Have you ever seen a movie you thought was going to be “so bad it’s good” that ended up actually being legitimately good? That’s Fight Crab, the latest game by Calappa Games who clearly have an affinity for the absurd with their previous games being NEO AQUARIUM and Ace of Seafood.
Crab Fight
Developer: Calappa Games
Price: $19.99
Platform: PC & Switch
MonsterVine was supplied with a PC code for review
At its surface, Fight Crab presents itself as a bizarre game meant to be thrown on during a party with friends, or to see some streamer give exaggerated reactions to. When you peel back its layers however, you discover a game with a surprising amount of depth. Fight Crab has a bit of an unusual control scheme as you use the analog sticks to control your crab’s arms, the triggers to punch, the bumpers to open/close your pincers, and your crab moves by tapping a direction on the d-pad in which you will autonomously move in that direction indefinitely until you tap another direction. On top of that, there’s wall climbing, dashing, various tricks you can do with your pincers like steal an opponent’s weapon, and a hyper mode that when activated gives you additional moves to your arsenal like a Dragon Ball Z style spirit bomb. It takes a bit of wrapping your head around, as evident by the game’s story mode slowly trickling out tutorial elements making sure you’ve mastered the previous one before providing the next, but once you do you’ll be a Fight Crab master in no time.
The other surprising thing about the game is how it’s stat driven. Of the nearly two dozen crustaceans in the game, each has their own unique list of stats such as how heavy it might be or how quickly it can turn. This translates to the game’s ludicrous amount of weapons as well. You’ll see basics like baseball bats and knives to the more fantastical like Excalibur itself. Want to ride a scooter while wielding a lightsaber? Go ahead. Hell, you can even ride a seal into battle and all of these items have their own pros and cons attributed to them. This leads you to crafting specific builds for your crab. Do you want something heavier like the King Crab and give it a jet engine to have that quick boost of speed? Or maybe go all in on speed and give the nimble Mantis Shrimp two jet engines because you’re a maniac.
Now can Fight Crab be played and enjoyed by simply wildly swinging your arms and just letting the game take you on a ride? Totally, 100%. But if you want to get into the weeds and master its elements there’s enough there to chew on that I’m excited to see a Fight Crab scene blow up in the fighting game community.
In regards to what modes are available, there are a few to dig into. The story mode features a gauntlet of ever more difficult fights that culminate in a wonderfully over the top boss fight with a supersized crab that has straight up superpowers. The absurdity translates to the game’s various levels as well as you’ll go from fighting in a grocery store and medieval dining hall, to even a kid’s playroom. The ridiculous scene being set is part of the game’s charm as you’ll be in an alley in feudal japan facing down a crab with a pair of sai, as his buddy jumps from the rafters above with Riddick knives. It’s all very dumb and culminates in a ridiculously over the top final boss that is so close to being perfect if they had just had the main menu’s anime opening style theme play during the actual battle.
Admittedly, there is one curious element with the story mode that I’m not sure why it’s even there. As you play through the game’s many missions, you’ll acquire XP that can be used to purchase new crabs or weapons from the shop to use in the solo mode (these are auto-unlocked for versus). Now that makes some sense, but what doesn’t is how you can level up a chosen crab to increase its stats Dark Souls style. I went through the entire campaign without feeling the need to level anything up, and even then still only got enough XP to purchase one or two crabs and a handful of minor weapons. I couldn’t begin to imagine how much you’d have to replay to be able to purchase everything in the shop which begs the question of why it’s even there in the first place?
Besides that, you can run the story mode in co-op and there’s the versus mode which I wish a few more options in it. There’s a 1v1 and 2v2 but that’s pretty much it and it’s bizarre that a free for all mode isn’t in here. If you’ve got three friends who want to play together you’re forced to either take turns going one-on-one, or be cruel and go two-on-one.
Not all is rainbows and sunshine in the world of the Fight Crab however. The game is littered with various issues that individually are tolerable, but if experienced together can leave a sour taste in the mouth. The game is, ideally, played with a controller but being as I played the game on my PC it’s expected to be hopping between controller and keyboard. This can unfortunately cause the game to potentially break. If you’re using a controller, and then begin using your keyboard for whatever reason, the game will lock itself to the keyboard style UI which, while in menus is no big deal since everything will work fine, in the game itself you’ll experience some buttons on the controller still working while others won’t. The keyboard controls won’t be fully working either, leaving you with this sort of Frankenstein control scheme that’s only fixed upon restarting the game. Playing through Steam’s Remote Play feature can also trigger this if the person you’re inviting into your session so much as lays a finger on their keyboard, dooming both of you.
That’s thankfully the only gameplay affecting issue I experienced. My other complaints with the game have to do with just general UI nitpicks. Being a game that’s going to the effort to have a stat heavy system, encouraging you to craft specific crab builds, it’s bizarre how when playing multiplayer the “more stat info” tabs that open up on the crab selection screen clips off-screen when you have more than two players. Playing with a few friends the other day, they hadn’t even realized that screen was there because it wouldn’t appear until we did 1v1 matches. Besides that, just other elements of the game’s menu border between amateurish in design to obtuse.
The Final Word
Fight Crab is as dumb as it is absurd, and it’ll leave you with the biggest smile on your face as your chainsaw wielding crab goes into battle.
– MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
