I’m a big fan of the Dark Souls series and always keep my eye out for any similar games in the genre. I’m also a big fan of crabs. Combining the two seems like such a no brainer that I’m surprised it’s taken this long for it to happen. Another Crab’s Treasure being a soulslike of course has your typically grim/abstract story that you expect from the genre: you play as Kril, a hermit crab, who’s on a journey to buy back their repossessed shell. There’s also a mysterious substance called gunk that’s infecting the ocean, but we’re focused on getting back our stuff.
My demo of the game, as brief as it was, was mostly a combat focused slice so I didn’t get to see what quests or the bigger open world looked like, as it was a pretty linear section of the game. I was introduced to the game’s platforming mechanics like a grappling hook that’ll let you zip over to far off ledges and whatnot. Combat had all the elements of a typical souls like: hard hitting enemies you need to read the attacks of to properly dodge as you pick away at them.
One of the game’s novel features is the ability to swap out your shell with various pieces of junk you’ll find on the seafloor from shot glasses to bottle caps. Different shells can grant you different abilities as well, like the soda can giving you this sort of homing shotgun blast that I was particularly fond of. They also offer differing amounts of protection and mobility; you might find one shell that offers a lot of armor, but maybe you can’t dodge so well. Blocking attacks with your shell is a key part of combat as doing so makes sure the shell absorbs all the damage. Of course, this means your shell might break and you’ll lose whatever useful ability it has so it’s a really neat system that asks you whether you want to block a hit, dodge it, or maybe even take the hit full on if it means you can keep using its ability.
My demo ended with a hectic fight against a grossly larger crab whose preferred method of violence was a smashed bottle. It had all the elements you look for in these kinds of boss fights, like the swelling music that helped enhance the fight and was a lot of fun to fight against. I honestly can’t wait to play more when Another Crab’s Treasure releases next year.
