Highlights
- Another Crab’s Treasure breaks convention with clear storytelling that keeps players invested and engaged.
- The game’s vibrant and colorful world stands out from the typical dark, oppressive atmosphere of other Soulslike titles.
- Embracing player choice, Another Crab’s Treasure offers a range of accessibility options for a customizable gameplay experience.
A unique type of third-person action-RPG that struck an incredible balance between challenging and satisfying, Dark Souls would go on to spawn countless imitators over the following years, eventually forging a whole new genre now known as Soulslike. But while many Soulslike games still struggle to find that perfect balance between challenge and reward, Another Crab’s Treasure consistently hits the nail on the head.
After playing just a few hours of Another Crab’s Treasure, it’s clear how passionate developer Aggro Crab is, and how much it genuinely understands the fundamentals of the Soulslike genre as a whole, its roots, and how it’s evolved over the last decade or so. This understanding and passion has resulted in one of the best Indie Soulslikes in recent memory, but while Another Crab’s Treasure embraces many of the conventions of its genre, it also isn’t afraid to break some rules when it needs to.
How Another Crab’s Treasure’s Nephro Boss Fight Compares to Sekiro’s Gyoubu
Another Crab’s Treasure isn’t afraid to wear its influences on its sleeve, and its Nephro fight bears some intriguing similarities to Sekiro’s Gyoubu.
The Biggest Ways Another Crab’s Treasure Breaks Soulslike Conventions
Another Crab’s Treasure Has a Clear Narrative
FromSoftware games are notoriously obtuse when it comes to their narrative. In most cases, a FromSoft game will open with a quick cutscene that overwhelms the player with a vague account of the world’s intricate history up until that point, and that’s about all the direct storytelling that the game has to offer. From there, players have to piece together the game’s story and lore through lines of dialogue, environmental clues, and item descriptions. While many fans love this puzzle-like approach to storytelling, few Soulslikes can do this as well as FromSoft, resulting in too many Soulslike games that lack a compelling narrative.
Thankfully, Another Crab’s Treasure throws this convention out of the window at the very first opportunity, instead deciding to directly tell the player exactly what’s happening in the world, and how the protagonist fits into it all. Adopting this approach not only keeps the player invested in the game’s events, but also allows developer Aggro Crab to put its surprisingly deep satirical commentaries front and center of the experience.
Another Crab’s Treasure’s Bright and Cheery Atmosphere
Though they have brighter areas, much of FromSoftware’s catalog spends the majority of its time in dark, oppressive locations. While this moodier art style works well for games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne – reinforcing the sense of foreboding and danger that’s core to the experience – it’s since been used countless times in other Soulslike titles that try to evoke that same atmosphere, which makes the gloom feel repetitive or banal in some instances. Another Crab’s Treasure manages to clearly stand apart from those past Soulslikes by going in the opposite direction, delivering a bright and colorful world that’s filled with charm and cartoony visuals.
Another Crab’s Treasure’s Player-First Approach
For the last few years, difficulty in the Soulslike genre has been a bit of a hot topic in the gaming landscape. On one side of the fence, fans of Soulslikes’ high level of challenge believe that difficulty options shouldn’t be present in the game as they could ruin the carefully balanced vision that the developers have worked hard to deliver. On the other hand, many fans believe that adding some kind of difficulty options would help to make Soulslikes more accessible.
Another Crab’s Treasure fully embraces the latter school of thought, delivering an impressive suite of accessibility options that are available right from the start of the game. From reduced enemy health pools, to increased parry windows, to even the option to give player-character Kril a gigantic gun that one-shots enemies, Another Crab’s Treasure lets the player customize their experience completely.
Another Crab’s Treasure
Aggro Crab’s Another Crab’s Treasure provides a maritime twist on the Souls-like formula. Using the trash around him as armor and weapons, Kril must travel across an underwater kingdom while fighting off all sorts of impressive threats.
- Released
- April 25, 2024
- Developer(s)
- Aggro Crab
- Publisher(s)
- Aggro Crab
- Genre(s)
- Adventure , Soulslike , RPG
- Engine
- Unity
- ESRB
- T For Teen Due To Blood, Crude Humor, Language, Use of Tobacco, Violence