Another Crab’s Treasure Review – Gamereactor

Developed by the team behind the satirical dungeon crawler Going Under, Another Crab’s Treasure feels like an April Fools’ Day joke come to life. Set in a vibrant underwater kingdom, it distances itself from the ocean of other Souls-like games that have flooded the market in recent years, with a more whimsical tone and plenty of humorous puns crammed into it. After receiving attention at the recent Nintendo Indie World Showcase, the game is now available on Nintendo Switch, PC, PS5, and Xbox Series.

In Another Crab’s Treasure, you play as a cute little hermit crab named Kril, whose life changes drastically after a “loan shark” confiscates his shell. As Creel struggles to pay his taxes, he alone loses his most prized possession and must scour the ocean to retrieve it. Overrun with vicious crabs, spiny pufferfish, and other deadly crustaceans, Kril finds himself mired in an entire ocean of trouble and must fight for his survival.

Unlike typical Souls games (before Elden Ring, anyway), Another Crab’s Treasure is more open-ended in its level design, allowing for more freedom of exploration. During your journey, you’ll find yourself crawling through kelp forests, coral reefs, and sandcastle cities.these open spaces
This prevents frustration if you get stuck, since you can always venture off the beaten path and get some much-needed grinding. Platforming is also more emphasized here, and there’s a more pronounced sense of verticality to the levels. Kril can propel himself through the water, bounce on sponges, and use fishing line to reach distant places with his hook for a limited time.

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Combat is where things feel familiar, though, as you’ll need to study your opponents, dodge their attacks, and punish them when the time comes. When you kill enemies, you also collect microplastics (the game’s equivalent of Souls), which can be used to upgrade your health, resistance, damage output and other attributes. You can equip up to three different items to enhance your attributes, and these items can be switched at any time.

Kril can wear items discarded on the ocean floor as shells to protect you from the many nasty sea creatures you will encounter. From discarded tennis balls to badminton balls and shot glasses, each of these shells has individual defensive attributes and special abilities to consider. For example, a soda can fire bubbles that allow you to attack from a distance, while a teacup can increase your attack speed so you can land an extra hit.

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You can also hide in your shell and absorb damage, but if you’re not careful you’ll be looking for a replacement. If you take too much damage, your shell may break, but if you spot a nearby shell on the ground, you can easily jump into another one. Switching between shells in the heat of battle helps keep combat fresh, and there’s an incredible sense of danger as you wander around naked looking for a new home.

Another area where Another Crab’s Treasure succeeds is in being a highly accessible entry point into what is otherwise a very punishing genre. When you lose a boss battle, you can choose to be teleported outside the arena, saving you a lot of tedious backtracking. There’s also a different set of accessibility options that you can access to slow down the game, for example, increasing the parry window. Hilariously, if you’re still having trouble, you can even spawn a gun at an enemy with one hit.

Another Crab’s Treasure emerges from its shell as a refreshing and whimsical addition to the often intense and mysterious realm of Souls-like games. Its accessibility options make it a great entry point for newcomers, and genre veterans will appreciate differences like its open-world design, greater focus on platforming, and many equippable shells. If you’re looking for a unique twist on this highly saturated genre, we certainly recommend checking it out.