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

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

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

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