2/5 ★ – Smabbott's review of Another Crab's Treasure.

Bait on a hook Another Crab’s Treasure is frustrating. Challenging the perception of what a Souls-like game can be, it succeeds in the visual sense. The colourful nature and humorous approach to the world is a fresh take on the genre and for the most part the world is quite interesting. The change from linear or corridor styled levels to Mario worlds as it were was interesting. Leaving a lot of room for you to explore and traverse. But this is where the problems arise. The game doesn’t feel finished. The layout of the world feels cobbled together and not in a way where the inhabitants piled things up, I mean the levels themselves feel rushed. The use of open levels adds that sense of discovery while traversing this unforgiving world. But the amount of empty moments feels as if it was just more of a gimmick if anything. Enemies will be around every corner ready to pounce you as you cower behind your shell. So I guess that’s something. The shell is an interesting idea but in execution doesn’t feel right to play. Changing the parry system to that of a release button means that after swinging your weapon. You then have to waste time to reach the first animation of putting on your shell to then having a second where it’s taken off. In this time, you will have been hit. The speed of your attack is slow. Acting like a Dark Souls 1 move set against Elden Ring bosses when it comes to their speed. There wasn’t a single boss where I felt like I learnt it by the end. They all just felt like I got lucky. I hate this. It solidifies the fact that the game wants to play the same as something far beyond its capability and as such, it suffers immensely. What could have been a fantastic edition to the souls-like category ends up being a rather contrived, RNG heavy game which basically forces the player to ignore its mechanics to beat it. There is a fight near the end of the game where you cannot attack and parry in time with the boss. You just can’t. To the point that when I see videos on the boss, the strategy is to wait far away and then go in when the animation is finished. This is bad. The more I played the game the more I just wanted it over, the combat wasn’t that fun and didn’t deviate enough or build on its core philosophies well enough to justify the amount of time spent in the game. The bosses all play the same while at the same time being too fast to read. News flash, don’t put bubbles to simulate the sea in an animation styled game. I can’t see the fucking fight! The game got so annoying that I gave up. I don’t do that often. But genuinely, I know I can beat the boss I’m on if I don’t interact with the moves. But where’s the fun in that? The game also having an idle animation where you play around with your life and then when you move it’s dropped and you have to go collect it again is dumb. I was looking forward to this game. But with most of the humour and cutscenes being more boring or cringe more than anything on top of bosses which range from boring to straight up ridiculous, the game is super annoying to play and I just don’t want to play it anymore. They said they made the game too big. I think they focused on that more than anything else. Shame. Update: Beat the game. It got worse with a truly uninspired ending with one boss which had adds. If you want a sign that a boss is bad. Check to see if it has adds. 4/10.