Another Crab’s Treasure Review
It’s wonderfully ironic that the biggest breath of fresh air the soulslike genre has received in years comes from an adventure that takes place entirely underwater. Where most dodge-rolling action games are drab, bloody, and edgelordian, Another Crab’s Treasure is bursting with bright colors, cartoonish sea creatures, and silly humor. That extreme departure from serious and spooky vibes makes it standout in an increasingly crowded space, even when it follows the formula extremely closely in every other regard. It suffers from overly simplistic combat, a general lack of challenge, and some bugs and camera wonkiness now and again – but with memorable characters, an extremely enjoyable story, and lots of original ideas, Another Crab’s Treasure had me grinning all throughout my 20-hour tour of the ocean floor.
As a cuddly crustacean with a license to krill, Another Crab’s Treasure has you using a discarded dinner fork to turn all manner of sea life into sashimi. Aside from its unique oceanic setting and comedic approach, you’ll probably recognize a lot of what’s here: you’ve got “bonfires” to rest at called Moon Snail Shells, harsh consequences for dying, chunky bosses who can kill you in short order, and, of course, those sweet, sweet perfect parrying mechanics for people who want to be a sweaty little hermit crab. But there’s also a ton of attention paid to less conventional areas, including some light platforming and puzzle solving – like one section where you’re jumping around a skyscraper of sea litter and socketing fuses to power heavy machinery needed to open the way – and those wrinkles go a long way toward differentiating it.
The cheery vibe is present throughout its charming story, which has far more meat on its bones than you might expect. You play as a meek and conflict-averse hermit crab named Kril, and after your shell is unjustly taken from you, you embark on an action-packed quest to get it back. Along the way you befriend a gang of loveable arthropods, like Konche, the wise old hermit crab who serves as your mentor, or Firth, the douchey social darwinist with an ego as powerful as the tides. The story expertly manages to stay light and humorous for the most part, even as it occasionally dips into murkier waters, like Kril’s battle with depression. It does flounder a bit in the final act with an ending that’s quite unsatisfying (though maybe there’s some secret alternate ending I missed where things are less of a bummer), but I still overwhelmingly enjoyed the story Another Crab’s Treasure tells.
It’s easy to forget a boss is easy when that boss tries to kill you by shooting slices of bread out of a toaster.
You’ll spend a lot of this damp expedition in high stakes combat anytime you sea anemone, whether that be deadly minions who outnumber you or positively ruthless bosses, like a giant deranged crab with plastic eating utensils tied to its body. Fighting mirrors the slicing and dodging melee stylings I know and love, only pared down to just a handful of combat mechanics to master. There aren’t many enemy attacks to learn (most of which are very telegraphed), and there’s a lot of leniency on things like getting the timing right to perform a perfect parry, all of which make for a much less challenging experience than veterans of the genre might be used to. I didn’t die too much at all, even during boss fights, which unfortunately meant I rarely encountered the level of sweatiness I typically desire – but, surprisingly, I wasn’t bothered much by this, simply because so many of the encounters and enemies are memorable and entertaining in their own right. As it turns out, it’s easy to forget that a boss is easy to beat when that boss was an electric eel who tries to kill you by shooting slices of bread out of a toaster.
For the most part, Another Crab’s Treasure takes a lot of queues from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, where your abilities and fighting style are fairly static and have less room for configuration. The one brilliant exception to that, though, is the shell-swapping hermit crab ability that augments your armor and mobility, and also gives you a unique ability depending on the nature of your carapace. For example, if you nest inside of a tennis ball, you’ll be able to roll down ramps or at your enemies like a fearsome pill bug, whereas wearing a soda pop can will turn you into a badass sorcerer who can cast fizzy bubbles as a ranged attack. Collecting all 69 of the hilariously imaginative shells in order to discover which suits your playstyle is easily one of this salty sojourn’s best components. I particularly liked the Matryoshka doll shell that works as slower heavy armor at first, then becomes more balanced medium armor when broken, and finally, agile light armor when broken again – this game is seriously bursting with great ideas, folks.
This game is seriously bursting with great ideas, folks.
That cleverness isn’t just limited to interesting new shells, either – this maritime voyage is unrelenting in its creativity, and every leg of the adventure had at least a few moments where I stopped to laugh at some clever aspect of its worldbuilding. You’ll meet one stylish lady crab who wears a silica gel packet as a shirt and whose long curly hair is a discarded orange peel, and fight lobsters who behave like horse-mounted knights. You’ll learn to use a fishing line as a grappling hook, and face a hysterical crab boss who gracefully wields a pair of chopsticks like a samurai sword. There are so many ingenious little details and gags as you smack and dodge roll your way through golden sand and murky tides, I felt the need to stop and smell the seaweed a lot more frequently than I initially expected.
However, even the best moments do occasionally get dragged down by bugs and wonkiness, including camera angles suddenly going wacky on you or your poor crustacean’s cephalothorax getting caught inside the environment. In one instance, an enemy’s grapple animation bugged out, leaving the villainous fish twisting bizarrely until I was forced to select the “instant death” option from the menu to reset my world. There’s also an issue with the camera in particular, where the kill animation that accompanies some finishing moves will cause the camera to swing around your character and clip through the world about half of the time, which is both visually annoying and can sometimes get you hit by an attack you might have otherwise avoided. None of this stuff is terrible enough that it had a major impact on my predominantly awesome time, but they were still fairly common irritations.
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