I've been following this game for years and now that I've finally gotten to play it? I really liked it! That being said, there's definitely room for improvement.

It's a really solid soulslike with charming characters, an interesting world, and a pretty good story. Where Lies of P started great and slowly fell victim to an identity crisis, Another Crab's Treasure knows what it is and commits to it the whole time. This is reflected in so many aspects, like how combat takes inspiration from Sekiro with stagger and parrying, while maintaining its own identity with the shell system, or how areas are clearly inspired by common soulslike locales and design philosophies but take their own shape and form and become unique landscapes to conquer. This game is unabashedly itself and that carries a lot of the charm for me.

Not everything is perfect, though. I think damage values are a tad too overtuned, as fodder enemies kill you in 2-3 hits and you take years to kill them. This is more of an issue in the early game, but it takes ages to resolve through levelling, which doesn't feel very impactful overall. Also, while I love the world designs overall, I think some areas are a little too open-ended in terms of level design while failing to build themselves around that design philosophy, meaning extra exploration is implied but not always fun to do. Also, minor nitpick, ending felt a little weightless with how the game sets it up, and some story beats fall a little flat.

Overall, a really fun time, but probably could've used some tweaks to make an even stronger experience.

This game is hard to fuck with. It's charming, intimate, funny, but a little confused and empty.

The enemies feel overtuned, frequently throwing insta-kill grabs and combos where even the weakest enemies can thrash you. The spaces you trace are strangely open, seemingly in some sort of compromise between open world sensibilities and the responsibility to design levels. Sometimes it all comes together and you're scuttling the seabed, the fights are good, and there's a joke you know some young adults had a blast putting together, but by the time I reach another poison swamp it feels like it's collapsed under its own weight, and the fun is over. Like I'm in a big empty area with some crabs littered around it. Is it underdeveloped? Too big to support itself?

When it stopped being fun, I tried turning the difficulty down, but the effects were marginal. I figured even if I turned it down to the easiest settings, I wasn't going to see much more than the first few hours. When the magic is gone like that, it's hard to come back.