Another Crab's Treasure Videos & Livestreams

An incredibly charming game but very much feels like "the 2nd game from the developer" that they advertise on the title screen. So much heart and care and high points but still stuck with some clear flaws and less tightly designed segments and ideas. Amazing art direction and gameplay innovations and one of the more welcoming souls-like that I would recommend to a wider audience, along with great writing, including possibly the scariest villain monologue I can think of that was just sitting in the open outside of a cutscene. Still, it needed some work in the music and sound design categories and some bugs that absolutely drove me crazy. Plus the combat really falls apart if you're in a group; the camera starts freaking out on you so bad and the hitstun is so aggressive you just go from full to zero before you can do anything. Pro tip - if your microplastics on death drop somewhere outside the map and you can't recover them like they did for me, there's a button in the "assist" portion of the settings that automatically returns it to you. I didn't learn that until I had already lost several thousand and had hurt my hand from hitting my desk...

[b] Early Game: 8.0/10; Mid Game: 5.5/10; Late Game: 4.0/10 [/b] It feels exactly like those cheap, poorly made platformers I played on the PS2 over 20 years ago. While it undeniably has unique creative elements, as a Souls-like game—or even as a basic action-adventure title—I don't think it passes muster. And as of 2026, it still has bugs that impact the gameplay experience. Strictly speaking, I'd argue this game barely qualifies as a Souls-like, as it only scratches the surface of the Souls series' core mechanics. Beyond that, both its gameplay and narrative execution feel rather shoddy. Crucially, from the mid-game onwards, it essentially devolves into a platformer filled with clunky jumps and tedious puzzle-solving. Attacking enemies yields minimal rewards, causing many players—myself included—to largely abandon combat, opting instead to sprint through maps. This removes the drive and joy of exploration. Worse still, the game offers zero incentive to start a second run: it's overrun with spawned enemies, filled with negative feedback loops, and brimming with malice, leaving players utterly unmotivated. Even Dark Souls 2's third playthrough wasn't this extreme, and NIOH 1 and NIOH 2's fourth runs likely weren't this absurd. Looking at actual data, as of writing this review, only 3.9% of players have unlocked the “Achievement obtainable shortly after starting NG+.” Moreover, many players likely uninstalled after merely completing achievements, never fully replaying the game. Meanwhile, Dark Souls 3 boasts a full 5.0% of players who have “unlocked all achievements.” This signifies that these players have completed at least three full playthroughs from start to finish, while also securing every remaining achievement. This alone speaks volumes. Evaluating it purely as an action-adventure game, its flaws are equally glaring: While the combat mechanics aren't outright terrible, they're far from good; Map design is poor, with low scene recognition and tedious exploration routes that easily dampen players' desire to discover new areas; Numerical balance is abysmal—the fact that developers embedded a cheat engine (euphemistically called “Assist Mode”) speaks volumes, revealing they acknowledge this flaw and resort to this lazy fix to appease players; Monster variety is too limited, making combat increasingly monotonous and uninteresting as the game progresses; The overall lack of positive player feedback makes it hard to sustain enthusiasm and motivation; the protagonist's poor mobility and slightly clunky controls make many platforming sections frustratingly tedious. Even the well-designed final map struggles to inspire exploration or parkour-style movement. Regarding the story, I dislike the game's clichéd narrative techniques and plot devices, and I'm not fond of the so-called “values” it attempts to convey. But what I dislike most are all the NPCs in this game—and I mean all of them, including the protagonist. Every single character in this game is self-absorbed, selfish, and oddly eccentric, making it incredibly difficult for players to connect with or empathize with them. Honestly, in my opinion, not a single NPC in this game is likable. The essence of Souls series NPCs has never been about how cryptic their dialogue is or how bizarre their personalities are. It lies in the human beauty and ugliness, the good and evil, that emerge when ordinary individuals struggle against overwhelming fate and the tide of history, each fighting for their own convictions. That's the true heart of the Souls series. This crab game hasn't learned a single thing from that essence. In summary, this is the worst Souls-like game I've played in a long time, and arguably the worst action-adventure game overall. I only managed to endure it long enough to quickly unlock all achievements before uninstalling it. Of course, it should be noted that the above is solely my personal opinion and perspective. Therefore, I also recommend that interested players purchase it and try it for themselves first, using the 2-hour refund window to determine whether this game suits them. If you find it enjoyable, I sincerely hope you can savor the fun it offers; if not, simply request a refund. By the way, the game's theme song The Mess I Made is actually quite good. I even bought the OST specifically for this track. It's the sole highlight of the entire game in my opinion—the thing that moved me and felt the most heartwarming. In other words, I don't recommend the game itself, but I highly recommend this song ;D

The game played really well, and it was awesome. BUT then... midway the performance went to shit. It seriously would go in slow motion, miss frames, it basically made it frustrating and unplayable. WTF?

DO NOT buy this game if you like any form of polish. While it is very charming and funny, the gameplay is horribly broken and janky.

I'm giving this game a thumbs down, but for anyone reading these reviews and trying to decide whether or not to buy, I want to lead by saying that this is not a strong thumbs down. I didn't hate this game. If you're looking for something to do for 25 hours and you have a high tolerance for jank, you might have a good time with it. But if you see "Overwhelmingly Positive" reviews and have heard that this is a really solid Souls-like, I think you're likely to be disappointed. I found the combat to be too clunky for this game to succeed as a Souls-like, but it comes close as a PS1/2-era throwback action/platformer. I'll start with the good. The level design is, for the most part, absolutely fantastic, and way above average for Souls-likes. The most fun I had in the game was exploring the maps and hunting for items. The levels are a good mix of wide open spaces and tight, interconnected, three dimensional labyrinths, with landmarks to navigate by and good application of the usual souls tropes. There's good use of colour and the low-ish-fi graphics give the game a PS1/2 platformer vibe that I loved, but also wish it had leaned into a bit harder. The devs clearly had a lot of fun building the crab-sized world out of recognizable pieces of garbage. But as much as I loved the levels at a macro scale, the details and execution leave a lot to be desired. There's a whole lot of getting caught on geometry seams and sliding off platforms because they're imperceptibly sloped at the edges. Combine with a bad camera and less-than-perfect controls, and the game just feels kind of unpleasant to move around in a lot of the time. These complaints apply to the combat too, but then stack on janky animations and bad hit feedback. These are the basics that a Souls-like needs to really nail to hit the sweet spot of challenging but still fun, and I don't think Another Crab's Treasure manages it. My final complaint is about the story and the writing. This really comes down to taste - I'm not aiming to be completely objective here and I'm sure plenty of people loved the parts of the game that I'm going to complain about. The story feels like the combination of three different, completely tonally distinct, stories, and one large heaping of ideological rhetoric. The result is inconsistent, incoherent, and pretty far from what I want from a game like this, or any game, really. And it's hard to look past because there's also way too much dialogue in the game, mostly spent on advancing the story and not good enough to carry its own weight. I ended up mashing my way through most of the dialogue after about the first third of the game, and wishing that games generally would be more deliberate with their word budget. I had some fun with Another Crab's Treasure but the strongest feelings I had throughout my time with it were being frustrated by the mechanics and bored by the narrative. If I was going to recommend this game to anyone, that recommendation would have to come with a lot of caveats.

Have you ever wondered how Dark Souls and SpongeBob combined together would look like? Well, probably something like Another Crab’s Treasure. At least that’s how it looked to me, and that’s why I bought it. How did it turn out? You’re about to find out soon — but first, let me introduce you to this game’s story. [b]Story[/b] You play as a hermit crab named Krill. Krill is a chill crab who doesn’t need much to be happy. All he needs is his shell and a quiet place without a single soul, where he can spend his days resting and not doing a single thing. However, things are about to get really complicated for him. One day, Krill decided to come out of his shell to get some food, but as soon as he got out, a loan shark took his shell and demanded payment — payment for living rent-free on someone else’s land. Krill has been living like this his whole life without a single thought about money or paying for something. All he knew was how to sleep and eat. He tried to pay rent with all the food he had, but soon learned that the only currency is microplastic, which he had never heard of. So the shark decided to leave with his shell. Since Krill had nowhere to live, he had no choice but to follow him and get his home back, no matter what. In this ultimate quest, Krill learns about the ugly world that everyone lives in — a world ruled by the wealthy, full of greed, slavery, and crabs that have completely given up on life. It is, in many ways, a representation of our reality. All we do is work to be able to pay the bills so we have a place to sleep. We made up our currency just like the crabs did, and we also try to make as much of it as we can. And for what? For a better future? And what is this better future? For many, it’s only about making more money. Often, those are the people who overlook how their actions affect other people — or worse, how they affect the place we live in. Another Crab’s Treasure is about all of that and much more. I don’t want to spoil more than that, but somehow this game’s story heavily resonated with me. [b]Presentation[/b] The whole ocean is covered in trash. It is a sad sight to see, but seeing how the fish make use of it also makes it very interesting. The location that stood out to me the most was probably New Carcinia. It is a big town divided into two districts. The upper level is a place where all the rich crabs live. They all have solid houses made out of whiskey bottles or wine bottles. This is also the first part of the town shown to the player, and it gives off the impression that the ocean really enjoys all the trash and has turned it into something beautiful. But as soon as you look down from the upper district, you’ll see the sad, hidden reality of this town. Houses made out of cardboard that barely stand still. Crabs without their homes, completely burned out and overworked. The city stood out to me so much that I visited every NPC and talked to them. But don’t worry — it’s not only the city that looks this good. Every location is beautiful in its own way, full of contrasts. [b]Gameplay[/b] I found the gameplay to be really rewarding. At first, I struggled to kill even the weakest enemies. I wasn’t used to the roll and charged attack mechanics, but once I got the hang of them, it became a walk in the park. The levels are really well done, and there wasn’t a single area that I hated. In fact, I often found myself coming back to previous locations just to see if I had missed something. Thankfully, there isn’t much backtracking if you really explore the level the first time you enter it. Because of that, the whole playthrough felt pretty linear, with a clear path ahead. There are three different builds that you can play. A mage build that uses the special abilities of each shell, a pure attack power build (which is the one I used), and a tank build that focuses on parrying, I think. You’ll stumble across a Moon Snail who will teach you many different skills, but don’t worry too much about which ones to pick, because eventually you’ll be able to unlock every single one. The only important choice you’ll have to make is how you level up your stats. I leveled up pretty much only attack power, and later in the game, I was able to kill many bosses in just a few hits. That made the game fairly easy, even on hard difficulty. [b]Bosses[/b] One of the most important aspects of a soulslike game is the bosses, and they were really fun. Every attack was very clear — I never had an issue where I couldn’t see what the boss was doing. The fights were challenging, but never to the point where I felt like a piece of crap. The developers had players who get mad easily in mind, so if you ever struggle so hard that you can’t see yourself beating a boss, you can whip out a gun and one-shot them. I would say that this game is a really good introduction to the whole genre for those who are too afraid to jump straight into Dark Souls. Although I would have preferred a bit more challenge, I think I just ended up with a build that was too powerful. I often killed bosses on my first or second try. What made every boss fight epic, though, was the music. [b]Sounds[/b] The sound effects and soundtrack were peak. I was always hyped for a new boss fight just to hear the music. The tracks are incredibly energetic, often featuring heavy distortion that really gets your blood pumping. Every big hit also comes with heavily distorted 808s, so they hit HARD. The sound design alongside the soundtrack is just perfect. [b]Technical State[/b] Everything about this game was perfect — except for one thing that completely ruined my mood the whole time. The game was crashing constantly. It took me around 20 hours to finish the game, and I can’t even count how many times it froze and forced me to restart. I know for sure that this had nothing to do with my PC, because I was perfectly able to play through The Last of Us Part II without a single crash. This game was constantly using about half of my GPU and CPU, so it wasn’t caused by overheating or anything like that. I tried to look for a fix but wasn’t able to find any. So if you have an RTX 3060 GPU like me, you might want to skip this game. I only pushed through because I REALLY enjoyed it. [b]Final Thoughts[/b] In the end, I had a really hard time rating this game. It fit me perfectly, and I loved every second of it, but the technical state was horrendous for me. I don’t know how it runs for you guys, but if it crashes even once for you, I’d probably refund it — because in the endgame, it got a whole lot worse. I would give it a 5/5 if it weren’t for the crashes, but I can’t overlook them.

Okay so I've heard really good things about this game but TELL ME WHY I'VE ENCOUNTERED MULTIPLE BUGS including me being flung by NORMAL enemies into game areas that are impossible to escape from? So I have no choice but to kms and then lose EVERYTHING just to get out....?????? I'm literally not even out of the beginning area. I met the Duchess/Queen lady and have the grappling ability and am just re-exploring the first area we START THE GAME IN I'll obviously update this but atm I'm kind of annoyed by this game, it feels like a cheapish ps2 game (and the graphics arent THAT much better) admittedly the humor is SO up my alley and I'm excited to see more BUT LIKE??? why am I experiencing game restarting bugs twice in just an hour and a half??? EDIT 2 HOURS IN I die and cant ONCE AGAIN recouver my souls/whaver theyre called this game BECAUSE for some reason they are below the map??? and i cant even TRY to regain them without dying???? wtf bro i genuinely might have the worst luck w video games bc this shti does seem to happen often

This game is very charming, I enjoyed the story and characters, as well as exploring the map for hidden items. But I can't recommend it due to the irresponsible controls during combat (y'know, the main thing in souls-like games), it feels like a gamble on whether the game wants to register your inputs or not. I've died many times because the crab didn't feel like running, dodging, healing or using the shell's specific ability. My guess is that it could be lacking a "buffer" for the buttons being pressed, so if you're in the middle of an action, your inputs can get ignored sometimes. I could be wrong, but that's how it felt like to me. I really want to like this game, the enemies were pretty fun to fight against, but my previous point really hurts the experience for me. If the devs every consider to tighten up the controls, I'll update my review accordingly.

Genuinely one of the better souls-likes. The beginning will feel like some cheap lame game, but it gets much better after the first major boss.

This game proves that you can make a parody that is still an above-average game and not just spoofing the genre. Charm oozes from the story and even textboxes in the game—and while it's no Elden Ring in terms of complexity and fluidity, the action and exploration in this humorous soulslike are very decent. Unfortunately, it lost me completely in the very first big town. Such games are not made for long peaceful patches with dozens of characters—I just couldn't find the tempo once it has been lost. But the game is still so charming, it gets a thumbs up, and I can easily recommend it to everyone who will be a bit more patient with it.