into a singular node. With a choice of what each of the three choice stats are. I forgot what this game’s Souls is called, but there are also two other currencies in Mandragora. Those being gold and entropy energy. First being needed for purchasing stuff from merchants and the vendors back at base. Entropy energy is different. Occasionally you have to navigate rifts and they’re zones outside the basic map. The player’s life drains slowly within these rifts and when time runs out their life drains quickly. You more often than not die within seconds and get sent back to the entrance of the rift. Hence why you want to use entropy energy and mandrake roots you pluck to upgrade the lantern. 

Then there are the bosses. Colossal beasts & trained fighters who stand between you and moving onward. With a wide array of attacks some of which are triggered once you narrow their health down to a certain threshold. Some of these bosses have two phases, so prepare for two different kinds of fights. Mandragora is a hard game and there are going to be many times you’ll find the character you’ve built to be underleveled or underpowered. That’s why taking time to explore and master the world is crucial. Find better equipment, level up by overcoming optional bosses, choose the stats that fit you best, crank those numbers, and without attempts you’ll outmaneuver each attack. Landing the last to send that bastard falling towards the ground. Besides that there’s not much else left for me to say. Hopefully you wield your blade & magic well enough. You're bleeding magic now boy!

Thoughts

There’s a lot of elements Mandragora handles very well and some that need hefty improvement. A few issues stemming from the weird design choices Salt and Sanctuary created, but ultimately it is a strongly made 2D metroidvania that gets a recommendation in my book. The area where it excels the most is exploration. A majority of my favorite metroidvanias focus on movement and how you traverse the world. The joy of unlocking new abilities so you can gayly fly through the air and never touch the ground. One of the biggest criticisms I’ve seen for Mandragora is lack of character movement upgrades. A staple that has existed since early Metroid games, and it is now absent. Madragora is focused more on being an action RPG and in doing so it alienated a good chunk of the people who play these types of games. Traversing the world is basic, but that does mean the game can’t have interesting exploration. Areas have multiple paths and corners begging you to scrape the innards. Often rewarding players with more crafting materials, secrets, or stuff that can help them in the long run. Sometimes the game rewards you for going off the designated path to grow stronger. Similar to Elden Ring it allows you to run into a high level boss without a warning. Get your face stomped on and sent back. Signaling players to come back once they are strong enough, but not locking the boss off. So presumably if you are good enough you can kill it and gain a hefty amount of experience for the main path.

One of my favorite kinds of awards is the shrines. Little statues that can give you a point to spend on the skill tree without having to spend experience points. The trade off is that you need a certain number of specific materials. Stuff you may have spent crafting, but if you hoggle it like me you get a free skill point, and it’s nice. I love the merchants you unlock throughout the game and how they are their own character beyond, “Hey, I want to sell you crud.” Each with unique personalities, histories, and quests you can partake in. They’re not amazingly well written, but at least some effort was put into making them distinct. I liked upgrading their shops not because of what you get in return, but because the more you revisit your base of operation it transforms into a home. I appreciate the camp system in this game. Unfortunately the flaw of it is that a majority of useful gear you’re using can be found or bought. I have criticism for games having systems or ideas that are used once and never again. Mandragora certainly has one of those. The two NPCs that I utilized the most were the jeweler and the enchantment infuser. Everything else can mostly never be touched, and it sucks because obviously a lot of thought was put into the encampment. There is some respect I have for the game not forcing players to use it all the time. To cut down the amount of grinding they’d have to do for crafting materials, but now there’s not many uses for it. Money is stacked by the end as there’s not enough good stuff to buy. I've not even mentioned the rift zones. How they too are 'there' and not utilized much.

Still the world map is enjoyable to venture through, and the areas are diverse enough to not get tired of. You traverse through an undead crypt, swampland, icy mountains, mystical forest, and at one point you enter what is essentially Yharnam from Bloodborn. Where the houses are boarded up and the streets are overrun with vampires. Then you gotta pull off a Castlevania. By storming the nearby gothic castle and attempting to kill the lead vampire. Another strong aspect is the art direction. Reminds me of another indie currently in development called No Rest for The Wicked. In fact, I wouldn’t doubt if some of the devs who worked on this game were influenced despite that game still being in early access as of time of writing this review. It has the Dishonored look where despite every surface and characters’ skin look as if they were painted on. Everytime you talk to a major character you get a portrait of their face and all its glorious/hideous details. Again the environments of this game are varied enough and part of it is due to the good art direction. I would even say Mandragora walks the line of being a Double A game at times, and it probably is considering how much stuff there is. My playthrough took around twenty six hours with some of it spent doing side objectives and exploration. You’re getting a chunk game here albeit higher priced than other indies. It’s forty dollars and some people had criticisms about it. Yet again, no one minded that Clair Obscur had the same runtime and cost $50.

Character progression and build diversity is another strong aspect of the game. I mentioned a few moments ago that despite how many soulslikes giving you a choice of the starting class not a lot of them made it matter. Class usually meant what weapon and gear you were given. Eventually you deviate, because no one wants to be a knight or wizard forever. Mandragora is one of few games where class actually matters, because once the choice is made you’re locked into it for a few hours. There are six classes, and another cannot be unlocked until you hit a certain threshold. You have the option to dual class and that’s really cool, but it’s a much better idea to prioritize a singular class as the second might not scale with what you currently have. I rocked pyromancer the whole game and near the end I started dumping points into what is essentially a warrior. My Inquisitor wielded a saber and spat fire, and when a mighty beast approached she pulled out the f*ck off greatsword. Even if you feel like you wasted your level up points on nodes you didn’t want you can respect. The first time is free, but the next few times it’ll cost you. Meaning you do have to put some thought into how you build your character otherwise you’ll be wasting valuable experience points on respecing. This is some of the best build craft I’ve seen from a non-Souls soulslike aside from Remnant 2. Well thought out and I'd say it far superior to what Salt and Sanctuary had attempted back in the day.

What I do have some criticisms for is the combat. I don’t think it’s bad. The majority of the time it’s pretty fun. Your weapons have weight, slashing them at enemies feels good, and the game finds a way to transform an encounter with two foes into a threatening one. Going for the design approach the first Dark Souls where every encounter requires thought and care. The problem is when the game has encounters that want you to be fast and reactive, because the mechanics just aren’t flexible enough.You have a stamina system that dictates how much you can react, and the main method of dodging is a clunky dodge roll. You can’t animation cancel or transition into the next animation easily, and sometimes you face stuff that feels like downright bullsh*t. There are encounters where the main thought process is not on how it’s set up, but how much they throw at the players. A good multi-foe encounter is one without that mind. For example, I gotta fight the bandits coming at me, but on a ledge is an archer. Someone who’ll fire at me as I tackle the main crew, so now I gotta make a choice whether I run to the archer, tackle the bandits, or multi-task. Then you got one where it’s two frost gargoyles and a mage bundled on a flat terrain. Running at you and clawing your skin away. That is not a thoughtfully made encounter. That’s bullsh*t.

Bosses have the same thought philosophy with some being faster than what the player can react to. One of the end game fights was a giant werewolf who moved fast and hit hard. There’s little windows of opportunity, and even though it was fun I realized it’s a fight a majority of people are not gonna be able to beat under normal circumstances. These aren’t problems that only exist in this game. Some of it can be traced back to Salt and Sanctuary, and converting the Souls formula to a 2D environment. In a 3D game you have multiple ways to move when dodging an enemy. You can move left, right, forward, backwards, dodge into the attack, away, or just circle strafe so you can observe or find openings. 2D not so much, because all you can do is move left and right. You can reposition or get behind, but it’s not a lot. There’s a reason why soulslike metroidvanias since Salt and Sanctuary opted for other approaches: Hollow Knight, Grime, and Blasphemous 2 chose movement and platforming your way around attacks. Combining the mechanics you learn to create interesting fights. Nine Sols, Moonscars, and the original Blasphemous choose to give players parrying. A direct approach so following up with an attack is much easier. Some games go for the approach Salt and Sanctuary have like Ender Lilies and The Last Faith, but remove the stamina bar. That way combat can be a more open approach and reactive instead of being held by restrictions. I’m not saying restrictions are bad, but I like it when games utilize them in smartly. Combat while good gets annoying with how it's done.

I also just don’t like how many times minibosses are used, but yet again soulslike are known for doing this pretty often and Mandragora despite being on the higher end of the spectrum is made off of crowdfunding money. They ran out of cash at some point and used what they had readily made. Finally I want to discuss the story. It’s pretty good. Not stellar as I don’t expect myself to remember it in a year, but I appreciate them telling a straightforward & comprehensible tale. One that criticizes theocracy, ideology, belief, and learning to criticize said beliefs even if you trusted in them for so long. The church is evil. Yeah, a lot of games have explored this idea already. The Blasphemous series, Bloodborne, Devil May Cry 4, and animated Castlevania series. However, it’s a theme I never get sick of seeing how there’s so many individuals in real life who weaponize their faith and use it to harass others. Then defending themselves saying, “It’s what god wanted” or “I go to church every week therefore I'm a good person”. Otherwise christians, but we’re not ready to have this conversation again. Look, just use your brain cells more often, okay!?

There are quite a handful of flaws with Mandragora, but what the game handles well is done at such a high level it outweighs the problems I’d feel. It’s a shame this game got lukewarm review scores and reception, because there is a confidently made game here. A strong 2D action RPG with great build craft, progression, and world to venture through. Even if you face troubles you can utilize the accessibility options baked in. Making this pretty hard adventure into a more manageable one if you don’t have a busy life. I strongly recommend this game and hope anyone who reads this review gives it a fair shot similar to me. In the end I give Mandragora: Whispers of The Witch Tree a 9/10 for excellence at best.

9/10, Excellence