(Originally published to Glitchwave on 7/25/2025)
[Image from glitchwave.com]
Another Crab's Treasure
Developer: Aggro Crab
Publisher: Aggro Crab
Genre(s): Soulslike, 3D Platformer
Platforms: PC, Switch, PS5, Xbox One, X Series X
Release Date: April 25, 2024
However, I’m probably going to dedicate most of this review to pointing out the aspects that make Another Crab’s Treasure a different beast from Dark Souls. Firstly, Another Crab’s Treasure institutes a canon protagonist with outlined characteristics as opposed to the player’s personal avatar, who they usually spend an average of half an hour customizing just to have their facial features obscured by armor anyway. Krill is a hermit crab who lives as sheltered a life as a small sea crustacean possibly could, until a “loan shark” (a toy shark head supported on a stick) seizes his shell on a decree from the royal ruler of the kingdom of Slacktide and its surrounding territories, where Krill resides. Not willing to take his untimely and unjust eviction sitting down and become an easy meal for the seagulls circling overhead, Krill veers further from his comfort zone into the depths of the ocean below on a mission to reclaim his mobile shelter. As his quest progresses, Krill’s shell keeps eluding him to the extent where he must partake in a treasure hunt, whose rumored riches are the only way to satisfy the shyster shrimp who possesses Krill’s home. In the quest arc of “It’s a Crab, Crab, Crab, Crab, World,” Krill’s comfort zone is deviated so drastically that he ventures to places where no native sea-dweller dares tread. Unlike the “chosen undead” from the Souls series, Krill has what we in the biz call a “dynamic character arc.” His unfortunate situation and the quest he must undergo to amend it see this little orange invertebrate turn from a timid whelp to a bona fide warrior, intrinsically connected to the player’s growth as they journey onward. Krill’s arc arranges a far clearer connection between narrative and gameplay progression than the flatlined custodial duties of wiping away the mess of a doomed kingdom from any FromSoft game.
Then again, I realize that one’s personal avatar from Dark Souls has a circumstantial significance to the story because any of their achievements, big or small, are ultimately negated by the smothering feeling of despair that engulfs the setting. What’s the point in celebrating when you know full well that your accomplishments will be voided by the oncoming oblivion? In Another Crab’s Treasure, the player can be more inclined to revel in their exploits because the game isn’t crushing them with an ever-present dirge. The ocean, the encompassing setting of Another Crab’s Treasure, can feel daunting from its sheer immensity alone, with Krill’s inexperience tacking onto the trepidation of it all. While it does present an appropriately challenging undertaking, the deep blue sea, as it's depicted in Another Crab’s Treasure, is not another despondent realm waiting to be put out of its misery. The sense of awe instilled in the player once they dip Krill into the drink for the first time never wavers, marveling at all of the underwater imagery from the sandy sea floor all the way to the surface. Maybe any underwater setting would be inherently captivating because my landlubber anatomy restricts me from seeing the full extent of it for myself, but not even the rough-hewn indie graphics that Another Crab’s Treasure are admittedly working with can diminish its enigmatic majesty.
On the subject of the visuals in Another Crab’s Treasure, the blockier quirks of a smaller budget better complement the more lighthearted tone the game exudes. Not only does the game tend to drift away from the general gloom of Dark Souls, but it is also filled to the brim with humorous moments and elements. References are (sometimes literally) littered throughout the map, and they all warrant a fair chuckle from me. Discarded “Mario” cigarette cartons and the Captain Crunch cereal box, whose backside details the treasure’s location, are among the various parody-sanctioned product placements. An empty “Elden Bay” canister really titillated my inner Marylander. The player can find a certain pineapple domicile on the field, in addition to dressing Krill up as a particular penny-pinching crustacean from SpongeBob SquarePants, both of which pay homage to a fellow undersea piece of entertainment media. The characters also tend to substitute swear words for similar-sounding terms that relate to their underwater lexicon, like the aforementioned Nickelodeon cartoon series. There are also references to other video games galore, ranging from classics like Krill obscuring himself in a cardboard box like Solid Snake to shouting out its contemporary indie peers like Pizza Tower, Cult of the Lamb, and Among Us. Naturally, its sensei Dark Souls is hinted at plenty of times, with an armor helm that resembles something equippable from that series, and a bonfire can be located in a remote side of the ocean, but it will not serve as a checkpoint. If Another Crab’s Treasure proves to be too perky for the seasoned Souls veterans, the game even offers a “Dark Souls filter” that mutes the bright aesthetic to a depressed gray and leaves Krill with a perpetual frown. Touche, you smartasses.
As for the section of the ocean that encompasses the world of Another Crab’s Treasure, the developers subscribe to the geographical aspect that the indescribably vast body of water has many layers to it. This refers to the variety of foregrounds present in the game, as well as the backdrop looks rather different the further one plunges deeper. At the northern tip of the flat Shallows lies the capital of Slacktide, an enormous sandcastle where Krill uses the spacious interior and supportive exterior architecture as the battleground against Magista’s royal guards. Once the implacable tyrant has been slain by Krill after she loses her sanity even further due to the corruption of “gunk,” the starting area is completely deserted and the center of the game’s world shifts to a fairly untenanted, Hyule Field-esque dominion of land referred to as “The Sands Between” (referencing Elden Ring for good measure, eh?). Towards the southern cardinal direction of this vacant mass is New Carcinia, which in essence becomes the game’s hub that Krill returns to from time to time to converse with its notable NPCs. The game’s only metropolitan area is quite intriguing due to the clear dichotomy between its opulent upper half, where strikingly colorful buildings are built side by side like a ritzy uphill neighborhood of San Francisco, and the comparatively destitute lower half that still exudes a thrilling nightlife atmosphere despite being composed entirely of cheap cardboard like a child’s makeshift fort. To the east of The Sand Between lies the captivatingly lush Expired Grove and the industrial sewer pit of Flotsam Vale, which is undoubtedly another tribute to Miyazaki’s output, considering it emulates one of his habitual “the floor is poison” levels that he likes to inflict on players. For my money, the standout areas in Another Crab’s Treasure are those of the third and final act of the game: The Unfathom and Old Ocean. The former is designed to impress a feeling of anxiety in the player, as it takes place in the darkest trenches of the known ocean, where only sparsely-placed artificial lighting guides Krill through pathways with vicious barracudas and angler fish, plus king-sized crabs who shoot explosive lasers like the guardians from Breath of the Wild. The latter is, conversely, a sublime treat with an immaculate, ethereal atmosphere. It’s the Another Crab’s Treasure equivalent to the lost, sunken city of Atlantis or, dare say, the glimmering city of Anor Londo. One may initially dismiss the overall selection of areas here and state that the consistent underwater setting confines the game to an elongated session with one of gaming’s most common and divisive elemental level themings. Still, the variety on display here is proof that these detractors fail to comprehend the potential of such an unfathomably monumental mass of water, such as the ocean.
To traverse the hostile landscape that lies within the world’s biggest pool, Another Crab’s Treasure involves gameplay aspects that Dark Souls usually doesn’t delve into. Another Crab’s Treasure’s gameplay is incredibly platforming-intensive, and they are genuine test of jumping accuracy as opposed to when Dark Souls incorporates inappropriate instances of acrobatics just to fuck with the player’s perception of the game’s mechanical foundation. Krill will gracefully wade through the water to momentarily glide onto platforms, while adopting the hookshot from Sekiro will propel him to heights unreachable, provided there is a net or a hanging hook in the vicinity. Between Krill’s undersea swashbuckling are hostiles that must be methodically managed, lest the player sees “A WATERY GRAVE” countless times while reverting to their last discovered checkpoint. Dark Souls offers the player a plethora of weapons to dispatch all foes that stand in their way, but Another Crab’s Treasure decides to limit Krill to one choice item: a fork. Aggro Crab is evidently not based out of Maryland, for I know that the best utensil to combat sea creatures with shelled exteriors is either a wooden mallet or a metallic cracker. Nevertheless, having the pronged eating apparatus as the game’s sole means of attacking does put a damper on player customizability, even if it can be strengthened by New Carcinia’s blacksmith by giving him rare keys referred to as “stainless relics.” Auxiliary attacks known as “adaptations” are available to spruce up the elements of combat, but they ultimately exist to add conditions that support the fork. Couldn’t Krill unearth some sacred butterknife from the sand like The Master Sword at some point, or uncover a spork as an upgraded fusion of his standard weapon?
While the game’s offense is heavily restricted, the same cannot be said for the defensive side of the combat coin. Shields are as prevalent in Dark Souls as swords, albeit as a supplemental tool to augment defense if deemed necessary by less agile or confident players. The same could be said for a hermit crab’s shell, and combining the hardened perks of the two gives way to the game’s most distinctive gameplay mechanic. Krill will start with the aluminum of empty soda cans, then the solid glass of mason jars, the calcium-rich skulls of what I can presume to be the remains of overly ambitious deep-sea divers, etc. I’d describe the three size differences between every shell and how they factor into both traversal and combat, but that would shorthand the smattering of abilities that many shells also include. Soda cans emit an array of homing, fizzy projectiles, edible shells like eggs and sushi rolls can be eaten to regain health (which is disturbingly cannibalistic if you think about it), spherical objects like tennis balls and coconuts can be charged and rolled out as if they were being thrown, etc. My personal favorite and the shell that I pinned to Krill for my playthrough is an eyepatch-wearing rubber ducky named Bartholomew, who Krill can eject from as it explodes in a last resort. The number of objects that Krill can attach to his backside is so staggeringly assorted that it’s practically the game’s primary collectible of sorts. All of the many attributes that each shell possesses keep the player engaged enough to go the distance and find all of these protective hides that Krill can lodge himself into if combat becomes too tough to handle.
Did I mention that each shell that Krill discovers can be insured at an extravagant shop in New Carcinia called “Shellfish Desires?” For a meager fee, Krill can recover any shell that he’s discovered and even pin certain shells to automatically respawn with him upon every resurrection. This convenience, plus a treasure trove of other accommodations, definitely creates a divide between Another Crab’s Treasure and its prime inspiration. Furthermore, Dark Souls would be damned if it ever provided any visual aid to help the player navigate through its arduous terrain, but every single area of Another Crab’s Treasure is gorgeously illustrated on the dedicated map screen of the pause menu. The map also indicates the locations of Krill’s remnants he leaves upon dying, even providing a compass that directs the player towards them without needing to halt the game by pressing the pause button. The contents of Krill’s leavings contain microplastics, the game’s version of “souls” gained through defeating enemies that are needed to level up and purchase items. Whereas souls are the be-all, end-all lifeblood keeping the player afloat in Dark Souls, the microplastics coexist with another type of crystal currency found mostly on the field, which is exchanged to extend more branches in Krill’s skill tree and upgrade his adaptations. The estus equivalent of “kelp pods” never extends past a skimpy three or four per use, which would prove to be a serious issue in any Souls game. However, the moon snail shells, where Krill can refresh himself and strengthen his stats like a bonfire, are more common and conspicuously placed, so the player is unlikely to undergo an endurance test between checkpoints where their healing supply is gone. If all else fails, the game’s options menu allows Krill to equip a goddamn hand cannon, which eradicates any enemy with one shot of searing lead. I recommend trying this juggernaut shell just once for the sake of hilarity. Listing all the ways in which Another Crab’s Treasure cuts the player some slack may motivate some Souls veterans to bar entryway to the game at the gates of the prestigious Soulslike country club. Again, I have to remind them that steep difficulty was never an intentional tenet of Dark Souls’ design and that accessible features such as these are welcome and do not compromise on the genre’s identity or direction.
One of the most significant ways in which Another Crab’s Treasure lessens the kung-fu grip that Dark Souls tends to bind the player with is the opportunity to spawn directly outside of a boss's domain if Krill fails to smite them. Instead of reminding the youth about the laborious treks to school, as elderly people often express, I’m sure my generation will be waxing poetic about the routes up to a boss from a bonfire and which one had the most irritating adversity during our twilight years. In the case of Another Crab’s Treasure, a jellyfish will kindly teleport Krill right outside his destination to his former microplastic amount, mitigating the tedium of retreads where harm may occur before the boss fight. I’ll probably lose some credibility upon expressing gratitude for this perk, but when did the journey leading up to a boss become a relevant condition to its difficulty? The relevant factor here that persists is how often the player needs to take advantage of the jellyfish's services, and the player should invest in a loyalty member card due to how demanding many of the game’s bosses can be. Immediately, the player can encounter the Royal Shellsplitter off the beaten path in The Shallows, and his executioner shtick with a black mask and a vegetable slicer used as a guillotine should prove to be intensely intimidating to a fresh-faced Krill. Bosses such as the strapping, chopstick-wielding Heikea even weaponize their intimidation factor by inflicting Krill with literal fright that forces him to cower under his shell for a brief period. Krill will have to contend with the poisonous properties of the gunk while fighting the Diseased Lichenthrope and The Consortium, and the latter gets my pick of the most unconventional boss in the game that involves slicing ropes to the giant cage of mutant sea creatures as compact as Legion from Castlevania. Either that, or facing off against the eerily cheerful eel Voltai, whose wide array of offense includes a certain electronic marital item that somehow eluded the censors. If I had to pick a single standout boss from the game, the fight against Pagurus proved to pump my nads more than any other because of how his encounter is framed. After carefully traipsing the specific path laid out in the Sands Between, confronting this big purple bully after Krill gets stronger and accessing the rest of the area as a result of his demise felt incredibly cathartic. Admittedly, the overall boss roster is sullied by the alliterative trio of reskinned crabs, and I’m sure the game’s credibility will come into contention once again with the prevalence of signals that warn the player of an oncoming effective attack. Still, any boss that involves an orderly alteration between dodging and attacking with strict, punishing margins of error at play spells out a proper Soulslike in my book.
I also must mention the more narratively significant bosses that stamp a more pronounced milestone with their defeat. Namely, the entrepreneurial isopod Roland. Using his unparalleled wealth as the CEO of the lucrative Shellfish Corp, Roland became New Carcinia’s de facto leader when the former mayor passed away. He assures that stepping up to this executive position was a noble act to rebalance order, but everyone can transparently see that he seized an opportunity to possess total control over the populace as quickly as a sailfish. Point at his sinister bodyguard, Inkerton, for evidence that Roland doesn’t take kindly to insubordinate conduct like any iron-fisted ruler. Taking the treasure for himself while the other New Carcinia NPCs desperately need it props him up as an obvious antagonist, but it’s what Roland represents outside of his obvious opposer role that speaks for the ultimate theme of Another Crab’s Treasure. If I had to summarize the game’s narrative goal into a thesis statement, it’s that the dirty deeds of capitalism are condemning our oceans to an early grave. Look no further than Roland’s big business of Scuttleport, which is polluting Flotsam Vale to a point of inhabitability as evidence of their claim, or the fact that the majority of shells Krill can use are all disposable items we’ve shoveled into the ocean as a lazy convenience. The denizens of New Carcinia are so used to trash piling down on them that they’ve formulated an economic backbone out of these occurrences, and the irony is never lost on their gleeful ignorance whenever a barge of detritus rains over their city from the surface. Roland is eventually stopped by Krill, but when the meddlesome, arrogant blue crab Firth, who greatly admires Roland, takes the mythical Whorl and intends to continue his rubbish-oriented campaign using its power, the game illustrates that there will be no shortage of greedy, uncaring bastards who continue the cycle of corruption until our planet’s largest natural entity is eradicated. The loading icon is the universal symbol for recycling, for fuck’s sake. The bleak undertones of Another Crab’s Treasure are where the Dark Souls connections run the deepest, presenting a dying world that is on the verge of collapse, which is even more unsettling because of its real-life parallels. Still, I wish the satire and allegories used to express the grim state of affairs weren’t hitting the player over the head with their points as bluntly as a sledgehammer.
Another Crab’s Treasure is an astute pupil in the class of soulslikes. Unlike many lackluster Dark Souls imitators, it understands that RPG mechanics and high difficulty curves are only formalities and fractions of the series. With a more profound understanding of the apocalyptic world-building of Dark Souls, Aggro Crab crafts a game with a poignant ecological message, even though it blares in the player’s face as loudly as Marty McFly’s amplifier. Its stark thematic distinctiveness is only one way in which Another Crab’s Treasure warps the essence and idiosyncrasies of the influential FromSoft series, for any of its offspring have also never been this cheeky or integrated platforming this competently. When we’re at the point where games of this ilk are explicitly defining themselves as Soulslikes (as noted in the game’s loading screen), we need to shuffle the genre’s tropes around as such to avoid sinking into cliches. Some Souls purists may scoff at Another Crab’s Treasure for streamlining and subverting so many traditions the series has laid out to an almost flippant degree. For the open-minded gamer, however, they’re unlikely to find another Soulslike as fresh and charming as this one.
