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Another Crab’s Treasure review: a playful Soulslike for everyone, especially if you like crabsThis will more than tide you over
This will more than tide you over
Image credit:Aggro Crab
Image credit:Aggro Crab
Lots ofSoulslikeshave about as much joy, and the same colour palette, as a burning cowpat. They are grim and dark and often have gimmicks that are a bit middling: mechanical arms that spew gunk, or turning to stone. Or they stand out with incredibly deep combat, with dense menus and rainbow loot. So,Another Crab’s Treasurecomes as a refreshing surprise, what with it’s crustacean theme, platforming, and shell gimmick that actually complements fights in clever ways. Not only that, but it’s colourful and funny, with plenty of challenge for veterans and plenty of difficulty tweaks for those who just want a good time. Trade cowpat for coral, I’d say.
Is there a metacommentary about the grimness of crab society being at the whims of us humans and the rubbish we produce? And that we’re corrupting them, forcing poor sea creatures to bludgeon each other for treasure that’s imprinted on the back of a cereal box? Yes, probably. |Image credit:Aggro Crab
Exploration is for the most part linear, taking on a sort of traditional Soulsy angle. You explore, bouncing between the Moon Crab’s Moon Shells that act as your bonfires, letting you rest up and eventually Shelleport as fast travel, and spend microplastics you earn from fallen enemies on levelling up a handful of pleasantly manageable key stats. Eventually you’ll hit the big city of New Carcinia, which acts as a hub with a blacksmith and other vendors, but moreso a place where folks steer you towards the next treasure piece. A wise crab with a Pringle for a hat will tell you to go North from the Sands Between and seek out a mysterious locale, for instance. In this way, it’s easy to know where you’re headed at all times.
You can attach friendly critters and other bits onto yourself that act like charms from the Souls series. These take up a certain amount of slots each, so you can’t equip lots of powerful bits unless you upgrade your stow capacity. |Image credit:Aggro Crab
Even if sometimes those areas can be a bit confusing. Some spots, at least early on, are fairly expansive and can be quite easy to get lost in. Most are wonderfully realised, though, fitting the theme perfectly with curdled towns erected from empty milk cartons and discarded baskets acting as magnificent centerpoints for poison swamps. Even better is your ability to hop and climb and swing through them, as this is as much a platformer as it is a Soulslike. You’ll bounce off sponges, chuck barbed hooks to grapple over to overhanging netting and do ‘lil doggy paddles to close tight gaps. And don’t worry, the platforming is intuitive and fairly snappy, with very few annoying moments.
Image credit:Aggro Crab
What’s really neat about this gimmick is - besides it being a thematic treat - that you’re encouraged to hop between shells regularly, putting the focus less on the fork and more on your temporary home. There areloadsof shells lying about, like coffee pods and skulls and tin cans and shuttlecocks (my fave, obviously) many of which you’ll hurtle into when in a hurry, and all of which are home to special abilities, too.
Yes, it’s a bit of a shame you can’t slap with soggy cigar butts or shank with a cocktail stick, but you do have some other means of aggression. Umami lets you perform special techniques you’ll obtain after you’ve beaten some of the game’s toughest encounters, like a thunderous punch that capsizes enemies in an instant. The Moon Snail also has four smallish skill trees you’ll invest crystals into (easily obtainable after fights or around) that grant you loads of useful abilities. Those barbed hooks used for swinging over to nets? You can upgrade those so you can actually grapple onto enemies for a sucker punch. My favourite is the ability to stick shells onto my fork, turning it into a makeshift hammer.
Image credit:Aggro Crab
Performance on the Steam Deck has been perfectly doable on lowest settings. And on PC, it’s been fantastic. However, I did encounter one bug on PC where I’d enter an infinite loading screen upon death in a certain zone. |Image credit:Aggro Crab
Shells and all these abilities mean that despite the lack of weapon variety, combat rarely gets stale. But that’s not to say that because your options are so generous it’s all extremely easy. I’d say the default difficulty setting is really quite tough, as enemies have a habit of mincing you in a couple of hits if you’re not careful. This persists throughout, actually, as I found enemies scaled up to your level, so I neverreallyfelt my baseline power or protection get stronger as I poured microplastics into them.
Another Crab’s Treasure may be one of the most cohesive Soulslikes out there, in how it’s taken the hermit crab theme and actually turned it into a playful ARPG with interesting fights. And while it’s challenging enough for Souls fans, I rate the plethora of options that let you turn it into a far easier time. This is, genuinely, a soulslike for everyone.
