I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Another Crab's treasure, and found it to be a game that actually knew what it wanted to do in imitating Dark Souls. The gameplay never really hit a level of difficulty for me that I feel other souls games do, but it also may just be that I have been putting enough of them under my belt at this point that they're overall becoming easier. The game suffers occasionally from enemies bugging a bit, and other small oddities but altogether delivers a solid experience that I would recommend to just about anyone, souls veterans and newcomers alike. The fact that this is the studio's second game as well is extremely impressive and I look forward to what they decide to make next.

I really loved this game, but I cannot in good conscience give it a 5/5. The atmosphere is excellent, the combat is tense, and the music is just something else. I found myself for a while questioning why people saw this game as so intensely difficult, not realizing I regularly was making the game easier for myself in small ways, like finding the back way into Quelaag's Domain through the Valley of Drakes, completely bypassing the Depths and Blighttown until after I'd received the Lordvessel. Some areas seem to want you to engage with them as little as possible, like the Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith, and some things are so secret I don't think I'd ever have experienced them unless I already had a casual familiarity with portions of the game. It really is an excellent experience, but much in the same way climbing a mountain is an experience, not everyone is going to make it to the top, and even if you make it, you may not find it to have been worth it. I loved this game, and I will likely start a new game plus run soon, but I'm still gonna hate bonewheels, and 3 minute long boss runs.

Overall an enjoyable experience, bugs are an occasional problem, making movement a bit awkward on stairs sometimes, or causing odd interactions when initiating a glory kill. Far too many of the beginning levels were extremely easy, playing on Nightmare instead of Ultra-Violence may have rectified that, needless to say though, the second half of the game had a much more enjoyable difficulty, needing me to think about how and when to use different weapons during fights. The chainsaw is criminally under-utilized, having too few pickups to make it a regular part of combat, making times where I had fuel available rare, and times where I remembered to use it rarer. If I didn't have so many times where I just got stuck on a slope, or initiated a glory kill and just kinda teleported awkwardly instead of killing the enemy, this would be an easy 5/5.