It’s splendidly ironic that the most important breath of contemporary air the soulslike style has acquired in years comes from an journey that takes place solely underwater. The place most dodge-rolling motion video games are drab, bloody, and edgelordian, Another Crab’s Treasure is bursting with shiny colours, cartoonish sea creatures, and foolish humor. That excessive departure from severe and spooky vibes makes it standout in an more and more crowded area, even when it follows the components extraordinarily intently in each different regard. It suffers from overly simplistic fight, a common lack of problem, and a few bugs and digicam wonkiness every now and then – however with memorable characters, a particularly pleasurable story, and plenty of authentic concepts, Another Crab’s Treasure had me grinning all all through my 20-hour tour of the ocean ground.
As a cuddly crustacean with a license to krill, Another Crab’s Treasure has you utilizing a discarded dinner fork to show all method of sea life into sashimi. Except for its distinctive oceanic setting and comedic method, you’ll most likely acknowledge a whole lot of what’s right here: you’ve bought “bonfires” to relaxation at known as Moon Snail Shells, harsh penalties for dying, chunky bosses who can kill you briefly order, and, in fact, these candy, candy good parrying mechanics for individuals who need to be a sweaty little hermit crab. However there’s additionally a ton of consideration paid to much less standard areas, together with some mild platforming and puzzle fixing – like one part the place you’re leaping round a skyscraper of sea litter and socketing fuses to energy heavy equipment wanted to open the best way – and people wrinkles go a great distance towards differentiating it.
The cheery vibe is current all through its charming story, which has way more meat on its bones than you would possibly count on. You play as a meek and battle-averse hermit crab named Kril, and after your shell is unjustly taken from you, you embark on an motion-packed quest to get it again. Alongside the best way you befriend a gang of loveable arthropods, like Konche, the smart outdated hermit crab who serves as your mentor, or Firth, the douchey social darwinist with an ego as highly effective because the tides. The story expertly manages to remain mild and humorous for essentially the most half, even because it sometimes dips into murkier waters, like Kril’s battle with melancholy. It does flounder a bit within the closing act with an ending that’s fairly unsatisfying (although perhaps there’s some secret alternate ending I missed the place issues are much less of a bummer), however I nonetheless overwhelmingly loved the story Another Crab’s Treasure tells.
You’ll spend a whole lot of this damp expedition in excessive stakes fight anytime you sea anemone, whether or not that be lethal minions who outnumber you or positively ruthless bosses, like an enormous deranged crab with plastic consuming utensils tied to its physique. Combating mirrors the slicing and dodging melee stylings I do know and love, solely pared all the way down to only a handful of fight mechanics to grasp. There aren’t many enemy assaults to study (most of that are very telegraphed), and there’s a whole lot of leniency on issues like getting the timing proper to carry out an ideal parry, all of which make for a a lot much less difficult expertise than veterans of the style is perhaps used to. I didn’t die an excessive amount of in any respect, even throughout boss fights, which sadly meant I not often encountered the extent of sweatiness I sometimes want – however, surprisingly, I wasn’t bothered a lot by this, just because so lots of the encounters and enemies are memorable and entertaining in their very own proper. Because it seems, it’s straightforward to overlook {that a} boss is simple to beat when that boss was an electrical eel who tries to kill you by taking pictures slices of bread out of a toaster.
For essentially the most half, Another Crab’s Treasure takes a whole lot of queues from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, the place your skills and preventing model are pretty static and have much less room for configuration. The one sensible exception to that, although, is the shell-swapping hermit crab capability that augments your armor and mobility, and in addition provides you a novel capability relying on the character of your carapace. For instance, should you nest inside a tennis ball, you’ll be capable to roll down ramps or at your enemies like a fearsome tablet bug, whereas sporting a soda pop can will flip you right into a badass sorcerer who can forged fizzy bubbles as a ranged assault. Amassing all 69 of the hilariously imaginative shells as a way to uncover which fits your playstyle is well certainly one of this salty sojourn’s finest parts. I significantly appreciated the Matryoshka doll shell that works as slower heavy armor at first, then turns into extra balanced medium armor when damaged, and eventually, agile mild armor when damaged once more – this recreation is critically bursting with nice concepts, people.
That cleverness isn’t simply restricted to fascinating new shells, both – this maritime voyage is unrelenting in its creativity, and each leg of the journey had no less than a couple of moments the place I finished to chortle at some intelligent facet of its worldbuilding. You’ll meet one fashionable woman crab who wears a silica gel packet as a shirt and whose lengthy curly hair is a discarded orange peel, and battle lobsters who behave like horse-mounted knights. You’ll study to make use of 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 such a lot of ingenious little particulars and gags as you smack and dodge roll your manner via golden sand and murky tides, I felt the necessity to cease and odor the seaweed much more ceaselessly than I initially anticipated.
Nonetheless, even the perfect moments do sometimes get dragged down by bugs and wonkiness, together with digicam angles immediately going wacky on you or your poor crustacean’s cephalothorax getting caught contained in the atmosphere. In a single occasion, an enemy’s grapple animation bugged out, leaving the villainous fish twisting bizarrely till I used to be compelled to pick the “prompt demise” possibility from the menu to reset my world. There’s additionally a problem with the digicam particularly, the place the kill animation that accompanies some ending strikes will trigger the digicam to swing round your character and clip via the world about half of the time, which is each visually annoying and may generally get you hit by an assault you may need in any other case averted. None of these items is horrible sufficient that it had a significant influence on my predominantly superior time, however they have been nonetheless pretty frequent irritations.