“Another Crab’s Treasure” PS5 Review: Who Says Soulslikes Can’t Be Colorful?

My experience with Another crab’s treasure can be summarized with the following observation: After 20 hours of adventure on the ocean floor, the game crashed during the final cutscene.

A refreshing take on the Soulslike genre, Another crab’s treasure is the latest game from Seattle-based developer Aggro Crab, who has also created other indie hits Go under And Subway midnight. And while the game markets itself difficult as an attempt to be The Cute, soulful, at its core it’s an action platformer with some very dark and existential themes. Sometimes really funny and sometimes really frustrating, Another crab’s treasure is a memorable entry-level Souls-like that is unfortunately plagued with performance issues.

Another crab’s treasure is a cute but dark underwater journey

Set under the sea, the game’s hero is Kril, a hermit crab who spent most of his life on the surface until one day his shell is confiscated by a loan shark. Kril’s adventure takes him into the sea, dressed in trash for protection, in search of his shell. During this mission, he discovers that the sea beneath him is polluted by trash and is slowly becoming corrupted by its waste – meaning that, whether he likes it or not, he may be the only one who can save it.

Unlike some games I’ve reviewed Harold Halibut, use the mild criticism of late capitalism as a backdrop for their stories, Another crab’s treasure is a brutal satire that doesn’t shy away from sending a message loud and clear to players: The way we live really sucks. As the story progresses, Kril quickly learns about the underwater society he avoids, breathing in the trash and pollution his fellow surface residents create. The game’s central city, New Carcinia, is run on garbage and all goods and services use microplastics as currency.

In the city, you quickly notice the clear disparity in wealth between the citizens in the upper and lower classes. In the Upper Crust, the streets are CVS receipts, with houses made of coral and expensive bottles of whiskey. There is no road at all below, and the building is made of rickety cardboard boxes. Even though it’s all trash, talking to city residents makes it clear that there is a difference between good trash and bad trash.

It’s hard to take many upper crusters seriously when they show you their clothes – made from silica gel packets and discarded orange peels – while lower city residents literally wear garbage bags for clothes. It’s all one big, unified trashy concept and a kind of subtle but sometimes very explicit form of environmental storytelling built into the details.

The creatures that inhabit New Carcinia and the sea surrounding it are memorable, at least a small note. Firth is a blue hermit crab who is an obvious counterpart to annoying libertarian tech bros; Neema is a motherly, down-to-earth crab who runs the pub in the poor part of town with her two daughters and only lives for one day at a time; Chitan is a noble lobster knight seeking the power to save the ocean.

Aggro Crab’s cute film Soulslike is a blatant critique of how man-made climate change and pollution are destroying our planet. It’s refreshing to see a developer actually take a stand on an issue instead of just dancing around and hoping not to upset anyone. Despite all the charm and color, Another crab’s treasure struggles with a form of existential dread that is just as dark as any soul without being a bleak medieval European fantasy.

Another crab’s treasure is essentially soul-like

Like many other genre imitators Another crab’s treasureCombat consists of dodging, rolling and slashing. However, it is not as deep as Dark souls or Lies from Pinstead it is something like An axe And Fallen order – fairly static combat that meets you at your level and challenges you to master what you’re given. What does The Crab’s TreasureWhat makes combat special is the ability to switch between grenades at any time, which are filled to the brim with unique magical abilities called “Umami”.

Great emphasis is placed on grenades in combat, as they serve as both armor and access to your umami abilities. Like everything else in the sea, these shells are everyday human trash that gets thrown away – from tennis balls, feathers, soda cans to boxing gloves. Most seashells have their own unique abilities that stem from their frequent use by humans. Soda cans can release a magical burst of fizz; Wearing fuses protects your armor from electricity, which shocks enemies that attack you. and carrying a shot glass or salt shaker can turn you into a sharp glass ball.

In addition to your “Umami” abilities, you can attach stowaways to your tank. These are pieces of scrap and small animals that give you improved abilities in combat. Examples of this include a starfish that gives you extra health, or a rubber band that makes you immune to electrical attacks.

The fight is never that difficult in comparison Dark souls, but it is not without its challenges. Once you reach the second or third main area of ​​the game, there is a noticeable lack of enemy variety. You’ll have to fight different enemies, but they’re mostly all of the same archetype – except now they do more damage. Additionally, there is an intent in combat aimed at punishing button mashers. These include input lag and missing I-frames when dodging. But it’s not always clear where intentional challenge ends and performance problems (which I’ll get to in a moment) begin. For example, I can’t tell if the game doesn’t recognize that I’m trying to heal myself, or if I mistimed the command, or something like that.

To be fair to the player given the additional challenges, certain gameplay elements also make things much easier. Enemies announce their movements to an annoying degree. And if you’re still having trouble with combat, the game has accessibility features that can negate damage, add extra i-frames, or even give you a weapon to kill enemies instantly (this isn’t a joke, I swear to God). ).

In essence, however Another crab’s treasure feels like a spiritual incarnation of classic platformers Jak and Daxter, as there is a level of verticality you won’t find in any other Soulslike. As you adventure, you can climb fallen nets, reach high areas with a fishing hook, and close long gaps by holding X to float through the water. It’s an invigorating mechanic for a Souls-like game, even if it’s far too frustrating at times – especially if you’re like me and have fat fingers and accidentally press the dodge button while floating towards a gap and now have air-in-the-air Abyss rolled down below.

Another crab’s treasure is faulty

As much as I love the game’s story and characters, it is flawed. The review copy given to me by Aggro Crab and Popagenda was played on the PlayStation 5, which has been experiencing performance issues recently with games like… Dragon’s Dogma 2. There were several instances of the game crashing, particularly when loading new areas on the map.

During the fight, Kril would mysteriously jump into the air after performing or being hit by certain moves. Another time, Kril got stuck in the world’s geometry, to the point where I had to go into the menu and use the “Die Instantly” option so I could reset. There was an incident while wrestling around a mud lake that caused the game to trigger the falling death animation because Kril’s hitbox would do it barely sliding over the dirt.

What was even more annoying was that towards the end of the game I accidentally warped into the final area of ​​the game after sliding through the floor.

Some games have taken advantage of the PS5’s SSD to, for example, hide their loading screens with transitional gameplay mechanics, such as taking an elevator, or having the character navigate through a narrow crevice a-la Bloodborne or God of War. While Another crab’s treasure If you try this, it’s pretty obvious that a cutscene or new area will start, as the game will freeze and stutter until it loads.

Although finding shortcuts is an important part of the genre, Soulslikes has long stretches of gameplay between areas where you can save your progress – so imagine the feeling of all your hard work being undone at any moment because the game often crashes when you try to load a new area. And as I said at the top of the review, the game crashed during the final cutscene – forcing me to fight the final boss again just so I could watch the last half of the ending.

It’s an extra challenge that’s not fun and feels more like a hostage situation.

Is Another crab’s treasure It is worth it?

For just under $30, Another crab’s treasure is an excellent, if somewhat basic, soulslike for anyone looking to get into the genre. From the beautiful environments to the adorable, sweet characters, the game’s story is clever, funny, and a biting reminder that we live in community with one another, not for ourselves.

However, I’d be hesitant to recommend this right away unless the game receives a hefty day-one patch to fix its myriad performance issues on PS5. Those complaints aside, Aggro Crab’s sweet soulslike is one of the best games I’ve played so far this year.

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