When I think of the “Soulslike” genre, I never get eager. It is a genre full of no fun try-hards claiming to be above the rest of us peasants. What Another Crab’s Treasure does with the genre, is stick a pipe up its ass.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD
This was my most anticipated game of the year, legitimately. I had just finished Elden Ring when I found out about this, and I loved it. When I saw the… options… in this game, I immediately knew it could be something truly special. Yes, you are an animated crab with a fork as your weapon. If that doesn’t just scream “have fun,” then what does?
The idea of the difficulty setting in the soulslike genre has always sparked heated discourse. I’m all for it personally, but Aggro seems to have a much different approach to this complicated mechanic. While there are a plethora of available settings to increase or decrease difficulty, the main one is very obviously the gun. You have the ability to have a gun as a shell, that kills everything in a single hit.
Now, the gun doesn’t actually save you 100% of the time. The 2nd phase of the 2nd to last boss is an escape test, you don’t actually attack it. A few of the bosses start far away, and are incredibly fast, so the option to shoot immediately sometimes doesn’t pan out. Plus, you still have to do all the platforming, and can still take damage.
The end game gets absolutely ludicrous. There are 3 final bosses with 2 phases, with the first 2 being utterly mind-fucking. You’ll think, “Oh this must be the final boss!” Until you think that again, and then again… The bosses overall are also incredibly entertaining. A wide variety of designs, movesets, unique dialogue, you name it.
Speaking of dialogue, this is not just another goofy heartwarming story because it’s a cartoon style. Characters die, MAIN characters. The story really makes you feel like all of this senseless violence in the end is for nothing, because, well, it practically was. Kril’s entire mission was to just get his shell back, seemingly willing to do anything to retrieve it. Even if “anything” means putting people he cares about amidst a magnitude of harm. In the end, he attacks someone who was never exactly a friend to him, but didn’t deserve his fate, just to get his shell back. Then, the game just kind of ends… It’s an incredibly dark and depressing narrative, capped off with dark undertones through environmental storytelling.
Now, there are some serious bugs. I know that games on Steam are often complete jank, since PC is much different when it comes to developing games for it, but I’ve heard that these bugs occur on console as well. I had to restart the game a few times in the first day, but I can say that I never experienced anything major afterwards. I played for I believe around 20 hours. Keep in mind, this is a MASSIVE game from an indie studio with a single other game under their belt. The scale of this game, how great it looks, how funny it is, how solid the VA can be, I really have to give them credit.
This game has what I believe could be the best soundtrack of the year so far, too. Styles are constantly making drastic shifts from area to area, all fitting the world around them. The city is a cute upbeat sense of vacation, the electrical area is a wobbly synthesized amalgamation, the credits plays a melancholy song with a play on words, all crafted in such a well produced way. it’s, quite literally, music to the ears.
The little details of things like the writing on the “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!” carton, the jokes written on hidden popsicle sticks, the references to things like Taito and CVS, I just can’t believe the scale of this game given the circumstances.
If it wasn’t for some serious camera flaw, or early game bugs, I think this would truly be up there with some of the best games ever. Regardless of my issues, this is still an absolute home run. 9/10.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD
This was my most anticipated game of the year, legitimately. I had just finished Elden Ring when I found out about this, and I loved it. When I saw the… options… in this game, I immediately knew it could be something truly special. Yes, you are an animated crab with a fork as your weapon. If that doesn’t just scream “have fun,” then what does?
The idea of the difficulty setting in the soulslike genre has always sparked heated discourse. I’m all for it personally, but Aggro seems to have a much different approach to this complicated mechanic. While there are a plethora of available settings to increase or decrease difficulty, the main one is very obviously the gun. You have the ability to have a gun as a shell, that kills everything in a single hit.
Now, the gun doesn’t actually save you 100% of the time. The 2nd phase of the 2nd to last boss is an escape test, you don’t actually attack it. A few of the bosses start far away, and are incredibly fast, so the option to shoot immediately sometimes doesn’t pan out. Plus, you still have to do all the platforming, and can still take damage.
The end game gets absolutely ludicrous. There are 3 final bosses with 2 phases, with the first 2 being utterly mind-fucking. You’ll think, “Oh this must be the final boss!” Until you think that again, and then again… The bosses overall are also incredibly entertaining. A wide variety of designs, movesets, unique dialogue, you name it.
Speaking of dialogue, this is not just another goofy heartwarming story because it’s a cartoon style. Characters die, MAIN characters. The story really makes you feel like all of this senseless violence in the end is for nothing, because, well, it practically was. Kril’s entire mission was to just get his shell back, seemingly willing to do anything to retrieve it. Even if “anything” means putting people he cares about amidst a magnitude of harm. In the end, he attacks someone who was never exactly a friend to him, but didn’t deserve his fate, just to get his shell back. Then, the game just kind of ends… It’s an incredibly dark and depressing narrative, capped off with dark undertones through environmental storytelling.
Now, there are some serious bugs. I know that games on Steam are often complete jank, since PC is much different when it comes to developing games for it, but I’ve heard that these bugs occur on console as well. I had to restart the game a few times in the first day, but I can say that I never experienced anything major afterwards. I played for I believe around 20 hours. Keep in mind, this is a MASSIVE game from an indie studio with a single other game under their belt. The scale of this game, how great it looks, how funny it is, how solid the VA can be, I really have to give them credit.
This game has what I believe could be the best soundtrack of the year so far, too. Styles are constantly making drastic shifts from area to area, all fitting the world around them. The city is a cute upbeat sense of vacation, the electrical area is a wobbly synthesized amalgamation, the credits plays a melancholy song with a play on words, all crafted in such a well produced way. it’s, quite literally, music to the ears.
The little details of things like the writing on the “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!” carton, the jokes written on hidden popsicle sticks, the references to things like Taito and CVS, I just can’t believe the scale of this game given the circumstances.
If it wasn’t for some serious camera flaw, or early game bugs, I think this would truly be up there with some of the best games ever. Regardless of my issues, this is still an absolute home run. 9/10.