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.

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.