Another Crab's Treasure (2024)

You're working on this cute little underwater platformer with a sweet hermit crab protagonist, then one day the design lead says, "We're changing direction... I've just read Berserk."

A definitive Souls-lite, if such a thing exists. Combat is pitched and weighty, though occasionally a little stiff. The general power curve is satisfying and the variety of moves, shells, spells and modifiers adds sufficient flavour. The world itself is beautiful, which naturally encourages exploration - though this is not as richly rewarded as in contemporaries like Elden Ring. The comparison is drawn not just by genre, but explicitly by Aggro Crab - the boss movesets perfectly mirror ER, Bloodborne and Sekiro more than once.

The story is where ACT shines, even though the dialogue often leaves meat in the shell. An overreliance on puns can't stifle the dark heart of this weird little sea urchin. You will be shocked at the depths, both literal and figurative, to which you will sink.

This is one of my favorite games I've ever played. Take a genre where I care little for most themes within it, and give it a theme exactly for me! There was more than a couple magical moments where the gameplay, design, and music came together expertly.

For me, much like Spelunky, it's that feeling of seeing my skill meet and exceed the challenge of the game at each hurdle. It wasn't painful no matter how much I died. And eventually you start overcoming late game challenges first try when you've mastered the mechanics.

What a fun game.

The game has charm. It does, but at the same time, even the charm suffers from low quality assets in a game that seems to spread itself too thin. I didn't finish the game - far from it. I decided to call it quits after 2-3 hours (just unlocked the first "super attack"). Not because I was stuck at a boss, but because often the camera would get in the way and result in a death, either by hindering me from fighting back against enemies, or by obstructing me while required to do some precise platforming.

I wish the game's charm was enough to keep me interested, but I feel there's a lot holding the game back. I never quite got the hang of the feedback during combat. It felt like the impact of my attacks were a tad delayed from what I expected, visually. This game sadly just didn't click for me, even if it checks a bunch of boxes I like. And it's not that Souls-likes are too hard for me. I've completed Dark Souls 1, 2 Bloodborne, Nioh and a few other Souls-adjacent (is that a thing?) games. Another Crab's Treasure simply just didn't quite knock it out of the park for me.

It's a funny little game with a lot of inspiration from the souls games.

But, damn, there are a lot of performance issues. Framerate drop, game progress resetting bugs, sudden character jumps - you name it. I'm quite a patient gamer, and I played through all of them, but I'm not sure it can be acceptable :)

If you add some frustrating platforming elements here and there, it's getting even worse.

It could be so much better...

+: gameplay, bosses -:platforming, performance issues

This game is janky and broken and minimalist in ways that make it feel more like a proof of concept than a finished game.

but the bits of it that work, they work well. The combat is fun and challenging. very much so for what looks like "my first souls". the shell changing mechanic is a solid innovative concept and it's done well. The story is charming and entertaining and, like all good stories, shits on capitalism constantly.

it's not a game of the year by any means. but it's cute and fun.

Before I get into the 3D combat rant, this game is fun, creative, and beautiful. I love the setting and the art style. The story is pretty cool. And I love the way game mechanics are translated into worldbuilding, like how unique shells give unique abilities. And every shell is some kind of human-made object, as well as much of the infrastructure. It is so cool to look up and notice that you are under a shopping cart or a stop sign, which also plays into the idea of pollution. The in-game currency is microplastics. It's brilliant. So I love this game but I do not enjoy it.

3D combat is rarely ever enjoyable. This game is not an exception. The only single player games with somewhat good 3D combat are Jedi: Fallen Order and Survivor, although survivor's is worse. And the combat in Tunic is decent although that is only kind of 3D. And in each of those games the combat is my least favorite part. It is probably a skill issue but I also feel like there is a fundamental flaw in 3D combat as a concept. Another Crab's Treasure has a skill tree, upgrades, perks, and shells which give the player abilities. Each of these elements make the combat both more complicated, and worse.

Simplicity in combat is infinitely more enjoyable. Hollow Knight has great combat. There are spells and charms that make it more complex, but this does not detract from the experience because 2D combat is just fundamentally better. I don't even know why; it is probably because 2D combat is easier. I think this is all just personal preference but I continually find myself hating 3D games when the combat becomes too annoying.

Of course, a soulslike is supposed to be hard but there are good and bad ways of designing difficulty. Giving enemies a high health bar, to me, is not a good way of making a fight difficult. This makes combat a test of endurance rather than skill. After 1 or 2 attempts at a bossfight, I know the attack patterns and should be able to beat the boss within the next few attempts. But the bossfights are so long that I end up needing 20+ attempts. And each time I die it is because of some kind of janky or unlucky mechanic that is hardly the fault of my skill level. For example, I may die because I pressed the dodge button 1 millisecond early. My bad. I eventually just turned assist mode on. for every bossfight.

Platforming challenges and combat challenges are fundamentally the same because they test the players skill and expertise in game mechanics. But platforming challenges are always easier (and more fun) because they are CONSISTENT. Like I said, I learn enemy attack patterns quickly but am always blindsided by some kind of randomness (or just stupid mechanics). An example from this game would be inconsistent attack timing. An enemy raises their claw and I press the dodge button at seemingly the same time as the previous 50 attempts. But this time the enemy conveniently requires a bit more time to charge up and suddenly I have lost 70% of my health because I didn't anticipate the enemy requiring 2 more seconds to do the same attack.

After one of the bossfights and a major story beat, my game started to freeze excessively and the game became unplayable. This honestly felt good because I had an excuse to stop playing.

It has a lot of technical issues (at least on PS5), but I LOVED this game. It was a nice challenge that made me laugh and almost made me cry. Krill is one of the best and most relatable main characters I've seen in ages.

It also makes a hard and direct criticism of capitalism. One would say that is not subtle at all, but in a world that thinks Helldivers and Warhammer 40K glorify fascism, maybe is neccesary to say things to the face.

Anyway, here's my full review in spanish, as usual.

If Soulslike games are too hard for you, it has a handful of difficulty options that make it as easy as yopu want. you can even give Krill a gun that one-shots anything (I didn't use it, but the final boss tempted me to... I discovered how to cheese it anyway).