Another Crab's Treasure is such a video game.

A crab-coded Dark Souls set in a colourful ocean is something I had no idea I needed until I started playing 2 days ago. And once I started, I felt compelled to blitz right through the game. It took me 15 hours to beat and just about all of those were fun. The movement feels great, the platforming is fun and so is the combat.

Sure, the game is very derivative of Dark Souls but I do think Aggro Crab gives it their own spin. Enough that it feels unique. The different shells modified the way I approached combat a lot and turning shells into hammers was such a cool "oh my god, I can do this?" moment.

Biggest complaints are how the fps tanks in a few random transitionary areas. I'm playing on ps5 so this really shouldn't be a thing and it annoyed me enough to mention here. Also, the way the map just shows a small portion of where you are right now and doesn't let you scroll it is a little dumb. I wish they just gave me a normal map.

Another Crab's Treasure is a shining example of how an indie developer can take such a widely known gameplay concept and make it their own. What a fun little game.

Harold Halibut is an outstanding technical achievement. It's not, however, a compelling game.

Harold Halibut is an adventure game that looks just like a stop motion movie. And my god do they ever do a great job at that. The game is downright gorgeous and the stop motion continuously impressed me. I really wish this tech was used in service of a better narrative.

I found it very difficult to care about the characters and plot in this world. The voice acting is excellent but the dialogue is so dull. Very rarely do characters have anything remotely interesting to say. And although some personalities shine through (namely Harold and his surrogate mother Mareaux), most of it is forgettable. This is especially true in the first 10 hours of the game which is very slice of life. The plot gets a bit more interesting by the end, but it's too late by then.

I appreciate the themes they're going for. I really like how they approached an autistic coded main character with Harold for instance. There's something so pure about how he deals with problems. I'm sure this game is for someone. Just not for me.

EVOLAND 1

An interesting game dev experiment that doesn't really hold it's own.

I liked how Evoland was constantly changing the core gameplay up, especially in the early game. There's something inherently exciting about opening a chest and getting an upgrade for "better graphics". Evoland eventually reaches a point where a good chunk of the game is dumbed down FF7 turn based battles mixed in with mediocre Link to the Past copycat dungeons.

Again, it's a fun idea but it ultimately just reminded me of better games I could be playing instead.