Info about Another Crab's Treasure: Official game description: Another Crab’s Treasure is a soulslike adventure set in a crumbling underwater world. As Kril the hermit crab, you’ll need to wear the trash around you as shells to withstand attacks from enemies many times your size. Embark on an epic treasure hunt to buy back your repossessed shell, and discover the dark secrets behind the polluted ocean. TRASH OR TREASURE? ------------------ In this undersea society, trash is not only a way of life, but a valuable resource, used for everything from fashion to firearms. But with the presence of trash comes a mysterious infection known as the Gunk, which could spell doom for the entire ocean. LEARN FROM NATURE ----------------- As Kril explores the ocean, he'll gain a variety of Umami Techniques—powerful attacks learned from the denizens of the seas. Punch your enemies with the overwhelming might of a Mantis Shrimp, ensnare them with the horrifying Bobbit Worm, and much more. UNEXPLORED DEPTHS ----------------- The ocean goes deeper than one can imagine. Fight your way through kelp forests, coral reefs, sand castle cities, and even the unfathomable darkness of the deep-sea trenches, all in the name of getting back your prized shell. PLAY AT YOUR OWN PACE --------------------- Designed to be an approachable experience for newer soulslike players as well as provide a challenge for hardcore fans, Another Crab's Treasure offers something for any level of skill or time commitment. Assist options are provided for those seeking a less frustrating experience, but gluttons for punishment are sure to find the default game a challenge. * Challenging soulslike-inspired combat * A grand undersea world to explore * Over 50 shells to try on and fend off attackers * A variety of powerful Umami Abilities to smite your enemies * Way Too Many Crabs Release date: 25 Apr, 2024 Categories: Soulslike Combat, Open-World Exploration, Platformer, Equipment Customization, Character Progression, Treasure Hunting, Resource Management - Hardware Profile: No data Feature extractions: - Community Price: No data - Playtime Metrics: No data - Time-to-fun: No data - Player Archetypes: No data Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category. Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews. What players like: - Visually appealing, creative world (weight 0.95): The game features a unique and creative art style, with colorful visuals, adorable character designs, and imaginative environments. The world is filled with details that show the developers' love and care, creating a visually appealing and immersive experience. This point highlights the game's artistic achievements and its ability to create a memorable and engaging world. - Engaging story with depth (weight 0.92): The game's story is a major strength, with engaging characters, relatable themes, and emotional impact. The narrative builds up well and blends souls-like elements with the game's whimsical setting, delivering a message about creating positive change. This point emphasizes the game's ability to tell a compelling story that resonates with players. - Humorous and charming experience (weight 0.9): The game is praised for its humor, charm, and lighthearted tone, which sets it apart from other souls-like games. It features funny dialogue, comical situations, and well-executed jokes, creating an enjoyable and memorable experience. This point reflects the game's ability to balance challenging gameplay with a fun and engaging narrative. - Balanced, accessible souls-like gameplay (weight 0.53): The game offers a balanced and accessible souls-like experience, with adjustable difficulty settings and assist modes that cater to different skill levels. The combat is challenging but fair, with well-designed boss fights and rewarding progression. This point highlights the game's ability to appeal to both new and experienced players of the genre. - Addresses environmental, social issues (weight 0.11): The game tackles serious themes such as ocean pollution, capitalism, and environmental awareness, delivering a message about creating positive change. The story effectively conveys these themes through the depiction of marine life affected by pollution and the consequences of human actions. This point highlights the game's ability to address important social issues in a meaningful and engaging way. - Enjoyable and rewarding combat (weight 0.1): The combat system is enjoyable and rewarding, with satisfying boss fights and a sense of accomplishment when defeating enemies. The game features a variety of combat options and abilities, allowing players to customize their playstyle. This point highlights the game's core gameplay mechanics and its ability to create a fun and engaging combat experience. - Customizable difficulty, assist modes (weight 0.09): The game includes an assist mode with various options to adjust the difficulty, such as reducing enemy damage, increasing invincibility frames, and providing a powerful gun. These accessibility options make the game more approachable for players who struggle with difficult games or want a more relaxed experience. This point emphasizes the game's commitment to inclusivity and its ability to cater to a wide range of players. - Creative design, fun references (weight 0.08): The game showcases creativity in its design, with common items used as shells, weapons, and clothing in interesting ways. The enemies have creative ideas for using trash as weapons, and the game is full of references to other games and internet culture. This point highlights the game's originality and its ability to create a unique and memorable experience. - Unique and strategic shell mechanic (weight 0.07): The shell mechanic is a unique and innovative gameplay element, where players can switch between different shells to gain unique abilities and change their playstyle. This adds variety and strategic depth to combat, encouraging experimentation and adaptation. This point emphasizes the game's originality and its ability to create a fresh and engaging combat experience. - High level of enjoyment (weight 0.06): The reviewer expresses strong positive emotions towards the game, such as love, enjoyment, and surprise. Some reviewers played the game multiple times and achieved full completion, indicating a high level of engagement and satisfaction. This point reflects the game's ability to create a positive and memorable experience for players, but lacks specific details. - Good entry point to Soulslike (weight 0.05): The game is a good entry point into the souls-like genre, offering a more accessible and less punishing experience than other titles. Its cute art style and balanced difficulty make it suitable for newcomers who are intimidated by the dark and gritty themes of traditional souls-like games. This point highlights the game's ability to introduce new players to the genre and provide a positive first experience. - Great and fitting soundtrack (weight 0.05): The game features a great soundtrack that complements the gameplay and enhances the overall experience. The music is well-composed, consistently enjoyable, and suits the atmosphere of the levels and boss fights. This point emphasizes the game's audio quality and its ability to create an immersive and engaging atmosphere. - Unexpectedly serious, emotional ending (weight 0.04): The game's story takes unexpected turns and becomes more serious towards the end, with emotional moments and a surprising ending. The game strikes a balance of optimism and pessimism in its messaging, leaving a lasting impression on players. This point highlights the game's ability to create a memorable and thought-provoking narrative experience. Common complaints: - Buggy, unpolished, technical issues (weight 0.55): Numerous reviews mention bugs, glitches, and a general lack of polish. These issues range from minor annoyances like getting stuck in the environment to more serious problems like crashes and corrupted save files. These technical problems detract significantly from the player experience. - Uninspired enemy/boss design (weight 0.49): Enemy and boss design is frequently criticized. Reviewers cite a lack of variety, uninspired movesets, and frustrating enemy placement, especially ranged enemies in platforming sections. Some also mention specific enemies, like the laser crabs, as being particularly annoying. - Poor map design, confusing navigation (weight 0.36): The game's map design and navigation are problematic. Reviewers report getting lost easily, a lack of clear direction, and a confusing map system. Some areas are described as empty and featureless, making exploration tedious. - Limited replayability, short length (weight 0.35): The game lacks replayability due to the absence of a New Game Plus mode, limited customization options, and a linear storyline. Some reviewers also felt that the game was too short, leaving them wanting more content. - Poor platforming implementation (weight 0.23): Platforming sections are frequently criticized for feeling clunky, janky, and unpolished. Reviewers report issues with jumping mechanics, collision detection, and getting stuck in the environment. The camera can also be problematic during platforming. - Clunky, unresponsive combat system (weight 0.16): The combat system is often described as clunky, stiff, and unresponsive. Reviewers cite issues with hitboxes, targeting, and the parry mechanic. Some also felt that the combat lacked impact and depth. - Falling/getting stuck frequently (weight 0.11): Falling off cliffs and getting stuck in the environment are common occurrences. This leads to frustration and lost progress. Poorly placed respawn points exacerbate the issue. - Unintuitive, unresponsive parry mechanic (weight 0.04): The parry mechanic is unintuitive and unresponsive. The timing is difficult to master, and the feedback is lacking. Some reviewers felt that the parry mechanic was insignificant or even detrimental to the combat flow. - Heavy-handed environmental message (weight 0.04): The game's environmental message is heavy-handed and undermined by other elements. Some reviewers found the game's tone inconsistent, with childish writing clashing with adult themes and explicit violence. Gameplay feedback: - Soulslike combat with platforming elements (weight 0.26): The game blends Soulslike combat with platforming elements, incorporating mechanics from Sekiro (grappling hook, parrying) and Bloodborne (charged attacks). Combat emphasizes parrying and dodging, with a posture system and unique parry mechanic involving timed shell exits. The game also features a fork weapon and various combat styles through accessories and skill trees. - Unique shell mechanic with abilities (weight 0.11): A core mechanic involves using trash as shells, each with unique stats, abilities, and durability. Shells function as disposable shields, offering different playstyles and spells that consume Umami charges. Players must manage shell durability and find replacements, adding a strategic layer to combat and exploration. - Character progression and variable difficulty (weight 0.07): The game features character progression through stat building and unlockable skills, allowing for personalized playstyles. While the game offers a satisfying challenge with new enemy types and rewards exploration, the difficulty can become less challenging in the late game due to an abundance of items and abilities. - Grappling hook and ocean exploration (weight 0.04): The game features a grapple hook for traversal and exploration, with new areas unlocked using new abilities. The map design emphasizes depth and offers interesting exploration with memorable branching paths in diverse ocean environments. - Environmental message and satirical narrative (weight 0.03): The game's narrative addresses societal problems brought about by capitalism and environmental themes, particularly marine conservation and pollution. The story incorporates black humor and satire, with elements like weapons and shells made from ocean trash and cities built from garbage. - Flawed posture and dodging mechanics (weight 0.01): The posture mechanic is considered useless, and enemy projectiles change trajectory mid-air, making dodging feel futile. One reviewer played as a tank character, relying on high shield and health rather than parrying, and largely overlooked fishing/reel mechanics. - Microplastics as currency (weight 0.01): The game uses microplastics as currency, reflecting the theme of pollution. Sea creatures use plastic waste as currency, forming the basis of their economy, and players use garbage as shells to defend against enemies. - Recommended builds and strategies (weight 0.01): Players recommend specific builds and strategies, such as getting the Wrecked Hammer and Kintsugi skills early. One player used a setup with the Glass Mug and a fully upgraded shell-crafting skill, while another recommended a build focused on charged and hammer damage with the small red cup shell. - Inconsistent combat quality (weight 0.01): Combat is described as clunky with beginner mistakes, but also tough and fair with distinctive pacing and numerous creative ideas. Some reviewers found dodging ineffective due to enemy attacks lunging at the player. - Unpolished gameplay and lacking execution (weight 0.01): The game is imaginative but feels frontloaded with its ideas, and the gameplay, while decent with interesting mechanics, has flaws and unpolished aspects. Trinkets and abilities feel lacking in their execution. - Nonsensical and hyperbolic statements (weight 0.01): This cluster contains mostly nonsensical and hyperbolic statements, such as the crab killing gods with a Saitama-style punch and the game being about a crab avoiding taxes. These points are not constructive or specific and show signs of review bombing. Performance notes: - Low-resolution textures/models (weight 0.02): Several reviewers noted the low quality of some textures and character models. Some describe the graphics as resembling older console generations, despite requiring modern hardware. This discrepancy between visual fidelity and hardware demands is a point of criticism. - "Die instantly" option added (weight 0): The developers added a "die instantly" option to the menus to address situations where players get stuck. This highlights the severity of the softlock issues present in the game. - Lost souls due to bug (weight 0): One player reported losing a significant amount of souls, which could not be recovered. This type of bug can be very frustrating, as it directly impacts player progression. - Annoying grappling points (weight 0): One player found some grappling points to be annoying. This is a minor issue, but it can still be frustrating for players. - Suboptimal Steam Deck profile (weight 0): One player reported that the per-game profile setting on Steam Deck is not ideal. This is a minor issue, but it can still be frustrating for players who want to customize their settings. - N/A (weight 0): These points are generally positive and lack specific details. Some are subjective opinions about the graphics. Therefore, they are not included in the summary. Recommendations: - Highly recommended Soulslike experience (weight 0.57): The game is widely recommended, especially to fans of Soulslike games, and is considered a good entry point into the genre due to its approachable difficulty and assist options. Many reviewers suggest it's worth the price, particularly on sale, and praise its unique elements. - Desire for more content (weight 0.05): Many reviewers expressed a strong desire for additional content, specifically a New Game+ mode, DLC, or a sequel. They enjoyed the game world and want to see it expanded upon. - Generally positive experience (weight 0.04): Some reviews express general positive sentiments without specific details, or are based on personal biases. These reviews often include scores or simple recommendations. - Meaningful themes and messages (weight 0.03): The game's themes and messages, particularly regarding environmental protection and personal reflection, resonated with some reviewers. They appreciated the combination of lightheartedness and deeper meaning. - Looking forward to future projects (weight 0.01): Several reviewers expressed interest in future projects from the developer, Aggro Crab. This indicates a positive impression of the studio's work and a desire to see more from them. - Consider purchasing on sale (weight 0.01): Several reviews suggest waiting for a sale before purchasing the game. This is due to concerns about the game's length or content relative to its full price. - Best experienced with controller (weight 0.01): Some reviewers noted that the game is best played with a controller. This suggests that the control scheme may not be well-suited for keyboard and mouse. Other player notes: - Environmental message about ocean pollution (weight 0.1): The game's narrative heavily emphasizes environmental themes, particularly ocean pollution caused by human waste and corporate greed. It explores topics like capitalism, inequality, and marine conservation, often using satire and allegory to convey its message. The story follows a crab reclaiming his stolen shell in a world grappling with these issues. - Darkening narrative with contrasting style (weight 0.02): The game features a comedic narrative that becomes darker as the story progresses. The cute art style contrasts with the increasingly intense and brutal elements of the game, and the difficulty may not be suitable for all ages despite its appearance. - Immersive world with humorous details (weight 0.02): The game world feels immersive and connected, enhancing the player experience. The developers demonstrate passion and creativity through small details and a good sense of humor, including fish puns and pop culture references. - References and easter eggs included (weight 0.01): The game contains numerous references and easter eggs, including those from Dark Souls, SpongeBob, and other popular culture elements. These homages reflect the developer's dedication and add to the game's overall appeal. - Cute and refreshing art style (weight 0.01): The game features a cute and refreshing art style that combines detailed pixel graphics with cartoonish characters. The artistic direction and character design are noteworthy. - Developer donations to ocean charities (weight 0.01): The developers have donated a portion of the game's revenue to ocean conservation charities, demonstrating a commitment to the themes explored in the game. - Easy to 100% complete (weight 0.01): The game features 38 Steam achievements, all of which can be obtained in a single playthrough, making it easy to 100% complete. Emotions: No emotions}