I thought I was done with soulslikes, but last year was the year that reeled me back into the genre and kept me hooked on my crippling addiction. You can already see me tweaking out in the back alleyway on soulslike juice while casual RPG fans pass by and question what’s wrong with that guy. Remnant 2 was superb and is one of the best shooters I’ve played in the last five years or so. Blasphemous 2 was a masterpiece that improved on the original in every single way and is one of the high points in the metroidvania genre. Lies of P is a game I played twice within a year and roughly sits as one of my top twenty games ever made. Not to mention The Last Faith which was also really good, and The Lords of The Fallen which I haven’t played due to mixed reception, but it looks pretty alright. 2024 is becoming another wonderful year for soulslikes with Shadow of The Erdtree having come out a month ago and being one of the biggest releases of the year, and some smaller titles like Nine Sols and Black Myth: Wukong.
Here we have another soulslike, Another Crab’s Treasure, developed by indie studio Aggro Crab. The same developers behind Going Under that action roguelike I reviewed a few weeks ago and really liked! These guys have been killing it between Going Under, Midnight Subway, and their latest title. Another Crab’s Treasure is probably the most ambiguous project Aggro Crab have made to date. Wanting to make a full on soulsike, but do enough to separate it from a majority of contemporaries in the genre. The best soulslikes after all are ones that stray off and do interesting things instead of full on copy Dark Souls. It’s why Lies of P and Remnant 2 succeeded while the reboot of Lords of The Fallen failed. Anyways, Another Crab’s Treasure aimed to take a more lighthearted approach in terms of soulslike. Imagine if SpongeBob SquarePants went on a big old magical fantasy adventure for treasure. Yes, I know those were two episodes at some point. I was just trying to use that as a good comparison. So, you have this really colorful game with fun witty humor, goofy cartoon looking characters, and gags lying around every corner. Mechanics and encounters that match the underwater setting.
You have a game that aims to do a lot, but still remain rather simplistic. Aggro Crab wanted this to be a really accessible game. Not just accessibility, but toning down on the many systems that would confuse a majority of non-RPG and soulslike players. Simpler progression, combat, world design, storytelling, and more. I want to say Another Crab’s Treasure was made to be an entry point in the genre and could be geared more towards younger audiences, but that last point can be proven false with how many made up but still sounding like the actual word swears they’ve made for this game. Another Crab’s Treasure has been in the works since 2022 and it wasn’t till this year when the full game came out. The game was reviewed very positively with critics and has become one of the best indie games of 2024. Some players are considering it a candidate for Game of The Year. I was really excited to try out this game. It looked very unique, I like quirky underwater settings, and I grew up watching SpongeBob so this felt right up my alley. I’m happy to report that Another Crab’s Treasure is as good as people say it is. I adore this game. I adore it so much that I made sure to get the platinum trophy before rolling credits. Expect this to be a full review after doing almost everything. This game is great and everyone, even non-soulslike fans, can enjoy what is on offer. Today we’re talking about why I love Another Crab’s Treasure and why it deserves your attention. So be like Tiny Tim and live in the sunlight.
Story
We follow a little hermit crab named Kril who spends most of his time hiding beneath his shell on a small plot of sand. The island doesn’t get many visitors. Usually just seagulls trying to find food, but they usually fly off when they realize no sea creatures come by. So it’s just Kril being safe and enjoying his cozy lonely life. Until one day suddenly a loan shark appears. Like a literal shark trying to collect loans. The loan shark tells Kril some new laws have been passed below the waters and that Kril must pay taxes in order to keep living in his shell. Kril doesn’t have a clue what taxes are nor does he have anything to pay them off. The loan shark then forcefully confiscates Kril’s shell as payment and retreats to the ocean. Kril is furious that this happened and chases after the loan shark. Realizing there’s no other choice, Kril dives into the waters and goes on a quest. A journey to find the loan shark and take back what was rightfully his.
Along the way Kril uncovers some weird mysteries. The ocean is littered with trash and denizens of the ocean have begun to profit off of it. Constructing massive cities, making complex devices, and creating all new homes to hide away in. However, a weird disease has begun to run amuck. The Gunk as it’s called is beginning to infect underwater life and transform them into mindless husks of their former selves. Attacking anyone that gets in their way and constantly talking about how they are all worthless and going to die no matter what. Kril doesn’t let this get in the way of getting his shell back and eventually he finds the person who stole it. A pawn shop shrimp who won’t give it back no matter how much Kril pays. Kril doesn’t know what to do, can’t get home, and sits in the middle of a big city surrounded by strangers. That’s when trash rains down from the sky and a map drops in the middle of the city. A map leading to a heap of treasure that can pay off anything. The shrimp now tasks Kril to find this treasure in the chance he may get his shell back. Kril agrees and along the way is assisted by new friends and foes. He’ll face the dangers of the ocean and do what it takes to find that treasure.
Gameplay
This is a soulslike and if you’ve played a soulslike before then you should know what to expect from this game. However, Another Crab’s Treasure does enough to help freshen up staples of the genre and keep it feeling… well fresh. You explore the world, fight enemies, level up, die, and try to learn from each mistake to venture a little bit further. Combat has you dodging around big heavy hitting attacks, striking at the right moment, and blocking if you aren’t very good at the whole dodging thing. What makes this game interesting is how defense works and the innovative shell mechanic. Lying everywhere is trash. Garbage as far as the eye can see. Alot of this trash can be worn as shells, and each shell comes with their own abilities and stats. Weight, protection, and special skills that can help during combat. Each shell has their own set durability number and when the shell runs out of durability it breaks. This leads to a frantic rush to find a new shell so that you have more protection, because if you get hit without a shell you take critical damage. Some of which may instantly kill you, which you don’t want if you are miles deep in an area. The shells range from soda cans, bottle caps, glass cups, tennis balls, thimbles, party hats, and much more. Experiment with the choices on offer.
Every time you kill an enemy you gain microplastics, otherwise souls in the Souls series. You can also gain microplastics by selling special junk found throughout your journey. Microplastics can be spent to upgrade your stats and purchase items. Stats include increasing max health, getting more resistance to ailments, increasing attack power of shell skills, or increasing regular attack power. Microplastics can be lost upon death, but you can rush back to where you lost them to possibly retrieve them. Die again before getting them back and they are gone forever. The other things you can purchase with microplastics are items, upgrades, and even insurance. Yes, there’s a shop where you can purchase shell insurance, and this allows you to respawn with certain shells without having to find them in the wild. There’s fork upgrades to increase the damage of your weapon, but this requires you to find stainless relics. Bloodstar limbs that are hidden cleverly and can increase your health by a lot compared to health upgrades. Then the fish hooks, which can be used to pull enemies towards you.
One final thing I want to mention is Miasma Crystals. This is a second currency not lost upon death, but can be spent to unlock character upgrades and improve special attacks gained from powerful bosses. These special perks include being invincible for a short period of time when a shell breaks. Going in for a critical blow when you break an enemy’s posture like in Sekiro. To recover lost shell durability by striking back quickly. A lot of these skills are useful especially in the endgame, so be on the lookout for Miasma Crystals or pink eyed enemies who will drop a good chunk of them upon being defeated. Besides that there’s nothing much else I have to say besides there being enough depth when the game is pretty simplistic when picked apart. It’s fun and we’re gonna talk about why everything this game does works. Hopefully you uncover where the secret treasure lies, obtain it, and become an underwater legend.
Thoughts
Another Crab’s Treasure is another excellent soulslike in a genre that is now flooding with them. It is a wonderfully, smartly made game made by people who truly love Souls games and I cannot recommend it enough. Easily one of the best games of 2024 and my soulslike of the year unless I end up playing Nine Sols at some point. This game does a lot of things right and nowhere during my fifthteen hour long playthrough did it ever get stale or annoying. If it’s not the gameplay that draws you in then it’ll certainly be another one of its core aspects. First off let’s talk about the gameplay and how addicting it was the last few days I grinded this bad boy out. The combat is a little bit slow compared to a lot of modern soulslikes like Lies of P or Elden Ring. Your attacks have a bit of input delay, you can transition between animations easily, and you can be canceled out of action animations. It feels much closer to the original Dark Souls then soulslikes now, and that’s okay because Another Crab’s Treasure puts a heavier emphasis on strategic play rather than being fast and reactive all the time. Bosses aren’t always rushing down on you and it’s easy to see windows of opportunity. It’s about straying away, protecting yourself, and punishing them when you think it’s the right time. Every encounter is well crafted and never once did the game feel unfair to me. Like it was clear what killed me and how to prevent it the next time. Never does the game pull out constant spaz outs or throw gang up after gang up for challenge.
Your attacks are slow, but combat is impactful and weighty. Smacking enemies across the face and breaking their defenses. I like there being four stat categories giving you what you need the most, but for some reason I like the Miasma upgrades and skill tree more. I don’t like most skill trees in games because most of the skills are situational or useless, but in this game they feel impactful and help make later encounters more manageable. One upgrade I really love is the one where you jab your weapon into a shell to make a hammer. Damage of the hammer scales with the weight and durability of a shell. You can do this on shells in the wild or ones you are wearing on your back, so it’s a skill that rewards you for being risky or on the lookout for different shells. I like the different skills you unlock in the game as they not only help in combat, but also when it comes to exploration. The fish hooks aren’t just used for yoinking enemies, but also for zipping over to different grappling points. The purple omega claw isn’t just a heavy damage dealer, but also can break blocks opening paths forward. It’s fun going back to old areas to test out these new skills and going into sectors containing goodies.
Platforming is impressive. It’s not some of my favorite platforming in a video game, but the way they handled it and made it work is neat. Having to carefully precision your jumps, think about how you use your tools, and get to where you need to be. Combine this with uniquely designed encounters and you have platforming that is decisive. I like the different shells you pick up in the game. Some of them feel like copies of each other, but each one is distinct and you really feel they are getting better as you find new stronger ones in later areas. The art direction is fantastic. I like cartoonish and goofy all the characters and enemies look. I like how the enemies are realistic looking at times which creates this fun clash between goofiness and mundane valley. Like one enemy late game is a giant crab that shoots lasers out of its eyes, which is a nice callback to that one meme and is hilarious in a surprisingly scary way. Areas are varied as you explore colorful sands, kelp forests, scrap factories, pick black fields with neon lights, and much more. The story is better than I expected. I don’t want to spoil too much, but it explores a lot of interesting themes and develops its characters really well. Watch Kril go from being angry with society all the time to the cartoon equivalent of Kratos. The game knows when to be funny and pull things back for critical story moments.
I like this game a lot. It gets a strong recommendation in my book for what it does right. I do have some critiques that prevent me from giving it an incredible score. All of the bosses are fun to fight and well designed, but some of them are either repeats of ideas you just fought or are just basic enemies given a bunch of health. In fact, later on they start reusing bosses as regular foes and while I can’t get too angry because FromSoftware does it too it still does feel a bit lazy. The game is one of the easiest soulslikes I’ve played which is fine considering it was made for a broader audience. However, the difficulty does fall flat when you level up the right stats and get some difficulty breaking skills. That hammer skill I mentioned earlier trivialized combat as I now could stagger foes much easier, raise their posture bars faster, and cut down bosses within a few seconds. Parrying felt a bit weird. They say you’re supposed to release the block button just a bit after getting hit, but I never got used to it or could time it correctly. Final complaint is that the game does not perform very well. It’s playable, but there’s minor technical bugs and noticeable performance issues. The game tanks when too much is going on or when you’re in a big open area, which is not good considering how big levels are in this game. Hope they patch it up soon.
Another Crab’s Treasure is just pure gold, both metaphorically and pun intended. It’s fun to play, well designed, has an engaging enough narrative, has an entertaining setting, and can be picked up and understood easily. There’s even accessibility to help players not skilled enough enjoy the game much easier, which I very much appreciate the older I get and the harder it becomes to go enjoy the games I like. It’s a must play for anyone and I hope it gets nominated for a couple of awards when award season rolls in. In the end I am going to give Another Crab’s Treasure a 9.5/10 for being superb. Masterpiece.
This critique was written by the single man at Review on. Stay tuned for more content and feel free to check more reviews out over at my site!
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