It's not perfect at all (there are some really wonky bugs), but this game is very charming. As a Souls-like it's definitely easier than most of its contemporaries, but there are some cool bosses here, some really fun exploration and storytelling, and it was just something I had a blast playing.
I liked it so much that I finished this on both Game Pass and the incredibly poorly optimized Switch version. That probably counts for something!
I liked it so much that I finished this on both Game Pass and the incredibly poorly optimized Switch version. That probably counts for something!
Esse jogo é extremamente charmoso em seus visuais e mecânicas, além de personagens carismáticos e uma história simples, porém entretém e é divertida. A jornada de Krill é deliciosa e muitas vezes engraçada.
É
uma ótima porta de entrada para iniciantes em soulslike, pois ele não possui barra de stamina clássica de outros títulos do gênero.
Embora ele não tenha o combate tão complexo quanto outros soulslike, ele brilha nos desafios de plataforma, que são bem interessantes.
Os pontos negativos do jogo são a falta de variedade de inimigos, porém isso já era algo que eu esperava devido ao escopo do jogo e o plot twist do final que é um pouco arrastado, mas bem tolerável.
Esse jogo foi uma grata surpresa para os fãs de jogos de plataforma. Super recomendo 7/10.
É
uma ótima porta de entrada para iniciantes em soulslike, pois ele não possui barra de stamina clássica de outros títulos do gênero.
Embora ele não tenha o combate tão complexo quanto outros soulslike, ele brilha nos desafios de plataforma, que são bem interessantes.
Os pontos negativos do jogo são a falta de variedade de inimigos, porém isso já era algo que eu esperava devido ao escopo do jogo e o plot twist do final que é um pouco arrastado, mas bem tolerável.
Esse jogo foi uma grata surpresa para os fãs de jogos de plataforma. Super recomendo 7/10.
Extremely charming. Like overflowing with charm. Reminds me of A Hat in Time in just how charming like every little bit of this game is. Also super super fun boss fights (mostly). Loved those parts of the game. Also, fire music.
Unfortunately, there's a lot more to the game than charm, good bosses (there's not very many), and music. The game is also littered with obnoxious enemies that aren't every fun to fight at all, pretty awful platforming, a way worse integration of the Sekiro grappling hook (which already wasn't particularly fun to use), and generally boring/annoying level design. Areas are either way too big with nothing worth exploring, or brain-crushingly linear. In both cases, the areas are littered with dogshit enemies that are worse than any other soulslike I've played. Also, there's like no reason to ever fight them. Even the ones that glow purple and give you the special currency aren't worth it. You can get plenty of that from the crystals and bosses. Oh also there's only like 5 optional bosses, and only two of them are worth your time. Some of the main bosses are pretty lame as well, but generally they're chill and fun and engaging.
Unfortunately, there's a lot more to the game than charm, good bosses (there's not very many), and music. The game is also littered with obnoxious enemies that aren't every fun to fight at all, pretty awful platforming, a way worse integration of the Sekiro grappling hook (which already wasn't particularly fun to use), and generally boring/annoying level design. Areas are either way too big with nothing worth exploring, or brain-crushingly linear. In both cases, the areas are littered with dogshit enemies that are worse than any other soulslike I've played. Also, there's like no reason to ever fight them. Even the ones that glow purple and give you the special currency aren't worth it. You can get plenty of that from the crystals and bosses. Oh also there's only like 5 optional bosses, and only two of them are worth your time. Some of the main bosses are pretty lame as well, but generally they're chill and fun and engaging.
It's a cute, difficult game with nautical humor and lovable characters. It is a souls-like experience, however, the combat did not feel nearly as tight as I would have liked. Hit boxes were funny at times and the i-frames while dodging weren't dependable. I enjoyed the story and characters, but perhaps the best part was playing the game as part of the gamepass subscription.
You can view my entire review here: https://youtu.be/BQGqf28-GxY
You can view my entire review here: https://youtu.be/BQGqf28-GxY
there is shrimp in this game... prawnathan... shimp.....
an extremely novel souls-type game with a bunch of clever ideas, the biggest of which is only having one basic weapon and rather having your "armor" (aka shell) provide unique skills ranging from firing ranged projectiles to healing-over-time to sonic-style-dashing to just straight up exploding. your shell also breaks by taking damage, encouraging you to constantly swap out skills. for those who dislike durability there is an "insurance" feature you can shell out your soul-equivalent currency on, but i am one of those botw-coded people who love the forced creativity and scavenging that durability provides
enemies can mow you down quite easily in this game. there's a unique flavor of blocking/parrying this game with an entire resistance stat to level, but i hate mfin shields in soulslike games so i left that stat entirely unleveled and forgot the block button existed... but the combat in general still felt very enjoyable with the constant swapping of abilities, and the addition of new upgrades/movesets throughout the game. i feel like enemies have too much knockback though, hits can and will send you flying off a cliff extremely easily. at times it also felt like my inputs weren't registering in awkward combat spaces (of which there are many, slight changes in elevation seemingly being a culprit) leading to charged attacks not being started, or at worst, not healing in vital moments
the combo of a level 3 bobbit trap adaptation (which traps enemies, deals damage over time, AND increases their damage taken), the mantis punch (which deals massive damage), the shotgun shell (which also deals massive damage), and the grapple hook (which again, deals big damage, but this time at a range) all combine in the endgame to demolish bosses
did not expect a critique of capitalism + how economic pressures are an inescapable vortex in funny crab game but it's pretty badass
i hold a lot of nostalgia for this aesthetic thanks to the classic thq spongebob games and a certain finding nemo xbox game from the ancient times. definitely not a perfect experience but the ideas are very novel and the variety is fun
an extremely novel souls-type game with a bunch of clever ideas, the biggest of which is only having one basic weapon and rather having your "armor" (aka shell) provide unique skills ranging from firing ranged projectiles to healing-over-time to sonic-style-dashing to just straight up exploding. your shell also breaks by taking damage, encouraging you to constantly swap out skills. for those who dislike durability there is an "insurance" feature you can shell out your soul-equivalent currency on, but i am one of those botw-coded people who love the forced creativity and scavenging that durability provides
enemies can mow you down quite easily in this game. there's a unique flavor of blocking/parrying this game with an entire resistance stat to level, but i hate mfin shields in soulslike games so i left that stat entirely unleveled and forgot the block button existed... but the combat in general still felt very enjoyable with the constant swapping of abilities, and the addition of new upgrades/movesets throughout the game. i feel like enemies have too much knockback though, hits can and will send you flying off a cliff extremely easily. at times it also felt like my inputs weren't registering in awkward combat spaces (of which there are many, slight changes in elevation seemingly being a culprit) leading to charged attacks not being started, or at worst, not healing in vital moments
the combo of a level 3 bobbit trap adaptation (which traps enemies, deals damage over time, AND increases their damage taken), the mantis punch (which deals massive damage), the shotgun shell (which also deals massive damage), and the grapple hook (which again, deals big damage, but this time at a range) all combine in the endgame to demolish bosses
did not expect a critique of capitalism + how economic pressures are an inescapable vortex in funny crab game but it's pretty badass
i hold a lot of nostalgia for this aesthetic thanks to the classic thq spongebob games and a certain finding nemo xbox game from the ancient times. definitely not a perfect experience but the ideas are very novel and the variety is fun
I've been way too busy to do a deep write-up on this game. The short version is this was one of the more deeply flawed games I've stuck out until the end credits. It has a good heart, and the spirit of what it's trying to do is all in the right place, but honestly, I only finished it because I'm considering doing some analysis of Soulslike combat design at some point in the future, and this is a marked example of something that misunderstands some core principles of what makes those games work in spite of their frustrations and difficulty. Don't let the fact that this game is cute trick you, this is as mean and rude, if not more so, as any Fromsoft game.
There is just so much obnoxious behavior in this game, particularly concerning how many enemy hits turn your character into a flying physics object to be thrown off of ledges or across the arena. The only thing that offsets the awful difficulty design is the fact that the player is, in turn, granted some incredibly overpowered abilities without a hint of balance behind them, making it so you can easily spam and tank your way through everything. The best elements of combat have "the juice," as it were, though the roll-out shell spell was so goddamn good compared to everything else that I never used any other shells after I got it! The worst elements irritated me through at least a third of the game's run time.
Their economy balance is also pretty weird; you can max out all the upgrades in the game with like ~60% of the limited crystals available. Maybe that's good, I don't know. It certainly fully disincentivizes finding all of that currency -- even as a completionist, and even given the fact that they show you exactly how much is in each zone on the fast-travel page -- but there's just too much of it.
People hype up the story a lot. It's fine. It has a lot of character, but it didn't make me feel anything or get invested. A lot of the dialog is just too by-the-numbers smarmy indie-game-core without enough substance for me to really care. The way it progresses is pretty straightforward and obvious, they foreshadow everything about it well enough, but it's also kind of incoherent in terms of themes. I mean, the themes are clear, there are just several that have not a lot to do with each other and rely on a kind of cartoon logic while also trying to feel super sad and serious at the same time. Then again, I'm also on record feeling literally nothing about anything Fromsoft has ever done with story or worldbuilding, so anything inspired by that foundation, even if written more clearly, I probably find boring by association. "Ah, the world is in decay, and everyone's sad." OK.
Lastly, the fact that the player can't scroll around the map UI is garbage. Just...absolutely trash. Do not give a player a map that is so zoomed in they can't actually see anything other than what they could already see without a map. Absolutely flabbergasting decision.
Conclusion: I wouldn't say DON'T play this game if it looks cool to you. It has good elements, and people less nitpicky than me seem to love it, but don't go in expecting a polished experience in any regard. It's rougher around the edges than any game I've finished in the last 15 years (including tons of indie and AA games).
Combat Design: 6/10
Level Design: 6/10
Music: 8/10
Story: 6/10
There is just so much obnoxious behavior in this game, particularly concerning how many enemy hits turn your character into a flying physics object to be thrown off of ledges or across the arena. The only thing that offsets the awful difficulty design is the fact that the player is, in turn, granted some incredibly overpowered abilities without a hint of balance behind them, making it so you can easily spam and tank your way through everything. The best elements of combat have "the juice," as it were, though the roll-out shell spell was so goddamn good compared to everything else that I never used any other shells after I got it! The worst elements irritated me through at least a third of the game's run time.
Their economy balance is also pretty weird; you can max out all the upgrades in the game with like ~60% of the limited crystals available. Maybe that's good, I don't know. It certainly fully disincentivizes finding all of that currency -- even as a completionist, and even given the fact that they show you exactly how much is in each zone on the fast-travel page -- but there's just too much of it.
People hype up the story a lot. It's fine. It has a lot of character, but it didn't make me feel anything or get invested. A lot of the dialog is just too by-the-numbers smarmy indie-game-core without enough substance for me to really care. The way it progresses is pretty straightforward and obvious, they foreshadow everything about it well enough, but it's also kind of incoherent in terms of themes. I mean, the themes are clear, there are just several that have not a lot to do with each other and rely on a kind of cartoon logic while also trying to feel super sad and serious at the same time. Then again, I'm also on record feeling literally nothing about anything Fromsoft has ever done with story or worldbuilding, so anything inspired by that foundation, even if written more clearly, I probably find boring by association. "Ah, the world is in decay, and everyone's sad." OK.
Lastly, the fact that the player can't scroll around the map UI is garbage. Just...absolutely trash. Do not give a player a map that is so zoomed in they can't actually see anything other than what they could already see without a map. Absolutely flabbergasting decision.
Conclusion: I wouldn't say DON'T play this game if it looks cool to you. It has good elements, and people less nitpicky than me seem to love it, but don't go in expecting a polished experience in any regard. It's rougher around the edges than any game I've finished in the last 15 years (including tons of indie and AA games).
Combat Design: 6/10
Level Design: 6/10
Music: 8/10
Story: 6/10
Another Crab's Treasure is a Soulslike with an approachable charm but not a lot of depth. The idea of a defense-oriented Souls game is interesting and synergizes well with the setting. That setting is a real highlight, with colorful underwater environments and a strong environmental message. While the writing is a generally amusing, the game is way too verbose, especially during major story beats.
Unfortunately the great ideas are slowly buried under a mountain of tedium. Enemy variety is very low, and levels frequently feel too long. Items are strewn across large open spaces, but generally just offer more currency, which is a real disappointment. The game's underlying systems feel half-baked, which makes progression uneven and unsatisfying.
On top of this, bugs like disappearing bloodstains and bad collision caused more loss of progress than any errors on my part. The game doesn't save your location when you exit the game, which means you have to reach a bonfire or else lose all your level progress. I made it to the final level before the tedium got to me. There's a lot of great ideas here, but to me this ended up feeling like an early access or beta. Hopefully the developer will learn some lessons and we'll get an amazing sequel that executes better on these ideas.
Unfortunately the great ideas are slowly buried under a mountain of tedium. Enemy variety is very low, and levels frequently feel too long. Items are strewn across large open spaces, but generally just offer more currency, which is a real disappointment. The game's underlying systems feel half-baked, which makes progression uneven and unsatisfying.
On top of this, bugs like disappearing bloodstains and bad collision caused more loss of progress than any errors on my part. The game doesn't save your location when you exit the game, which means you have to reach a bonfire or else lose all your level progress. I made it to the final level before the tedium got to me. There's a lot of great ideas here, but to me this ended up feeling like an early access or beta. Hopefully the developer will learn some lessons and we'll get an amazing sequel that executes better on these ideas.
I LOVE MICROPLASTICS I LOVE MICROPLASTICS I LOVE MICROPLASTICS I LOVE MICROPLASTICS I LOVE MICROPLASTICS I LOVE MICROPLASTICS I LOVE MICROPLASTICS I LOVE MICROPLASTICS I LOVE MICROPLASTICS
A pretty alright soulslike with some great additions and modifications to the genre to make this game feel very unique. But where this game shines most is in the character writing and story. Every character is super memorable and I love the themes of perseverance and anti-capitalism.
The mid game drags on for far too long ESPECIALLY with scuttleport, the worst stretch of the game that just keeps going. The balancing is also all over the place, I found this game all in all pretty easy for a soulslike, but there are a couple of seemingly deliberately ‘fuck you’ areas and enemies that just obliterate you. Most of the bosses are really great, it’s still just as satisfying to beat down an enemy larger and stronger than you.
I think this game fails a little bit in terms of its world building, but in a way where that was kind of inevitable. See, I think a core part of the soulslike experience is the mystery and intrigue of the world, and the atmosphere coupled on top of that make for such a great experience. Another Crab’s Treasure goes in a different direction, instead creating a world based on sea creatures’ perception of our world, and their interpretation of our items and concepts. It’s a very fun idea and is entertaining, but fundamentally loses that mystery aspect. For the first time i was playing a soulslike where I, the player, knew more about the world than the characters did, when usually it’s the other way around. This is not inherently a bad thing, but it does feel like it’s missing to me. There is some more classic ancient mystery later in the game, but it’s too late for it to really carry through the entire game.
But again, this game excels with its character writing and story. Kril has such an interesting journey as a purely reactive character for much of the game where he has to learn that might not be an option, someone who explicitly says he doesn’t like fighting and doesn’t want to do it, ending up doing it for the sake of others. Nemma deconstructing Kril’s desire to get his shell back and realizing it’s not because it made him happy, but because it was all he ever knew. Wishing he never saw the horrors of his world is something that grapples at him, and is a really interesting problem to have to deal with when it’s through his efforts that very world might be saved. Chitan and Konche were also highlights for me, Chitan especially being a very fun inspirational foil to Kril. Firth I genuinely found SO interesting as a representation of the person who says “bro if I was rich, I just wouldn’t be evil.” He’s fascinating to see develop this savior complex when he’s presented as this coward who does nothing for much of the game. He’s a lot like Roland, the main antagonist and CEO of the corporation that runs the sea, where they both don’t do anything and reap the rewards anyway. This game is also just genuinely hilarious? I’m glad it doesn’t take itself too seriously because one of the funniest additions to a punch line is removing punctuation, and I think this game does it to great effect. Excellent storytelling from Aggro Crab, and absolutely what kept me playing.
This game is very intentionally different, and I think it works very well for it. Where it makes changes to the formula it makes ones that compliment the strengths of the dev team, and is where the gameplay might not be as polished or engaging as a typical soulslike, it makes up for that with the style this game presents.
The mid game drags on for far too long ESPECIALLY with scuttleport, the worst stretch of the game that just keeps going. The balancing is also all over the place, I found this game all in all pretty easy for a soulslike, but there are a couple of seemingly deliberately ‘fuck you’ areas and enemies that just obliterate you. Most of the bosses are really great, it’s still just as satisfying to beat down an enemy larger and stronger than you.
I think this game fails a little bit in terms of its world building, but in a way where that was kind of inevitable. See, I think a core part of the soulslike experience is the mystery and intrigue of the world, and the atmosphere coupled on top of that make for such a great experience. Another Crab’s Treasure goes in a different direction, instead creating a world based on sea creatures’ perception of our world, and their interpretation of our items and concepts. It’s a very fun idea and is entertaining, but fundamentally loses that mystery aspect. For the first time i was playing a soulslike where I, the player, knew more about the world than the characters did, when usually it’s the other way around. This is not inherently a bad thing, but it does feel like it’s missing to me. There is some more classic ancient mystery later in the game, but it’s too late for it to really carry through the entire game.
But again, this game excels with its character writing and story. Kril has such an interesting journey as a purely reactive character for much of the game where he has to learn that might not be an option, someone who explicitly says he doesn’t like fighting and doesn’t want to do it, ending up doing it for the sake of others. Nemma deconstructing Kril’s desire to get his shell back and realizing it’s not because it made him happy, but because it was all he ever knew. Wishing he never saw the horrors of his world is something that grapples at him, and is a really interesting problem to have to deal with when it’s through his efforts that very world might be saved. Chitan and Konche were also highlights for me, Chitan especially being a very fun inspirational foil to Kril. Firth I genuinely found SO interesting as a representation of the person who says “bro if I was rich, I just wouldn’t be evil.” He’s fascinating to see develop this savior complex when he’s presented as this coward who does nothing for much of the game. He’s a lot like Roland, the main antagonist and CEO of the corporation that runs the sea, where they both don’t do anything and reap the rewards anyway. This game is also just genuinely hilarious? I’m glad it doesn’t take itself too seriously because one of the funniest additions to a punch line is removing punctuation, and I think this game does it to great effect. Excellent storytelling from Aggro Crab, and absolutely what kept me playing.
This game is very intentionally different, and I think it works very well for it. Where it makes changes to the formula it makes ones that compliment the strengths of the dev team, and is where the gameplay might not be as polished or engaging as a typical soulslike, it makes up for that with the style this game presents.
This review contains spoilers
This game about a f***ing crab finding his shell has more depth then most triple A games released in the last few years.
Not only does this have comparable souls-like mechanics by themself, but comes up with new combinations of ideas that I am surprised have not been thought of before. Adding platforming, shell swapping, and Umami whilst tuning each of these factors to work just right with each other is not a small feat.
But we can't forget... the story. On the surface, this game tells a fun story about a crab trying to find his shell, but the nuance that is jam packed within the environment design and larger story beats touches on modern themes of climate change, post-capitalism and greed. Oh and the great decision to have the game finish on a relatively bad note does wonders to enforce the severity of the themes this game covers. All of this whilst making clever and funny jokes to hold a perfect balance of tone that made this 16 hour adventure feel like it took only 5.
Must play, even if you aren't a fan of souls-likes. ESPECIALLY if you want to get into souls-likes as it is more approachable and clear than some of Fromsoft's releases.
Not only does this have comparable souls-like mechanics by themself, but comes up with new combinations of ideas that I am surprised have not been thought of before. Adding platforming, shell swapping, and Umami whilst tuning each of these factors to work just right with each other is not a small feat.
But we can't forget... the story. On the surface, this game tells a fun story about a crab trying to find his shell, but the nuance that is jam packed within the environment design and larger story beats touches on modern themes of climate change, post-capitalism and greed. Oh and the great decision to have the game finish on a relatively bad note does wonders to enforce the severity of the themes this game covers. All of this whilst making clever and funny jokes to hold a perfect balance of tone that made this 16 hour adventure feel like it took only 5.
Must play, even if you aren't a fan of souls-likes. ESPECIALLY if you want to get into souls-likes as it is more approachable and clear than some of Fromsoft's releases.
This game didnt sit with me, I love the art style and the premise. Lots of pop culture references and some tricky bosses.
But I found myself being underwhelmed in the sense of environments, bosses, and enemy design.
I found myself having a problem with knowing where I needed to go and then continually found myself getting lost because the map is horrendous, places look the same and the movement was clunky.
I like the skill system and the first area, everything else was ehh mediocre.
sorry lads. I really tried
But I found myself being underwhelmed in the sense of environments, bosses, and enemy design.
I found myself having a problem with knowing where I needed to go and then continually found myself getting lost because the map is horrendous, places look the same and the movement was clunky.
I like the skill system and the first area, everything else was ehh mediocre.
sorry lads. I really tried
- that one moray eel boss
+ the fact that u can equip a gun
(but seriously a very good little soulslike, if a little unpolished, with a surprisingly engaging story)
+ the fact that u can equip a gun
(but seriously a very good little soulslike, if a little unpolished, with a surprisingly engaging story)
holy crab that was sharking great!
But seriously though, really solid game and a fine addition to the souls-like genre. Fun exploration that feels rewarding and worth it, engaging combat with interesting abilities (Not "difficult" but there is a learning curve) extremely vibrant and pretty visuals and a neat little story with memorable characters. I really enjoyed my time with Another Crab's Treasure and I'm looking forward to whatever Aggro Crab works on next.
My only real complaint would be that the visual map feels very bare bones which made it a bit difficult to figure out exactly where you are and have been at times. No moving it around or anything, it's locked to your exact location. Not the worst I've seen and not bad enough to feel negative about though.
But seriously though, really solid game and a fine addition to the souls-like genre. Fun exploration that feels rewarding and worth it, engaging combat with interesting abilities (Not "difficult" but there is a learning curve) extremely vibrant and pretty visuals and a neat little story with memorable characters. I really enjoyed my time with Another Crab's Treasure and I'm looking forward to whatever Aggro Crab works on next.
My only real complaint would be that the visual map feels very bare bones which made it a bit difficult to figure out exactly where you are and have been at times. No moving it around or anything, it's locked to your exact location. Not the worst I've seen and not bad enough to feel negative about though.
Este juego es muy bueno, pero según lo juegas va mejorando más y más. Visualmente no es increíble pero si que tiene una excelente dirección de arte, la música es buenísima, el desarrollo de la historia y de los personajes es mucho más profundo de lo que esperaba en un principio, las mecánicas son muy interesantes y divertidas y la dificultad bastante elevada (a pesar de que tengo mucha experiencia con los soulslikes este juego me costó más de lo normal).
Lo recomiendo mucho porque aunque el juego es corto, recompensa muchísimo volver a explorar zonas anteriores conforme vas avanzando en la trama.
Solo encontré un problema cuando lo jugué y es que no estaba del todo optimizado y aunque no noté problemas de rendimiento, mi ordenador se ponía a tope, aunque creo que esto lo han ido mejorando con parches
Lo recomiendo mucho porque aunque el juego es corto, recompensa muchísimo volver a explorar zonas anteriores conforme vas avanzando en la trama.
Solo encontré un problema cuando lo jugué y es que no estaba del todo optimizado y aunque no noté problemas de rendimiento, mi ordenador se ponía a tope, aunque creo que esto lo han ido mejorando con parches
Lo de "no juzgues un libro por su portada" se escribió para este juego. Una crítica durísima al capitalismo y a los estragos que causa en el medio ambiente, sin cortarse ni un pelo, camuflada bajo una apariencia adorable y simpática.
Jugablemente es bastante competente, aunque algunos bugs y un poquito de jank hacen que algunos combates contra jefes resulten algo frustrantes. Afortunadamente, tiene dificultad ajustable que te permite avanzar si te atascas en algo.
Quizá no tenga la complejidad o profundidad de otros soulslike, pero lo compensa con mucha personalidad, una historia tangible y más oscura de lo que esperaba y mecánicas muy interesantes, como el sistema de conchas.
Sin ser una cosa rompedora, me ha gustado y he pasado un buen rato con él, momentos puntuales de frustración aparte.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Don't judge a book by its cover" was written for this game. A harsh criticism of capitalism and the havoc it wreaks in the environment, with no sugarcoating, hidden behind an adorable and fun appearance.
It's pretty competent, gameplay-wise, although some bugs and a bit of jank make some boss fights a bit frustrating. Fortunately, it has adjustable difficulty levels that can help you move forward if you get stuck.
It may not be as complex or deep as other soulslike games, but it makes up for it with a lot of personality, a solid and darker than I expected storyline, and truly interesting mechanics, like the shell system.
Without being anything groundbreaking, I enjoyed it and I had a good time with it, momentary frustrations aside.
Jugablemente es bastante competente, aunque algunos bugs y un poquito de jank hacen que algunos combates contra jefes resulten algo frustrantes. Afortunadamente, tiene dificultad ajustable que te permite avanzar si te atascas en algo.
Quizá no tenga la complejidad o profundidad de otros soulslike, pero lo compensa con mucha personalidad, una historia tangible y más oscura de lo que esperaba y mecánicas muy interesantes, como el sistema de conchas.
Sin ser una cosa rompedora, me ha gustado y he pasado un buen rato con él, momentos puntuales de frustración aparte.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Don't judge a book by its cover" was written for this game. A harsh criticism of capitalism and the havoc it wreaks in the environment, with no sugarcoating, hidden behind an adorable and fun appearance.
It's pretty competent, gameplay-wise, although some bugs and a bit of jank make some boss fights a bit frustrating. Fortunately, it has adjustable difficulty levels that can help you move forward if you get stuck.
It may not be as complex or deep as other soulslike games, but it makes up for it with a lot of personality, a solid and darker than I expected storyline, and truly interesting mechanics, like the shell system.
Without being anything groundbreaking, I enjoyed it and I had a good time with it, momentary frustrations aside.
Inicialmente, joguei com o intuito de ser só um "Soulslike de carangueijo", mas é bem mais que isso. Esse jogo me surpreendeu bastante, seja pela gameplay e as mecânicas com as conchas que são geniais, seja a história que, por mais simples que seja, tem uma moral e um desfecho satisfatório pra quem terminou o jogo.
Não se engane pelos gráficos, esse jogo é bem desafiador em certos pontos, mas não chega a ser injusto com quem joga. É divertido, é bonito, tem uma mensagem importante no final. Definitivamente uma das maiores surpresas pra mim esse ano
Não se engane pelos gráficos, esse jogo é bem desafiador em certos pontos, mas não chega a ser injusto com quem joga. É divertido, é bonito, tem uma mensagem importante no final. Definitivamente uma das maiores surpresas pra mim esse ano
This review contains spoilers
Just a great game from start to finish, and a great soulslike game. The boss design is directly inspired and damn near perfectly emulate—Step for step— from soulsborne. Other than dodge timing, things like positioning and boss to player counters are prevalent in this game’s bosses just as they are in the likes of Ds3 or ER. On a boss like Topoda, I found it hard to dodge his double hook combo. However, if you opt to roll northwest instead of directly south, you can go unscathed with only one roll, while also getting a free opening for a charged attack. I also found that Topoda often will use his distance closing swing if you try to heal. These concepts are ingrained into practically all of the games bosses, some of my favorite being Roland, Topoda, Firth, and Heikea. I also really enjoyed the platforming/mobility in the game, and it was always satisfying to traverse through the levels. The level design felt a bit shallow at times, but nonetheless, there were standouts such as Old Ocean and the upper levels of Flotsam Vale. Both well utilized shortcuts and puzzles to keep everything fresh and interesting. The exploration was also pretty good, though it could be expanded upon. The social commentary and themes of pollution of the Ocean, and how capitalism is killing the earth. The ending was pretty good, and leaves room for a sequel or dlc or whatever the devs want to do with the project. Alls I’m saying is if they make a sequel, I’m there day one. If they do make a sequel, I’d love to see how they improve upon their designs.
8
8
Another crabs treasure me cativou desde o princípio. Eu particularmente estou inclinado a gostar da dificuldade, mecânicas de combate e desafios que constituem um soulslike, mas sempre me pego cansando rápido demais de jogos do gênero, e descobri o porquê jogando o Siri Souls. A temática bem humorada, o mundo bem construído e o texto muito bem escrito levaram esse jogo, juntamente com suas qualidades técnicas, a outro patamar. Aprecio imensamente essa mudança de tom, assim como a mensagem ambientalista e anticapitalista que o jogo faz questão de colocar no texto e subtexto. A jogabilidade em si é divertida e muito desafiadora. A curva de aprendizado é relativamente rápida, mas espere morrer muito até encontrar um estilo de jogo que combine com você e dominar as mêcanicas de dodge e parry. Os boss são muitos e bastante divertidos. O jogo ainda mistura elementos de plataforma 3D que remetem grandes clássicos do PS2, e isso só enriquece a obra como um todo. Os problemas estão no ritmo da história, que parece se arrastar no terço final. Não é um jogo muito longo, mas o sentimento é que poderia ter finalizado algumas horas antes sem problemas. Alguns mapas sofrem com um level design que deixa a desejar em termos de clareza de informações. Ficar perdido no mapa e ter que ficar batendo cabeça até encontrar uma saída muito mal colocada é frustrante. No geral, gostei muito da experiência e recomendo fortemente. Se a dificuldade frustrar em demasiado, os devs fizeram questão de deixar uma ferramenta muito útil de acessibilidade que acho que todos deveriam considerar.
Another Crab's Treasure is a mascot action game that feels truly like a Gamecube game brought to the modern day. All of the bright and colourful environments and characters of the era, with their mildly crass humour working to give off the same sort of feeling you get going back to watch old Cartoon Network shows and realizing how rough and edgy their content really was. There's loads of stuff to like, from the themeing of the world being mostly garbage, or the solid combat giving way to tense moments, and the general vibe being so lighthearted that it's hard to feel too oppressed at any singular moment while playing. That all said, I think for the first time in this weird non-genre of soulslikes, the thing that sticks out for me most is: the story.
On top of that, though, the team at Aggro Crab have created something that does the 11th hour narrative rug pull and sits the player down to really tell them how terrible the world is for people that aren't them. Another Crab's Treasure starts off as a very upfront narrative about how creatures in the ocean have learned to live with the life-threating garbage that we pollute their homes with. It's their currency, their lifeblood, and ultimately their shelter. But it's killing them. And that's sort of the core of the plot. But, without spoiling anything, I think Another Crab's Treasure might be the first story I've seen in a very long time to do something more with an anti-capitalist message than suggest that perhaps we should improve conditions slightly.
While you'll start ACT thinking that you might be the bad guys, by the end of it (if you're willing to truly listen to what it's saying) you will come to realize that the only reason you should feel like a bad guy is because you're letting the real bad guys get away with it. I was not expecting to feel that way about this kind of game. Well done.
On top of that, though, the team at Aggro Crab have created something that does the 11th hour narrative rug pull and sits the player down to really tell them how terrible the world is for people that aren't them. Another Crab's Treasure starts off as a very upfront narrative about how creatures in the ocean have learned to live with the life-threating garbage that we pollute their homes with. It's their currency, their lifeblood, and ultimately their shelter. But it's killing them. And that's sort of the core of the plot. But, without spoiling anything, I think Another Crab's Treasure might be the first story I've seen in a very long time to do something more with an anti-capitalist message than suggest that perhaps we should improve conditions slightly.
While you'll start ACT thinking that you might be the bad guys, by the end of it (if you're willing to truly listen to what it's saying) you will come to realize that the only reason you should feel like a bad guy is because you're letting the real bad guys get away with it. I was not expecting to feel that way about this kind of game. Well done.
E um bom soulslike, apesar de um pouco desengonçado. Ele trás várias ideias interessantes pra variar a gameplay como forçar você a trocar de concha e dar parry soltando o botão na hora certa ao invés de apertar. Mas ele brilha mesmo na apresentação e na história e na ambientação. A vibe bob esponja, as piadocas e os personagens são muito charmosos. Eu esperava algo com bastante personalidade depois do ultimo jogo deles (Going Under), mas esse superou as expectativas.
I've recently concluded that the shell (har har) of a Soulslike is not nearly as flexible as this industry wants it to be. This is bad timing since this same industry has just crowned the ""genre"" (I will not yield) as the future of AAA productions, and everyone and their mother is scrambling to churn their own one out. Inevitably, then, we'd get games like Another Crab's Treasure. A sixth-gen platforming throwback that inexplicably ties itself to the Souls combat system and format, exclusively to its deficit.
A struggle with reviewing Soulslikes is how quickly they revolve into bullet-point lists of what they get 'right'. "Oh, the healing is too slow, and the roll is wonky, but the changes to shields are really fresh and exciting, but bosses are a mixed bag, and the main weapon is lame blah blah" and so on and so forth. But this seems wrongheaded when looking at a game like ACT. It's a cutesy gimmick platformer that uses the shape of a Souls game to more naturally hook in commentary and break up the flow of the levels. Does it need razor-sharp combat, skillfully designed bosses, or massive game-defining challenges? I'd say no, but this is where the rigidity of Soulslikes come in. What's the point of having this combat system without those things? Why play a 12-hour game of sloppy, slow, imprecise and volatile combat when you can play a better version of the same thing? Especially when the Big Daddy of the style plans to release the most anticipated entry ever in less than two months?
(To be clear, I don't imagine this was an accident. I applaud the decision to release the game just far enough away from Shadow of the Erdtree that people won't disregard it for Elden Ring replays and the like but close enough that people will be itching to play a similar experience. Whoever did the math on that is very clever. Or maybe it's dumb luck, but w/e)
Well, let's investigate. What does Another Crab's Treasure actually offer us that is its own?
The first port of call is the setting. Staging the entire thing underwater gives complete freedom to freshen up the library of enemies and aesthetic tricks used in similar games. While they still include a couple of hallmark classics (poison swamp, sure, but this has the single laziest "I guess we have to have a gank fight somewhere" ever conceived), they do carve out some completely original ideas. Fighting crabs is a nice change of pace! As eye-roll-inducing as the name 'The Sands Between' is, the boss-as-stage-hazard situation is something I've been curious to see in one of these games for a long time, and this is a pretty honourable attempt. And once you get to 'The Unfathom' (equally eye-roll-inducing name), it's lights out. Only a few areas are left, but they take full advantage of the setting and carve some immense atmospheres. In fact, for the first and probably the only time ever in a Soulslike, they environmentally tell you which boss will have a surprise second phase. It's pretty cool, as are the other puzzle boss situations. Even with a mediocre batting average, they make some solid strikes!
It is also, just as crucially, a classic backtrack-heavy, vaguely Sly Cooper adjacent 3D platformer. Everything nice about the aesthetic and setting is doubled operating in this form; it's a really fun hook for one of these games. The literal hook, the one for grappling, is also really fun! But this is where Souls-isms start to bite us in the butt. Why does this game have such a spiky difficulty curve (even if it isn't that hard)? Why do some random enemies and boss attacks one-shot you through a shield? The damage output feels absurd sometimes! Sure, it's nothing new for a Soulslike, but it feels even more out of place here. The two wolves inside this game are incompatible, especially when one is such a sloppy version of itself. Dying in the middle of a cool/unique platforming set piece because you get caught in a net of weird hitboxes, input buffers and attack animations sucks! I know we all go "Fuck Off I Totally Rolled There!!" playing every Souls game, but we all know it's a lie. You can tell you inputted slightly too late or didn't fully push the button down. Not here. Input drops galore. Here I go again! I'm ranting about how this isn't functional as a 'Souls' game when it needn't be one at all! Why chain yourself to this?
The writing has been getting a decent amount of praise, and I can sort of see why. It has a lovely conclusion. I like the climate change hook, and the game does well to pull it into a decently compelling humanist story, even if it drags its feet for a handful of hours to get there. But I'm mixed about the goals here. There are many attempts at 'having something to say,' and the specifics all come across as incoherent. Stopping the accelerationist tech-bro, who will destroy the world in his attempts to save it, was the wrong thing to do because doing so will cause the same outcome? I doubt this is an intended interpretation, but this is what happens, right? I'm 99% sure Sam Altman's sudden disappearance would bring tangible benefits. But that's the risk you run stuffing stock satire together so carelessly. It's also a risk you run by being terrible writers! Sorry to bury the lede so deep here, but my god, the dialogue in this game is bad. It's the worst I've seen this year, all lame arched comedy and po-faced capital-c Commentary. The voice acting is even worse! I want to crush Kril with an anvil. I hate his stupid voice so much! Don't even get me started on Firth! Michael Reeves, get out of my fucking game!
This is a game thrashing around for an identity. If you want nothing more than to swing at people in FromSoft-style melee combat, you could do worse. But I can't muster any enthusiasm for it. As an object of storytelling, it struggles. As a combination of aesthetics, it's winning, if unspecial. As a video game, it distracts from its strengths by needlessly pulling itself into a framework that doesn't fit with the rest of the experience. The game is fine on whole, but what's even left to recommend? I have high hopes that someone somewhere will be able to prove me wrong regarding the Souls formula. I'd really like to see a game that doesn't feel burdened by the difficulty curve and combat system and can make legitimate strides in pushing the level design philosophy forward. I just don't think there's as much room to grow as the money men seem to believe.
A struggle with reviewing Soulslikes is how quickly they revolve into bullet-point lists of what they get 'right'. "Oh, the healing is too slow, and the roll is wonky, but the changes to shields are really fresh and exciting, but bosses are a mixed bag, and the main weapon is lame blah blah" and so on and so forth. But this seems wrongheaded when looking at a game like ACT. It's a cutesy gimmick platformer that uses the shape of a Souls game to more naturally hook in commentary and break up the flow of the levels. Does it need razor-sharp combat, skillfully designed bosses, or massive game-defining challenges? I'd say no, but this is where the rigidity of Soulslikes come in. What's the point of having this combat system without those things? Why play a 12-hour game of sloppy, slow, imprecise and volatile combat when you can play a better version of the same thing? Especially when the Big Daddy of the style plans to release the most anticipated entry ever in less than two months?
(To be clear, I don't imagine this was an accident. I applaud the decision to release the game just far enough away from Shadow of the Erdtree that people won't disregard it for Elden Ring replays and the like but close enough that people will be itching to play a similar experience. Whoever did the math on that is very clever. Or maybe it's dumb luck, but w/e)
Well, let's investigate. What does Another Crab's Treasure actually offer us that is its own?
The first port of call is the setting. Staging the entire thing underwater gives complete freedom to freshen up the library of enemies and aesthetic tricks used in similar games. While they still include a couple of hallmark classics (poison swamp, sure, but this has the single laziest "I guess we have to have a gank fight somewhere" ever conceived), they do carve out some completely original ideas. Fighting crabs is a nice change of pace! As eye-roll-inducing as the name 'The Sands Between' is, the boss-as-stage-hazard situation is something I've been curious to see in one of these games for a long time, and this is a pretty honourable attempt. And once you get to 'The Unfathom' (equally eye-roll-inducing name), it's lights out. Only a few areas are left, but they take full advantage of the setting and carve some immense atmospheres. In fact, for the first and probably the only time ever in a Soulslike, they environmentally tell you which boss will have a surprise second phase. It's pretty cool, as are the other puzzle boss situations. Even with a mediocre batting average, they make some solid strikes!
It is also, just as crucially, a classic backtrack-heavy, vaguely Sly Cooper adjacent 3D platformer. Everything nice about the aesthetic and setting is doubled operating in this form; it's a really fun hook for one of these games. The literal hook, the one for grappling, is also really fun! But this is where Souls-isms start to bite us in the butt. Why does this game have such a spiky difficulty curve (even if it isn't that hard)? Why do some random enemies and boss attacks one-shot you through a shield? The damage output feels absurd sometimes! Sure, it's nothing new for a Soulslike, but it feels even more out of place here. The two wolves inside this game are incompatible, especially when one is such a sloppy version of itself. Dying in the middle of a cool/unique platforming set piece because you get caught in a net of weird hitboxes, input buffers and attack animations sucks! I know we all go "Fuck Off I Totally Rolled There!!" playing every Souls game, but we all know it's a lie. You can tell you inputted slightly too late or didn't fully push the button down. Not here. Input drops galore. Here I go again! I'm ranting about how this isn't functional as a 'Souls' game when it needn't be one at all! Why chain yourself to this?
The writing has been getting a decent amount of praise, and I can sort of see why. It has a lovely conclusion. I like the climate change hook, and the game does well to pull it into a decently compelling humanist story, even if it drags its feet for a handful of hours to get there. But I'm mixed about the goals here. There are many attempts at 'having something to say,' and the specifics all come across as incoherent. Stopping the accelerationist tech-bro, who will destroy the world in his attempts to save it, was the wrong thing to do because doing so will cause the same outcome? I doubt this is an intended interpretation, but this is what happens, right? I'm 99% sure Sam Altman's sudden disappearance would bring tangible benefits. But that's the risk you run stuffing stock satire together so carelessly. It's also a risk you run by being terrible writers! Sorry to bury the lede so deep here, but my god, the dialogue in this game is bad. It's the worst I've seen this year, all lame arched comedy and po-faced capital-c Commentary. The voice acting is even worse! I want to crush Kril with an anvil. I hate his stupid voice so much! Don't even get me started on Firth! Michael Reeves, get out of my fucking game!
This is a game thrashing around for an identity. If you want nothing more than to swing at people in FromSoft-style melee combat, you could do worse. But I can't muster any enthusiasm for it. As an object of storytelling, it struggles. As a combination of aesthetics, it's winning, if unspecial. As a video game, it distracts from its strengths by needlessly pulling itself into a framework that doesn't fit with the rest of the experience. The game is fine on whole, but what's even left to recommend? I have high hopes that someone somewhere will be able to prove me wrong regarding the Souls formula. I'd really like to see a game that doesn't feel burdened by the difficulty curve and combat system and can make legitimate strides in pushing the level design philosophy forward. I just don't think there's as much room to grow as the money men seem to believe.
Another Crab’s Treasure compared to most souls-likes I’ve seen. This and Lies of P are my favorite games that replicate the Souls formula so well. Lies of P is a great FromSoft Game not made by FromSoft. Another Crab’s Treasure is a Souls game but a PS2 platformer.
The games premise is pretty simple. Your shell has been taken and you go off on a adventure to find your shell and take it back. The story mostly has a lot of themes of capitalism and corporate greed. Which while I find these kind of messages generic at best in most modern storylines. It does seem to fit very well within the story given its setting. The environments in the game give it so much personality, the heaps of garbage around, the “gunk” and the enemies you face with different sets of armor utilizing things like caps and lego pieces for helmets.
Most of the enemies you fight in the game range from crabs to fishes, most of them have different move sets but the crabs you’ll be fighting a lot. From crabs with small umbrellas to hair combs. They’re not so hard to fight but are super dangerous in groups which lead to a lot of frustrating deaths. They do get easy to fight and aren’t much of a threat when you get more upgrades and powers.
The combat in this game is fun and enjoyable with the various shells you find. Each shell you acquire has a different ability that makes it unique from the other. From using cans, tincans, wine glasses, and at some point, into the game. A skull and a rubix cube. Some shells can be bought but most of the time you’ll be exploring to find them all and trying them out. The shells are like your shield that can protect you from strong attacks or parry.
The shells while cool, most of them have similar abilities to each other but they’re just cool to try out.
If there was one thing, I think could’ve been better were the bosses. There are some really fun ones like the ones in the games third act. But they can feel a huge disappointment as in when you realize that parrying and doing strong damage is the way to go. Some of the optional ones feel no pun intended “recycled” and albeit easy half the times. An example there was a boss that if you step on the sand then the on the route triggers a very intimidating looking crab. I felt a sense of confidence to fight him. After six or seven tries, I got him pretty easily. All I had to do was dodge the insta-kill attack and avoid the slam.
Each enemy and boss has an attack that can insta-kill you or destroy your shell which is told via a message like with Sekiro’s danger sign. Telling you to dodge or parry. It gets easy when you learn the patterns but the combat is not terrible.
Throughout the game you get to this being called the moon snail (who is the best character in whole game in my opinion) who narrates everything you do from upgrading in his skill tree and actions. He is adorable. The skills are unlocked by finding crystals by either smashing them or killing mini-bosses with eyes that glow pink. I mostly unlocked all the skills easily. Most of the abilities you have can grant you the ability to parry and riposte, perform a slam attack or my favorite. Use your own shell like a sledgehammer and kill your enemies with it.
Another thing you have is called adaptations which are a powers performed with the right trigger which are found by defeating certain bosses. I never utilized much of these though I found myself using the fishing rod which became one of my favorite powers to use. It allows you to pull enemies or glide towards them for extra damage.
Like with Souls games; the game does have a hub area. Which is the main area of the game that you’ll be going back to constantly. To sell junk you’ve found, upgrade your fork, and upgrade the number of patches you can have to improve your character’s stats.
Another thing I should bring up is that if you’re having trouble with the game. You can change its difficulty via the assist mode feature. I’m usually opposed to this kind of thing but because it made things less annoying like instantly recovering your microplastics and my favorite feature is giving krill a gun that insta kills enemies and bosses.
With its colorful personality and witty charm. I had a very fun time with this game and I highly recommend it overall. If we get a sequel to this, I will be playing.
The games premise is pretty simple. Your shell has been taken and you go off on a adventure to find your shell and take it back. The story mostly has a lot of themes of capitalism and corporate greed. Which while I find these kind of messages generic at best in most modern storylines. It does seem to fit very well within the story given its setting. The environments in the game give it so much personality, the heaps of garbage around, the “gunk” and the enemies you face with different sets of armor utilizing things like caps and lego pieces for helmets.
Most of the enemies you fight in the game range from crabs to fishes, most of them have different move sets but the crabs you’ll be fighting a lot. From crabs with small umbrellas to hair combs. They’re not so hard to fight but are super dangerous in groups which lead to a lot of frustrating deaths. They do get easy to fight and aren’t much of a threat when you get more upgrades and powers.
The combat in this game is fun and enjoyable with the various shells you find. Each shell you acquire has a different ability that makes it unique from the other. From using cans, tincans, wine glasses, and at some point, into the game. A skull and a rubix cube. Some shells can be bought but most of the time you’ll be exploring to find them all and trying them out. The shells are like your shield that can protect you from strong attacks or parry.
The shells while cool, most of them have similar abilities to each other but they’re just cool to try out.
If there was one thing, I think could’ve been better were the bosses. There are some really fun ones like the ones in the games third act. But they can feel a huge disappointment as in when you realize that parrying and doing strong damage is the way to go. Some of the optional ones feel no pun intended “recycled” and albeit easy half the times. An example there was a boss that if you step on the sand then the on the route triggers a very intimidating looking crab. I felt a sense of confidence to fight him. After six or seven tries, I got him pretty easily. All I had to do was dodge the insta-kill attack and avoid the slam.
Each enemy and boss has an attack that can insta-kill you or destroy your shell which is told via a message like with Sekiro’s danger sign. Telling you to dodge or parry. It gets easy when you learn the patterns but the combat is not terrible.
Throughout the game you get to this being called the moon snail (who is the best character in whole game in my opinion) who narrates everything you do from upgrading in his skill tree and actions. He is adorable. The skills are unlocked by finding crystals by either smashing them or killing mini-bosses with eyes that glow pink. I mostly unlocked all the skills easily. Most of the abilities you have can grant you the ability to parry and riposte, perform a slam attack or my favorite. Use your own shell like a sledgehammer and kill your enemies with it.
Another thing you have is called adaptations which are a powers performed with the right trigger which are found by defeating certain bosses. I never utilized much of these though I found myself using the fishing rod which became one of my favorite powers to use. It allows you to pull enemies or glide towards them for extra damage.
Like with Souls games; the game does have a hub area. Which is the main area of the game that you’ll be going back to constantly. To sell junk you’ve found, upgrade your fork, and upgrade the number of patches you can have to improve your character’s stats.
Another thing I should bring up is that if you’re having trouble with the game. You can change its difficulty via the assist mode feature. I’m usually opposed to this kind of thing but because it made things less annoying like instantly recovering your microplastics and my favorite feature is giving krill a gun that insta kills enemies and bosses.
With its colorful personality and witty charm. I had a very fun time with this game and I highly recommend it overall. If we get a sequel to this, I will be playing.
Aggro Crab kills it with tight gameplay and hilarious writing. Bit on the easier side of soulslikes than others but just as fun. Does suffer from performance issues—don’t get it on Switch unless you like N64 games.
What the shell. I was not expecting to love this game as much as I do.
Just an all around excellent souls-like game. The writing is superb, it's challenging but doesn't overdo it and the soundtrack is so coddamn good.
Just an all around excellent souls-like game. The writing is superb, it's challenging but doesn't overdo it and the soundtrack is so coddamn good.
This review contains spoilers
Aaaaah okay here we go... Another Crabs Treasure is a good game - full stop. But lend me an ear and let me tell you why I also think it is an unfocused mess that's in the wrong genre and really could have used an extra month or two of development to iron out.
Okay so that's a lot, and it doesn't quite make 100% sense, but the same could be said about Another Crabs Treasure.
Okay so Another Crabs Treasure (which I'll be shortening to ACT) is a souls-like, through and through. Now I've played Dark Souls 1, Dark Souls 3, and Elden Ring and beaten every one of them three or more times. So when it came to the challenges put forth by ACT, I felt like I was well equipped to deal with them.
So why did I give up halfway through the game and gave Krill a gun for half the time?
To put it simply, ACT's common enemies suck, more than usual souls-like games. They have too much health, have weird windups that are difficult to read, and are too numerous to deal with. If you're familiar with DS1, imagine if every single common enemy was replaced with a Black Knight, and you've basically got ACT. For over half of the game I did nothing but put points into Attack, desperate to figure out why the fuck it felt like I was dealing absolutely no damage to these common enemies, while also breezing through bosses like they were nothing.
And yeah no, I'm not talking about like special dudes, I'm talking about your Goomba-level guys, your Koopas, your 'i'll just sprinkle a little bit of these guys over here', dudes. Why do they take 12 hits to kill? This very rudimentary problem fucks up the ENTIRE game for me. Instead of giving new areas one or two good old college tries before running it down I started borderline speed-running the game after the second area. Don't fight anything I'm not required to, collect all the loot, and get the fuck out of dodge.
This is a problem with all souls-likes, but if the game is more enjoyable by NOT engaging with the level as intended, then IMO you have a balancing issue.
Now you may have noticed earlier (maybe because of the sheer shock value) that around the 40% mark I said that I gave Krill a gun.
This is where ACT gets a full 5 stars from me: Accessibility settings! Yes, ACT is hard, but you can make it easier, guilt free, with a wide variety of settings to make your experience more enjoyable. Some options are as follows: Decrease the damage you take, decrease the health enemies have, increase shell hp, keep your money on death, slow down combat, and finally, the best one of all, give Krill a gun. The gun is a photorealistic model of a glock, and has a special ability that instantly kills any enemy, common or boss level. It's great! I love this! I think any game that is willing to say 'hey you know maybe this difficulty isn't for everybody, but we still want you to have fun' gets a full 5 stars from me.
BUT
You notice that I mentioned a couple of relevant settings in that list? Specifically, decrease enemy max hp? Well I'm not convinced it fucking works, because even with that setting turned up to HIGH common enemies still were taking 12 or so hits to kill. I swallowed my pride and had those settings kicked up to the highest they went for the rest of my playthrough after the 2nd area and though my enjoyment of the game went up, I still couldn't shake this feeling that maybe, possibly, ACT might be in the wrong genre.
I got far more enjoyment out of the game treating it like a collectathon with puzzles and platforming than I did treating it as a souls-like. The combat is interesting and the hallmarks of a decent souls-like are there, but since every small encounter takes forever to get through, all I really wanted to do was swim around and do platforming. Hense: Gun.
The bosses are the only point where this feeling dissipates though, and I'm right back into the souls-lover-69-git-gud mentality when it comes to them. The stagger meter is great, I love the high risk high reward play-style it encourages, though if you don't have the execution ability unlocked then you're missing out on a lot of damage. Kinda feel like that shouldn't be an unlock, since you can miss it if you decide one of the other paths are more interesting, like I did. Some of the status attacks feel... just a little bit undodgable at times, and if you get frightened you get to just watch the stagger bar deplete... but hey this section was supposed to be a positive one.
So that's it right? I got to play ACT the way I wanted to right? When I stopped having fun I turned on the Gun and went to town until I started having fun again right?
Well...
ACT has a pacing problem, and is thematically inconsistent. Okay so picture this, I'm makin my way through the starting area of the game thinking: "Hell yeah, bitchin art style, simple motive - gotta get me my shell back". Made my way to the castle, met the duchess, went on a quest to the moon snail, came back and beat the duchess to death with a spork. Took me close to two hours to do, and honestly I was feeling pretty chuffed. No issues with enemies yet, a couple of difficulty spikes, but I was really digging the shell combat at that time.
And then I made it to New Carcinia and... it turns out none of those first two hours mattered AT ALL. No joke, aside from the necessary tutorials, you can cut that entire section of the game out and absolutely nothing about ACT will change. The ACTUAL plot of the game is a treasure hunt, and you have to collect map pieces in order to get a treasure so that you can buy your shell back. This is only the first of many weird narrative and pacing issues ACT has though.
For over 66% of the game there is a very anti-capitalism, pro-union, environmental theme to the game. The Antagonist is a late-stage-capitalist who exploits their workers for monetary gain, while flooding the streets with trash that is simultaneously worth a lot of money, and toxic to sea-life. And it's a bit heavy handed, but overall I think it's done in a cheaky manner, I mean your currency is literally microplastics.
And then the game kinda loses the plot. You have this big showdown with the primary antagonist after completing the treasure map. After beating him Krill loses his shit and tries to kill the Antagonist for the treasure. Now all of your friends are trapped in the Marianas Trench, deep at the bottom of the ocean and Krill has depression.
Now instead of the anti-capitalism message, the game pivots directly into the anti-pollution message and how being depressed doesn't fix anything. Okay, slightly different from the anti-capitalism message, but it's along the same lines. So you escape the Marianas Trench but right at the end the old-man crab tells you that there's a long lost shell that grants unimaginable power to change the world.
What
We went from pro-union, anti-capitalist messages, to hard pro-environmental message, to... high fantasy long-lost-civilization with a deux-ex-machina-shell. For a good two or three hours (depending on if you use the gun or not) the game goes HEAVY into the souls-like inspiration. The Old Ocean looks gorgeous, and plays like a mix of Anor Londo and Crumbling Farum Azula combined. Honestly, ignoring the stupid high health enemies that now come back to life, this was my favorite section of the game, and I wish the rest of the game looked and played like it did here. But it did give me tonal whiplash, and honestly doesn't fit in at all with the rest of the game. The boss of this area literally speaks in ancient tongues about living forever and how we'll never stop the spread of rot -- straight out of dark souls.
At the very end of it all we get an unnecessary 'betrayal' and killing of one of the named characters and you get to fight what feels like the god-of-the-sea in this universe, or at least one of that power level. It's the only boss I used the Gun on because the fight consists of him spawning 5-7 common enemies that you have to beat over and over and -- well - see a couple paragraphs ago on why that doesn't work.
And then, after all of that, after killing two near-god-like enemies, you finally get to put on the shell and make everything bett--- nope another named character steals the shell.
And the whip cracks once more and we're back at the hard pro-union, anti-capitalism message, but NOW Krill is ANGRY. There's this weird undertone about anger, and lashing out. The game basically says, if you're going to be angry about all these horrible things then you should focus that anger on making things better.
Queue the final boss fight which was pretty good! It felt like a satisfying narrative ark, if you ignore the previous 4 hours of content that went a bit ape-shit on the dark souls inspiration.
But hey remember that weird anger undertone? Well as it turns out by beating the final boss, Krill accidentally breaks the deux-ex-machina shell, dooming the entirety of New Carinia to be flooded in toxic, but monetarily valuable, trash. So I guess the message is... don't lash out in anger? But do fight for whats right? Even though doing so dooms the city? What am I supposed to take away from this?
The ending of the game is super gloomy. Krill has basically fucked everything for all the residents of the city, but in the last 20 seconds of the game they really try and make it seem like all is not lost as best they can. Honestly, to be frank, it feels like whoever was in charge of the story of the game got super depressed right at the end of development. And honestly, yeah that's game-dev for you.
So okay that's a lot of words basically just summarizing the plot of the game, but what's the deal man? Well the first 2 hours of the game can be cut entirely. The duchess literally has nothing to do with the rest of the game. The middle 10 hours are okay, though visually uninspired (we go to TWO different poison swamps? Wow! Such innovation! I wonder if the next one I go to will be purple!). Then the game falls off a cliff into the marianas trench and it's like I'm playing an entirely different game for 4-6 hours (again, depending on if you use the gun). Then right at the end we go back to the main theme of the game - with some weird anger undertones - right into a depressing save-the-planet ending. The game is all over the place, and honestly coming away from it I don't even know the developers want me to take away from this? Form a union? Fine I guess.
Overall the game feels... unfinished. Like 95% unfinished, but still noticeably unfinished a month after release. Some of the bosses have voice lines that are unimplemented. The entirety of the Marianas Trench level is missing music (it's a multi-hour long level, you can't tell me that no-music or sfx at ALL for that length of time is a good idea. See: Subnautica). All of the open-sea areas feel completely baron - and yeah it's accurate to the actual open-sea but that doesn't necessarily mean that your game has to also be completely baron (See: Starfield).
There's an in game map that is simultaneously gorgeous and completely fucking useless. On more than one occasion a character told me to go to a place and I could not for the life of me figure out where to go because of it. It locks to your current position and cannot be panned around, so guess what: if your in New Carinia -- All you can see is New Carinia. The compass, which should be used to mark where you should be going, is also similarly useless and completely broke for me right after I got to New Carinia.
The cutscenes in the game are fully voiced, but there actually isn't that much more out-of-cutscene dialog in the game, was it really that much more to do the whole game?
As soon as I got to the god-like boss at the bottom of the Marianas Trench I was locked into the shell that I had. I couldn't leave and I couldn't get any other shell in the area. It also wasn't a very good shell and certainly not what I was used to using for the rest of the game, so that felt like a huge oversight that could have been caught with more playtests.
So really at the end of it all I'm just left weirdly off-put and confused.
The character designs and creativity in this game are great. Seeing all the environments made out of house-hold trash was always super cool and the wide variety of gunked-up enemies were always fun to see, even if they sucked to fight. The puzzles were great too, with a good mix of platforming and puzzle solving. The characters are all compelling and they're tackling real world problems that are worth talking about.
So I like Another Crabs Treasure. I think it's a good game - full stop.
But also --- well now you've got me talking in circles.
Okay so that's a lot, and it doesn't quite make 100% sense, but the same could be said about Another Crabs Treasure.
Okay so Another Crabs Treasure (which I'll be shortening to ACT) is a souls-like, through and through. Now I've played Dark Souls 1, Dark Souls 3, and Elden Ring and beaten every one of them three or more times. So when it came to the challenges put forth by ACT, I felt like I was well equipped to deal with them.
So why did I give up halfway through the game and gave Krill a gun for half the time?
To put it simply, ACT's common enemies suck, more than usual souls-like games. They have too much health, have weird windups that are difficult to read, and are too numerous to deal with. If you're familiar with DS1, imagine if every single common enemy was replaced with a Black Knight, and you've basically got ACT. For over half of the game I did nothing but put points into Attack, desperate to figure out why the fuck it felt like I was dealing absolutely no damage to these common enemies, while also breezing through bosses like they were nothing.
And yeah no, I'm not talking about like special dudes, I'm talking about your Goomba-level guys, your Koopas, your 'i'll just sprinkle a little bit of these guys over here', dudes. Why do they take 12 hits to kill? This very rudimentary problem fucks up the ENTIRE game for me. Instead of giving new areas one or two good old college tries before running it down I started borderline speed-running the game after the second area. Don't fight anything I'm not required to, collect all the loot, and get the fuck out of dodge.
This is a problem with all souls-likes, but if the game is more enjoyable by NOT engaging with the level as intended, then IMO you have a balancing issue.
Now you may have noticed earlier (maybe because of the sheer shock value) that around the 40% mark I said that I gave Krill a gun.
This is where ACT gets a full 5 stars from me: Accessibility settings! Yes, ACT is hard, but you can make it easier, guilt free, with a wide variety of settings to make your experience more enjoyable. Some options are as follows: Decrease the damage you take, decrease the health enemies have, increase shell hp, keep your money on death, slow down combat, and finally, the best one of all, give Krill a gun. The gun is a photorealistic model of a glock, and has a special ability that instantly kills any enemy, common or boss level. It's great! I love this! I think any game that is willing to say 'hey you know maybe this difficulty isn't for everybody, but we still want you to have fun' gets a full 5 stars from me.
BUT
You notice that I mentioned a couple of relevant settings in that list? Specifically, decrease enemy max hp? Well I'm not convinced it fucking works, because even with that setting turned up to HIGH common enemies still were taking 12 or so hits to kill. I swallowed my pride and had those settings kicked up to the highest they went for the rest of my playthrough after the 2nd area and though my enjoyment of the game went up, I still couldn't shake this feeling that maybe, possibly, ACT might be in the wrong genre.
I got far more enjoyment out of the game treating it like a collectathon with puzzles and platforming than I did treating it as a souls-like. The combat is interesting and the hallmarks of a decent souls-like are there, but since every small encounter takes forever to get through, all I really wanted to do was swim around and do platforming. Hense: Gun.
The bosses are the only point where this feeling dissipates though, and I'm right back into the souls-lover-69-git-gud mentality when it comes to them. The stagger meter is great, I love the high risk high reward play-style it encourages, though if you don't have the execution ability unlocked then you're missing out on a lot of damage. Kinda feel like that shouldn't be an unlock, since you can miss it if you decide one of the other paths are more interesting, like I did. Some of the status attacks feel... just a little bit undodgable at times, and if you get frightened you get to just watch the stagger bar deplete... but hey this section was supposed to be a positive one.
So that's it right? I got to play ACT the way I wanted to right? When I stopped having fun I turned on the Gun and went to town until I started having fun again right?
Well...
ACT has a pacing problem, and is thematically inconsistent. Okay so picture this, I'm makin my way through the starting area of the game thinking: "Hell yeah, bitchin art style, simple motive - gotta get me my shell back". Made my way to the castle, met the duchess, went on a quest to the moon snail, came back and beat the duchess to death with a spork. Took me close to two hours to do, and honestly I was feeling pretty chuffed. No issues with enemies yet, a couple of difficulty spikes, but I was really digging the shell combat at that time.
And then I made it to New Carcinia and... it turns out none of those first two hours mattered AT ALL. No joke, aside from the necessary tutorials, you can cut that entire section of the game out and absolutely nothing about ACT will change. The ACTUAL plot of the game is a treasure hunt, and you have to collect map pieces in order to get a treasure so that you can buy your shell back. This is only the first of many weird narrative and pacing issues ACT has though.
For over 66% of the game there is a very anti-capitalism, pro-union, environmental theme to the game. The Antagonist is a late-stage-capitalist who exploits their workers for monetary gain, while flooding the streets with trash that is simultaneously worth a lot of money, and toxic to sea-life. And it's a bit heavy handed, but overall I think it's done in a cheaky manner, I mean your currency is literally microplastics.
And then the game kinda loses the plot. You have this big showdown with the primary antagonist after completing the treasure map. After beating him Krill loses his shit and tries to kill the Antagonist for the treasure. Now all of your friends are trapped in the Marianas Trench, deep at the bottom of the ocean and Krill has depression.
Now instead of the anti-capitalism message, the game pivots directly into the anti-pollution message and how being depressed doesn't fix anything. Okay, slightly different from the anti-capitalism message, but it's along the same lines. So you escape the Marianas Trench but right at the end the old-man crab tells you that there's a long lost shell that grants unimaginable power to change the world.
What
We went from pro-union, anti-capitalist messages, to hard pro-environmental message, to... high fantasy long-lost-civilization with a deux-ex-machina-shell. For a good two or three hours (depending on if you use the gun or not) the game goes HEAVY into the souls-like inspiration. The Old Ocean looks gorgeous, and plays like a mix of Anor Londo and Crumbling Farum Azula combined. Honestly, ignoring the stupid high health enemies that now come back to life, this was my favorite section of the game, and I wish the rest of the game looked and played like it did here. But it did give me tonal whiplash, and honestly doesn't fit in at all with the rest of the game. The boss of this area literally speaks in ancient tongues about living forever and how we'll never stop the spread of rot -- straight out of dark souls.
At the very end of it all we get an unnecessary 'betrayal' and killing of one of the named characters and you get to fight what feels like the god-of-the-sea in this universe, or at least one of that power level. It's the only boss I used the Gun on because the fight consists of him spawning 5-7 common enemies that you have to beat over and over and -- well - see a couple paragraphs ago on why that doesn't work.
And then, after all of that, after killing two near-god-like enemies, you finally get to put on the shell and make everything bett--- nope another named character steals the shell.
And the whip cracks once more and we're back at the hard pro-union, anti-capitalism message, but NOW Krill is ANGRY. There's this weird undertone about anger, and lashing out. The game basically says, if you're going to be angry about all these horrible things then you should focus that anger on making things better.
Queue the final boss fight which was pretty good! It felt like a satisfying narrative ark, if you ignore the previous 4 hours of content that went a bit ape-shit on the dark souls inspiration.
But hey remember that weird anger undertone? Well as it turns out by beating the final boss, Krill accidentally breaks the deux-ex-machina shell, dooming the entirety of New Carinia to be flooded in toxic, but monetarily valuable, trash. So I guess the message is... don't lash out in anger? But do fight for whats right? Even though doing so dooms the city? What am I supposed to take away from this?
The ending of the game is super gloomy. Krill has basically fucked everything for all the residents of the city, but in the last 20 seconds of the game they really try and make it seem like all is not lost as best they can. Honestly, to be frank, it feels like whoever was in charge of the story of the game got super depressed right at the end of development. And honestly, yeah that's game-dev for you.
So okay that's a lot of words basically just summarizing the plot of the game, but what's the deal man? Well the first 2 hours of the game can be cut entirely. The duchess literally has nothing to do with the rest of the game. The middle 10 hours are okay, though visually uninspired (we go to TWO different poison swamps? Wow! Such innovation! I wonder if the next one I go to will be purple!). Then the game falls off a cliff into the marianas trench and it's like I'm playing an entirely different game for 4-6 hours (again, depending on if you use the gun). Then right at the end we go back to the main theme of the game - with some weird anger undertones - right into a depressing save-the-planet ending. The game is all over the place, and honestly coming away from it I don't even know the developers want me to take away from this? Form a union? Fine I guess.
Overall the game feels... unfinished. Like 95% unfinished, but still noticeably unfinished a month after release. Some of the bosses have voice lines that are unimplemented. The entirety of the Marianas Trench level is missing music (it's a multi-hour long level, you can't tell me that no-music or sfx at ALL for that length of time is a good idea. See: Subnautica). All of the open-sea areas feel completely baron - and yeah it's accurate to the actual open-sea but that doesn't necessarily mean that your game has to also be completely baron (See: Starfield).
There's an in game map that is simultaneously gorgeous and completely fucking useless. On more than one occasion a character told me to go to a place and I could not for the life of me figure out where to go because of it. It locks to your current position and cannot be panned around, so guess what: if your in New Carinia -- All you can see is New Carinia. The compass, which should be used to mark where you should be going, is also similarly useless and completely broke for me right after I got to New Carinia.
The cutscenes in the game are fully voiced, but there actually isn't that much more out-of-cutscene dialog in the game, was it really that much more to do the whole game?
As soon as I got to the god-like boss at the bottom of the Marianas Trench I was locked into the shell that I had. I couldn't leave and I couldn't get any other shell in the area. It also wasn't a very good shell and certainly not what I was used to using for the rest of the game, so that felt like a huge oversight that could have been caught with more playtests.
So really at the end of it all I'm just left weirdly off-put and confused.
The character designs and creativity in this game are great. Seeing all the environments made out of house-hold trash was always super cool and the wide variety of gunked-up enemies were always fun to see, even if they sucked to fight. The puzzles were great too, with a good mix of platforming and puzzle solving. The characters are all compelling and they're tackling real world problems that are worth talking about.
So I like Another Crabs Treasure. I think it's a good game - full stop.
But also --- well now you've got me talking in circles.
Really wonderful game with that mixes Dark Souls inspired combat with 3D platforming in a super fresh and unique way. I thought it would feel a bit gimmicky, but they really nailed both genres in a way that gives the game a unique feel.
The writing is really great as well, both the funny and the serious. The seriousness and intensity of the game ramps up as you go along, both in writing and in world design, so that by the end it ends up feeling a bit like Spongebob characters dropped into a Dark Souls game but never really feels out of place.
My only complaint would be that the difficulty curve felt a bit off, with the last third or so of the game starting to feel easier. But they really nailed the difficulty of the last couple of bosses, so to me that made up for it.
The writing is really great as well, both the funny and the serious. The seriousness and intensity of the game ramps up as you go along, both in writing and in world design, so that by the end it ends up feeling a bit like Spongebob characters dropped into a Dark Souls game but never really feels out of place.
My only complaint would be that the difficulty curve felt a bit off, with the last third or so of the game starting to feel easier. But they really nailed the difficulty of the last couple of bosses, so to me that made up for it.
I really wanted to play this game, because the art was perfect for my style and it was hilarious. But it was so challenging that even on story mode it was tough to beat the first boss. I really felt like the shell they gave hampered my movements and even with accessibility options, I felt like the only way to progress was to make myself invincible, which isn't what I'm looking for right now (still want a bit of a challenge when playing).
fun soulslike, would've given this more stars but it was way too easy for my taste. most of the bosses were wiped out in 1 try sans one but otherwise very very easy
Jogo divertido, só não curti muito o andar arrastado do protagonista. Mas sensacional que a história se resolve com uma violência que poderia ter resolvido no início kkkk
This game has one of the best, most interesting aesthetics for a soulslike yet. Everything from the world to individual character designs as so incredibly well thought out that it's difficult not to be charmed by its seemingly cutesy appearance. But the game is held back by, ironically, its want to be a soulslike. The times where this game feels its best are when it takes more from a mascot platformer than Dark Souls. Exploration and puzzle-like environments combined with platforming is when it works at its absolute best. Conversely, it's at its most frustrating when it tries to be a soulslike. At the end of the day it is an honestly beautiful game that gets gunked up in its attempts to be a Dark Souls with crabs. Despite any frustration though, it's a game I'm really glad I played through that offered a lot of fun and memorable moments.