It's one of those games that doesn’t do anything particularly well.
As far as being a Soulslike goes, it simply doesn’t have strong enough level design to justify its existence within the genre. The last couple of levels are pretty decent but by that point in the game, I was ready for it to be over.
This issue plagues the majority of Soulslikes, and is why I can count on one hand how many good ones there are.
The exploration was very unrewarding. Apparently, the game begins to understand this and starts throwing upgrades at you in the endgame.
The combat doesn’t feel good, with wonky input buffers, a negative edge style parry, and piss-poor animations that load the enemy model in its finishing location before the animation has completed, resulting in the possibility of getting stuck on air while dodging.
The progression systems don’t exist other than a skill tree that does the beautiful thing where abilities that should be baked into the player’s skillset are carved out and locked behind the skill tree to justify its existence.
Most of the gear is useless--at least until the endgame-- primarily due to the outrageous stat requirements. I nearly finished the game putting points exclusively into the attack stat and still couldn’t use most of the attack buffing stowaways.
There’s only one weapon with two move sets, one of which, the default, is pretty bad, and the other uses consumable resources and is merely passable. If your Soulslike is only going to have one weapon, you need to nail how it feels.
And even with all of these issues, the game is piss easy. I get it that not all Soulslikes need to be butthole-clenching difficult, but man, you need to have some friction.
What almost filtered me was the constant barrage of annoying dialogue and puns whenever characters interacted. When you’re in a continuous yapping contest, and your opponent is Aggro Crab…
The aesthetic is hard to criticize because I doubt this game had a large budget, even for an indie title, but it isn’t exactly a looker.
I think there were a few neat ideas in this, like the use of shells as consumable armor, but there are just as many baffling balance issues that undermine what the game does well, such as most of the stats not mattering. Why would you ever want to invest skill points into resistance or umami? They’re completely useless.
It might sound like I hate this game, but it’s honestly pretty inoffensive even with all of its faults and does have a bit of charm that breaks through the cringe-worthy dialog at times (like a moment in the game where you inspect executed crab soldiers that are crucified outside the castle and their crimes are possessing seaweed)
Oh well, another milquetoast Soulslike experience to add to the ever-growing pile. At least it’s better than Lies of P or Stellar Blade.
I was going to knock this up to 2.5/5 because it has a Mr. Krabs skin but knocked that half star back off because it has an Among Us shell.
As far as being a Soulslike goes, it simply doesn’t have strong enough level design to justify its existence within the genre. The last couple of levels are pretty decent but by that point in the game, I was ready for it to be over.
This issue plagues the majority of Soulslikes, and is why I can count on one hand how many good ones there are.
The exploration was very unrewarding. Apparently, the game begins to understand this and starts throwing upgrades at you in the endgame.
The combat doesn’t feel good, with wonky input buffers, a negative edge style parry, and piss-poor animations that load the enemy model in its finishing location before the animation has completed, resulting in the possibility of getting stuck on air while dodging.
The progression systems don’t exist other than a skill tree that does the beautiful thing where abilities that should be baked into the player’s skillset are carved out and locked behind the skill tree to justify its existence.
Most of the gear is useless--at least until the endgame-- primarily due to the outrageous stat requirements. I nearly finished the game putting points exclusively into the attack stat and still couldn’t use most of the attack buffing stowaways.
There’s only one weapon with two move sets, one of which, the default, is pretty bad, and the other uses consumable resources and is merely passable. If your Soulslike is only going to have one weapon, you need to nail how it feels.
And even with all of these issues, the game is piss easy. I get it that not all Soulslikes need to be butthole-clenching difficult, but man, you need to have some friction.
What almost filtered me was the constant barrage of annoying dialogue and puns whenever characters interacted. When you’re in a continuous yapping contest, and your opponent is Aggro Crab…
The aesthetic is hard to criticize because I doubt this game had a large budget, even for an indie title, but it isn’t exactly a looker.
I think there were a few neat ideas in this, like the use of shells as consumable armor, but there are just as many baffling balance issues that undermine what the game does well, such as most of the stats not mattering. Why would you ever want to invest skill points into resistance or umami? They’re completely useless.
It might sound like I hate this game, but it’s honestly pretty inoffensive even with all of its faults and does have a bit of charm that breaks through the cringe-worthy dialog at times (like a moment in the game where you inspect executed crab soldiers that are crucified outside the castle and their crimes are possessing seaweed)
Oh well, another milquetoast Soulslike experience to add to the ever-growing pile. At least it’s better than Lies of P or Stellar Blade.
I was going to knock this up to 2.5/5 because it has a Mr. Krabs skin but knocked that half star back off because it has an Among Us shell.
6 Comments
I find it very surprising that level design is considered the most important element of a soulslike to you - which also feels like a weird criticism of this game considering its trying to be a completely different genre with its levels when its a platformer.
I dont know how you could get to Pagurus and not feel the souls wavelength tho, a giant area where youre hounded by a late game boss? Whomst else in the genre would even have the balls to pull that off.
I dont know how you could get to Pagurus and not feel the souls wavelength tho, a giant area where youre hounded by a late game boss? Whomst else in the genre would even have the balls to pull that off.
That was a late game boss? He didn't even give me much trouble. I know the level design is going for a mixture of 3D platformer influences, but it is either incompatible with the genre or the implementation is very poor. Either way, level design is one of the most important aspects of a Soulslike. @_YALP
Im certainly not saying Crab Treasure is at the peak of difficulty or anything, I also beat him at the earliest opportunity. I just think its hard to deny the quality present in a boss like that - my criticism of the bosses would be that they had very limited movesets.
But I also dont think every new Souls game needs to be the hardest thing on the market, cuz thats an impossible to sustain proposition. I see Crabs Treasure as a great game to recommend someone new to the genre I think - and I moderated my own difficulty by fighting most bosses shell-less and had a more rewarding time because of it.
But I also dont think every new Souls game needs to be the hardest thing on the market, cuz thats an impossible to sustain proposition. I see Crabs Treasure as a great game to recommend someone new to the genre I think - and I moderated my own difficulty by fighting most bosses shell-less and had a more rewarding time because of it.
Yeah I agree re the level design. It just seemed a bit too open and empty to me. Does it get better later on? Just beat the first boss.
Yeah the last two levels are pretty decently designed and easily the best areas in the game @antoniabaka
brockreiher
28 days ago