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Another Crab's Treasure
37 Plays1 year ago
SPOILERS: Another Crab's Treasure (after the warning)
Join Dave and Jake as they dive under the sea and wage a war of remote Castle Doctrine in this week's episode!
The music is also way better than they remembered.
Intro:
- Another Crab's Treasure - The Consortium
Outro:
- Another Crab's Treasure - Another Crab's Treasure
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Transcript
Introduction and Excitement
00:00:39
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake, and I am joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? Really good. I am vibrating with excitement. Oh. Stop it. Sorry. My one leg is just actively bouncing while my legs are crossed, but it's a very, very exciting day. Yeah. why
Impressions of 'Another Crab's Treasure'
00:01:06
Speaker
is it Why is that? Is it because we get to talk about ah a ah ah game that we both played? Yes. We will give our impressions on. Is that it? Yes. That as well. ah I was wondering how long we were going to be able to maintain, basically, like not even bring it up. But yeah, I mean, we both ah played and beat Another Crab's Treasure.
00:01:35
Speaker
so Yeah.
00:01:39
Speaker
I'm so bad at this. for Anyways, so Dave, Dave told me to play this game and he is like, it's good and or something like that. In either case, he's like, play this game. And normally I don't really respond to that sort of coercion. Um, if someone politely asked me to do something like that's, that's not assertive enough. Right. Um, but it was on game pass. It still is on game pass as of this recording. I was like, i okay, the barrier to entry is low enough. I can justify giving it a shot. I will become the crab. Um, and I think it's pretty solid. How would you describe?
Game Description and Genre
00:02:21
Speaker
another crab's treasure to the lay person. You might just meet on the street. Like they were walking their dog. You're walking your dog. You stop them. Hey, I need to tell you about this game.
00:02:35
Speaker
It's a third-person action platformer, a lot more action than platforming. It kind of follows the Souls-like genre, as far as like you can kill things, get a currency to then invest, make your character stronger as you go. um The areas are usually kind of high-pointed by bosses at the end of it. Right. But yeah. it's kind of like baby Dark Souls. Like I think if you're interested in a Souls like genre, but you're like, but where would I start? I feel like I'm not really good at difficult games. This is a great place to be because one, it's pretty actively voice acted.
00:03:23
Speaker
for certain parts. um It's pretty cute and lighthearted for for a good portion of it. It does give you more difficulty and more story depth as you go. But I think it's at a nice pace where you don't feel overwhelmed. um And if you just like crab puns or anything like sea pun, they they have so much. ah There's a lot of care and love that went into this and Like they they know what they were going for, what they're trying to model after. But they also had their own distinct identity with it. here That's what I'd sit tell say to this lay person. And then the full truth.
Accessibility and Difficulty Options
00:04:05
Speaker
They're walking away from you at this point. They're backing away. They're trying to get their dog to to move move along with them. But that's fair. I think that's a good explanation. I definitely i want to pick out one thing you said and and just wholeheartedly agree with it.
00:04:19
Speaker
um which is a great way to have a back and forth. um But the accessibility in particular, if you're somebody who does not, like you like the the the maybe like QT style or the whimsical nature of a game like this, you who youre you're running around with like a fork in your pincer and you're like using it for attacks and jazz like that, you want like that Dark Souls like experience, but Maybe, and this is no judgment, like Dark Souls is a very hard game. Dark Souls is a very difficult game. Elden Ring is, Sekiro is. That's actually the most identifiable. That and Bonfires are the most identifiable feature of Souls-like games. So much so that
00:05:05
Speaker
literally a game being difficult gets it equated with being a Souls-like game now. um But Crab Souls, or as you know, it's actually called Another Crab's Treasure, um has a wide berth of accessibility options that you should absolutely not feel bad using. The game punishes you 0% for using them, and they can completely tailor the experience between you left them all off, Some of these fights are going to be really hard, like very difficult. And I say this as a ah Dark Souls professional. I even played Dark Souls too. um And ah with the accessibility settings, you can turn that difficulty all the way down to, this is basically a narrative experience. um So whatever you're going into,
00:05:57
Speaker
ah This will provide that for you, basically, from a difficulty perspective. And do not expect that from any of the other souls' likes, generally. Yeah. Other souls' likes do not have a bespoke nature to where you can kind of tweak it to what you'd like it to be. And so games like that have definitely gotten some flack in the industry as far as, well, what if Johnny so-and-so who's bad at these games wants to play? They're like, Watch a YouTube video. I don't know. It sucks to suck and get good has been the thing, right? um yeah Every time there's a Souls like there's an accompanying article. Should Dark Souls have an easy mode? Right? No. I honestly don't think it should. But that's a separate discussion. um But like, as you said, they have so many accessibility options to make things easier for you. And the whole point of the thing is not supposed to be difficulty.
00:06:53
Speaker
Like I said, for me, it's it's baby souls. I played enough of these types of games to where I don't find this as challenging by any means. um But I really did love the experience and the writing and everything about it. um But like also, they just want you to have fun, which is why one of the accessibility options is gun. Because you play as a hermit crab, and you have these different shells you can use and use their abilities. Or you can just replace any of those shells with a gun. And it one-hit kills anything. You have unlimited ammo. There's not really charge time to like reuse the gun. You can one-hit kill a boss.
00:07:32
Speaker
And it's supposed to be like, haha funny, right? And it, and it is just for, just to to clarify, this is a full sized handgun just on your back. Like, and you are a small, small hermit crab is what you play as. It's, it's gigantic. It's like twice your height. Yeah. But again, it's I think it's really for the experience of it. And then this is just kind of like the template that's used. Yeah. But again, I'm going to keep saying it. I really do like the writing and the story. um I didn't really know what to expect with this initially when I was getting into it. And I saw it was free on Game Pass. I'm like, oh, yeah, let's let's give it a look-see. right And it was charming within like the first three minutes, which I was like, god damn.
00:08:23
Speaker
If you can do that ah for a game, that is pretty impressive to get your hooks in that early. And it does, it maintains that. There's a good chunk of interrupts or periodically used, you know, fourth wall breaks or things to, things to kind of like jar you for a second
Visuals and Atmosphere
00:08:41
Speaker
that are just, wait a minute. That was hilarious, right? That was really good writing. And sometimes games can front load a good starting experience when it comes to story. um But there's not that many games that can maintain that sort of quality in writing throughout the entirety of it.
00:08:59
Speaker
And for the most part, i I agree. I completed the game very recently. I have my own quipes about... Quipes? I don't know what a quipe is, but I have those about the ending. I have my quipes. My quipes, yeah. It's like a crepe and a gripe, but put them together. um But we'll ah we'll have like a separator when we're like not talking about beginner mode anymore and going into some of the... ah Some of the spoilery jazz. um But it's pretty solid we talked about the the the writing a little bit already the visuals are very bright Which I personally I mean when I say bright, I mean vibrant usually um Even in the darker areas. It's like they could have gone for a washed out
00:09:46
Speaker
ocean feel but instead like this is not a gray dungeon game. There's a lot going on. They use visual tells in the environment to help tell you like where you should go. um The enemy design is really cool. I like the visuals. Yeah, everything really pops and and kind of stands out. And also the game is cute as fuck talking about some of those visuals because like some of the enemies you might come across might be like a very small crab and it's wearing a little bottle cap as a helmet. Pretty much everything for the enemy design in these games ah will be based off of like real life objects that have essentially just
00:10:31
Speaker
been thrown into the ocean and they're like, oh, we can use these as tools or building blocks or weapons. So it's really cute to see their take on that. ah There's like an enemy crab that has like a little ah party umbrella. Yeah. Yeah. Do anybody who's listening and they're like, oh, party umbrella, Dave. Yeah. Shut the fuck up. I know who you are. I know what you did. I'm still finding them um like the ones in drinks. Yes. Yeah. There's like a larger crab that's like using a comb. as a weapon. oh yeah very And it's like a giant machete, essentially. And it's wearing a banana on its head. um There's so many puns in the game, too. It just does a lot early on and throughout the game to be like, oh, this is charming. yes um And then mercy you on there yeah it starts you on that path.
00:11:22
Speaker
And then it kind of like reddens you up for like when things do start to get darker ah hu You start to see that slow that slow change. Yeah. Oh, this is less clean than I remember it being. Uh-huh. Oh, there's some some black goop here. There's People rapping differently they're crazed they're i the the The most severe alternative to swear is definitely muscle shocker. muscle shuer yeah but um I mean, they also have like a few conventional swear words in there, but it's basically because like,
00:12:02
Speaker
Like a gosh dang. I'm not going to say it, but they could say it's like the, if you see where to say gosh dang, they'd replace it with cod instead of God. yeah they This cod darn, your cod damn thing. Yeah. Um, yeah, I really, I really did appreciate that. Uh, did anything stand out from an audio perspective for this one? I have some notes, but they're mostly towards the end. Slow down there, Mandalorian. you
00:12:35
Speaker
Audio wise, I mean, the ambient stuff for the areas always seemed fitting. Yeah, it didn't really seem to detract away at all. um And then the boss themes are obviously a lot more active. You're like, oh, shit's going down. Yeah. um
00:12:56
Speaker
Yeah, nothing majorly stood out for me as far as like this is exceptional or this is lackluster. It just everything seems very fitting from my experience. What about you? Yeah, i had I have the same same take. um it all I think it lands exactly where music generally wants to land, right? Most games do not need a Metal Gear Solid climbing a ladder. ah What a thrill, you know, like type of experience. It's okay if the music blends into the background, but just keeps you in the game. And
Shell System and Combat Mechanics
00:13:27
Speaker
this one this one does that. I will mention towards the end, they use incremental.
00:13:32
Speaker
music to some great effect. And I'm a huge fan of and incremental music, which is like when you take layers of the track and then you build them on top of each other. Yes. know And huge fan of that freaking love that stuff. um But yeah, overall, pretty good. um You haven't really talked about mechanics. Anything stand out in this Souls like a game that you thought was pretty novel from a mechanic standpoint?
00:14:01
Speaker
I mean, I guess the primary thing is the shells because basically your shell is your your life. If you don't have a shell, you're kind of fucked because you just take damage directly.
00:14:17
Speaker
caveat for some upgrade paths. But and ah a shell allows you to block. A shell allows you to parry. And if you have enough spell power, you can use that shell's active ability to do its effect. right So in the case of like a soda can, you can release some bubbles that if enemies go near, it will kind of home onto them and deal damage. And there's a large variety of different shell powers and shells. Out of curiosity, this is going way deep into something i did want to ask you should have asked you before did you find a certain shell in that last area um i mean there's the plot one at the very end i didn't find a special one beyond that okay well we'll come back and talk about that one then all right you'll have to tell me the shell that i missed but
00:15:10
Speaker
I definitely agree. That's like it functions. It covers the same function as a shield and Dark Souls would, except it's like 360 degrees of protection. If you're blocking. that damage is going straight to the shell, not to you. Yes. And there's a very, very, very brief animation for, like, retreating into your shell or popping out. So you can just flash it, basically, kind of like a parry. But it's generally faster than a parry animation would be in, like, a Souls-like game, um which is is really good. it len It lends itself to, like,
00:15:48
Speaker
It adds depth to the combat, I would say. um Because Dave actually called me out on this when he was watching me play. And he was like, you're not really using your shell for anything. You're just trying to dodge attacks and counter attack and all that jazz. And I'm like, yeah. And then later I started to use my shell a little bit more, establish some equilibrium, and um it does improve the experience. Yeah. I mean, I got into the same habit too for a while because I put all my points as I was leveling into attack power and like, let me just hit things until they're dead. Yeah. I won't need to worry about damage mitigation or special stuff if they're dead. Let me just hit them. Yeah. um But later on I did find kind of weaving them a little bit.
00:16:31
Speaker
It's basically like if you're given this resource, but you're not using it at all. Why do you even have it? Yeah. So I'm like, oh, it makes sense to at least burn this towards something. This doesn't additional source of damage, really. um But I also like that. Again, the shells are all like common items. Yeah, it's trash, basically bottle cap spring banana peel yogurt cup. um All bunch of stuff like that. yeah Coconuts are great. yeah Classic trash coconuts. always I'm always starting at coconuts. um But they'll also encourage you to try other ones because they'll be kind of strewn about through areas, levels, and even in boss encounters. yeah So that if you, hey, if your shell does break because you're probably blocking an enemy enemy attack, ah you don't have the boss masters yet.
00:17:21
Speaker
Oh, I get to try again by putting on this other shell. Right. Right. ah So it's nice that they give you those resources. And typically when I try new shells, I'd find something that I liked about it. And maybe like a trade off like, okay, well, this doesn't have cool power, but like, boy, howdy. Is it beefy? It has so much defense. I can just block with it. I don't need to use any powers for it.
00:17:47
Speaker
Yeah, they have they also have different weights, you know, similar to the the shields and Dark Souls. Like you could have a great shield in Dark Souls, but there's a lot of trade tradeoffs. You know, it's very weighty. It's going to slow you down. um Same here as you have like a dodge a directional dodge. um But if you have a medium or large shell, um the animation is different. you'll spend but You'll basically just dive to the ground and spend time getting up. right It's pretty equivalent to you the the Dark Souls fat roll. is well It's called in Dark Souls. um But you use like the spring, like Dave mentioned. that's That barely provides any coverage, but you're super fast. You're incredibly fast. You can dodge as much as you want.
00:18:33
Speaker
um You just can't rely on taking too many hits if you're going to be blocking with the spring. um So it's cool. And the game also incentivizes. um I like this. I'm going to call it out for good game design. um They really, really make you feel bad for not using a shell at all. right Which I want to like compare in contrast to what ah how optional tools work in other games. like Take Elden Ring, they have the wondrous physic, like drink basically, make your own consumable. Entirely optional. There's massive swathes of that game. I've never used it. right um But it could be super useful in a lot of conditions or if you just remember to use it. But I didn't.
00:19:22
Speaker
The shell in another cab's treasure is like, if you do not have one and you open your menu, it's like, you're naked, your' day you're you're in danger, right? Like take care of this. You cannot block at all, which means you can just get hit and take damage basically. You get no bonus stats that would be provided from your shell. ah You don't have the special abilities the shell is providing. Even if you don't want to actively use this shell special ability, the game wants you to have a shell at all times. Yeah. And that's smart. And again, like you are a hermit crab, so it's kind of your your main thing is to be in a shell. Yeah. Because they don't just ever hang out because you wouldn't feel safe.
00:20:10
Speaker
Right. Yeah. They also have different, I want to say stat paths with big air quotes. It's basically if you want to put points into flat health, um damage and effect resistance. ah physical attack power, which is just hitting stuff with your fork, or MSG, which is magic power. yeah It doesn't stand for magic power. It is actually MSG. um yeah but MSG allows you to use your umami abilities.
00:20:42
Speaker
um which you can collect as a resource, invest into those, and you can do essentially different combat options. You might be able to pull an enemy towards you, lunge toward an enemy ah using a barbed hook. You might be able to, you can have Kintsugi to have your shell of its destroyed. It can be repaired once for free. um But what I like about the upgrade system, the stat thing, again, it's very basic. yeah It's a one-to-one. There's no confusion about it. It's like, hey, do you want to be tough? You want to hit harder? You want to magic harder. right So there's no barrier to entry for like, what does this stat do? What is but does magic find? Nothing like that. It's pretty simple, very pared down.
00:21:29
Speaker
um
00:21:32
Speaker
Just because we lost my train of thought with the other part of that. Well, I have a related question, I guess, because I had a similar experience. Like I kind of appreciated that the stat system was paired down here, but it still provided some choice. Um, and, uh, we haven't talked about them, the, uh, the add-ons, the accessories you can equip. I can't remember what they're called. Um, I didn't pay that much attention to the name of it, but little add-ons and accessories you equip. They.
00:22:03
Speaker
might have requirements where your stat has to be this high to even use it, but it allows you to play more into that hyper aggressive direction or defensive or magic use. My question to you though, was do you prefer, I mean, i I'm going to make this a little bit hard. One of the, like this more simplified stat based system for level ups where you're still making some decisions, or do you like a more complex level up system such as Dark Souls? I mean, overall, complex. Again, like I like games like Path of Exile. I like Elden Ring. I definitely want some of that nitty gritty so I can just go in deep. um But I recognize that this is not the same type of game. It's not trying to provide the same type of experience.
00:22:50
Speaker
um It's supposed to be like a fun action platformer that also has a message. Random plot. um I did remember the point I was trying to say. Sure. The upgrade tree for the umami stuff is more so, hey, we're going to give you other abilities or options to do things to your kit. Yes. Or we'll make certain things better, but. Or active upgrades. Very infrequently would it be, oh, you're stronger now. Yeah. So I like things that like give you more tools to use and your repertoire. So you still have to be good to use them.
00:23:29
Speaker
but it's just giving you more choices that you can kind of weave in. Yeah, that's, um it's actually very reminiscent. the The lesson they didn't need to learn, that Cyberpunk actually had to learn was, I'm gonna make a, this is a comparison to the Cyberpunk 2077 skill tree. On launch, it was full of passives. And that was fairly boring by comparison, right? It could have been useful, but like a passive deal more damage skill point is kind of a no brainer. It's not going to make the dopamine flow. You're like, Oh my gosh, I hit that button and now it does 3% more damage, right? But when they did Cyberpunk 2.0 update and they read the entire skill tree, they removed almost all of those and replaced them with active skills.
00:24:21
Speaker
It's like, oh, you got the enemy low on health. Now you can teleport next to them basically with a knife and just execute them or something. Like cool stuff you could do that it felt good to unlock. And another crab's treasure to their credit just did that. Like all of this, there's there's there's really not superfluous skill points. I think there's literally one that just increases your MSG by five. And like everything else is basically an active help such as like, parrying right the ability to perfect parry so your shell shield doesn't or your shell doesn't take any damage or like perfect dodge so you can counter attack and Then a whole bunch of other options on top of that And looking to shell hammer Or
Boss Fights and Challenges
00:25:10
Speaker
the hammer. Yes, if you're not doing a shell hammer, you're not dealing damage my friend um It does it does a lot more it does a lot more.
00:25:18
Speaker
I respect people who who who don't use the hammer for basically being the DEX users of of Dark Souls. Essentially, you just want to be fast. You don't want to be caught in animations and stuff like that. But if you're a strength user, you're going to want the hammer. I grew up watching Goku, not Sonic. Thank you very much. That's fair. Always put points into damage. of But Goku also dies constantly. So yeah do with that information what you will.
00:25:48
Speaker
um I also really do like we're talking about some of the anime design. All of those are really cool. um But also the boss design. felt very unique throughout. There are some like enemies that get reused in like endgame stuff. Because once you have all the powers unlocked, you can go back to certain areas. And oh, it's actually endgame content, basically, if you want to find like some extra upgrade things. um But like one of the first big enemies you find, very much like the tree sentinel in Elden Ring, is this giant, like
00:26:24
Speaker
executioner crab. And I think they have like a ah bike lock or some type of tire lock. Oh, yeah. you're You're talking about the big guy. Yeah. Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. but He basically uses it like a giant guillotine. Yeah. Slam it on you. Yeah, the we I think I'm running out of non-spoilery things to say. It might be fair to just be like, recommended if you got up to this point was roughly the halfway point through the podcast, um especially if you can get it on game pass. If not, I personally would say grab it on a sale. I don't know if I would 100% advocate for buying at full price unless you're really hyped about what we've described and you've got nothing to play right now. But
00:27:11
Speaker
Um, good. Worth playing. Absolutely worth playing. Support him. Let me off the chains. Uh-huh. All right. As of this, fireer may whole spoilers, we're going to spoil everything. And, uh, if you need to drop, just come back when we, uh, talk about something else, uh, which will probably also involve spoilers next week, but we'll see. Um, enemy design, boss design. What were some of the standouts for you? um There's I'm trying to just now think in order. There's the executioner. um There's the captain. Who's whose weapon is a like a lance.
00:27:51
Speaker
But it's actually a Capri Sun straw. And again, just like that tie to like these are things that I played with as a kid and made like imaginary weapons. It's cute to see like small undersea creatures using those. It just kind of sparked some of this nostalgia and creativity of youth, which I liked. um You know, one of the early standouts for me, it's it's it's optional up until the point that it isn't. But in the. What was it? the crap The sands between, that's what it's called, the sands between. Literally, this is the type of game it is. Literally an Elden Ring reference, very very close. um But there's a giant crab that will chase you whenever you're not near these ah life preserver rings that are kind of embedded in the sand.
00:28:40
Speaker
And um it's basically the first time you encounter it. I don't want to say it's like insurmountable, but it's very, very difficult to fight this guy. And you're not supposed to. It's specifically he has a grab attack where if it hits you and it reduces you to zero life, he eats you. I also want to point out he is a giant crab who will eat you. But on each of his claws, he has a plastic knife and a plastic fork. So when he does the grab, he pins you down at the fork, cuts on you with the the plastic knife and then throws you in his mouth. Yes, it's not like it's not violent. and yeah It's not violent. It's just rigged. And by that, I mean like animation rigged. It's not like there's no visceral gore or anything like that. It's just you fell into his mouth, fade to black. But
00:29:35
Speaker
It is the sort of thing I probably wouldn't want to experience if I was a very young kid, right? like this is This would be, I'd classify it under intense scenes, something like that, right? um And the first time I saw it, I was like, oh, gee, ah this is not exactly in line with all of the lighthearted nature leading up to this point. um I didn't know I was going to get death animation, right? there's and There's an entire class of games that will do that to you. One of those games is Dead Space, right? so um It was kind of funny to see that in another grabbed treasure.
00:30:15
Speaker
Yeah. um Also going with some of the more mature themes, ah when you're fighting the ooh girl, what's that feel? Something something electric eel. Yeah. um One of her attack phases because she was like essentially four different corners of the room. oh It has like a different attack pattern. One is like shooting a hair dryer and shoots a laser. Another one's like, oh, I'll shoot out toast. You can jump on the toast and top of the toaster, hit her in the face. One is just a Hitachi vibrator. Yeah. And when she first uses that, she's like, I don't even know what this does. But if you're anybody, you're just like, oh, that's this is a kid's game. That is my favorite type of reference to make, though, because it's the type of reference where it's like if you're an adult,
00:31:01
Speaker
It's entirely plausible you don't know. Yeah, it is possible. But um a lot of people do and like no kids would, right? So you could safely put this, this is the runin Ren and cartoon-esque nature thing, right? Here's the joke that literally doesn't mean anything to kids. It'll just pass right under the radar and adults will immediately get it. And my particular boss fight with this electric eel, uh, it kind of glitched out. So even after the fight, the Hitachi magic wand was just following my character. Yes. trying to get like I got to watch Jake during this part of his play through. I got to watch Jake for a good section of it because you know, hi, I'm like to watch, but ah there were a surprising number of bugs that Jake encountered that I did not.
00:31:51
Speaker
I'm not sure if that was patch related, if something else is going on. Um, none of them were super major. Um, so like, I don't, I want to, I want to get ahead of this and say like the bugs didn't ruin my experience. There were a couple times that like the physics got wonky. I got shot into the air, which was very funny. I got shot off the map, which was less funny, or I got like knocked into out of bounds or something like that. But it was fairly infrequent. And there was only one or two times that there's there's a ah menu option that it's just die instantly. In Sekiro, this is the equivalent of the bite down option and the ah the poison.
00:32:37
Speaker
um But again, to their credit, that would have felt very unfair to have that happen. And for me to have no recourse or to like lose my micro plastics, which we didn't mention, but are the soul's equivalence. Um, but there's an accessibility option to just instantly reclaim your microplastics, like at your place of death. Um, which is awesome. Yeah. Right. Like I'd like to believe they acknowledged that some of this stuff could happen. Maybe they couldn't exactly find the cause of it. They did their best faith effort to solve it, but because they couldn't solve it entirely, they made sure there's ways to make it feel like
00:33:20
Speaker
They're not just piling this fortune on you and it wasn't your fault. Yeah. Yeah. Because I remember there was a time where Jake fell off of something and it didn't spawn him back where he was before. And he just kept respawning, falling and dying. yeah And then he lost a good chunk of microplastics. So I'm like, yeah, just get your microplastics back. What happened to you was unfair and unjust. um And you don't deserve to be penalized for that further. Yeah. So that is a nice option that they have. Also, even for like boss attempts, I'm sure everyone is familiar with the Dark Souls method of you go, you do a boss, you get your ass kicked. Let's say you lost 20,000 souls. Do you want those souls back? You have to go back in the boss room. And really, the only way you're leaving with those souls is if you beat the boss on a successful run. um It does depend on the game. This is just the the nerdy line in the middle. There are some Dark Souls games where they put your souls outside of the boss fight.
00:34:18
Speaker
Well, I guess Liza P. Actually, yeah, you might be right. I can't recall exactly which ones, but Liza P. did that. yeah but yeah lies of p did that And then crab's treasure as well essentially will spawn you outside of the boss encounter. It like slides you down like this little jellyfish bubble yeah on top of your quote unquote corpse, where you can get your microplastics back and whatever shell you had when you died. So it's a nice way to get back in without having to go to the spawn point, do the boss rush back, kill these certain enemies along the way. Yeah.
00:34:59
Speaker
Again, it's part of one of the things that makes the game easier and it's more focused on fun and the experience versus it's trying to punish you. Dark Souls and like they want people to have that because they know their target audience wants to push past and say, Oh, I was able to succeed and beat this. Right. Crabs treasure is not going to be a notch on my belt, but it will be a fun game that I'll recommend to people at all times. Um, even, even the later Dark Souls games, for the most part, try to minimize the distance that you need to run to challenge your boss. Now, there are some exceptions, but like Dark Souls 1, if you were in Undead, is it Undead Burg, Undead Asylum, whichever one, I think it's Undead Burg, the top starting area, you had to run past all of those enemies to go fight the Taurus Demon every time. And you could, and part of the game was realizing that you could just run past all the enemies,
00:35:57
Speaker
but it was kind of a pain to do every time, especially if you're struggling with that boss. So the modern take is more, we we want we don't want to front load the TDM, I guess. The challenge should be in the boss fight and let people you challenge the boss fight relatively quickly. Yeah, and I agree with that. I'm glad the way I'm i'm happy in the way out another crab's treasure did it, which we should have found an abbreviation for because that's a mouthful. ACT. Yeah, ACT act. What are things I liked about act ah act two?
00:36:37
Speaker
um but ah Going back to the the boss design, because I think. For a lot of these types of games, that will always be the focus, yeah is a really cool boss with a set of mechanics, its own theme style, music, what have you. yeah ah One of the first major standouts for me, probably because I got my ass beat so much by it, was the intimidation crab, ahha yeah um who essentially has like this giant ah chopstick. before it's broken apart and it's phase two, it breaks it apart and it's using in two weapons. But the music for that was really cool. You're fighting on a giant sushi boat. Like the theming was just on point and it felt really cool. So I really appreciated the ah attention they put into that. Yeah. Yeah, I'm looking through some of the bosses here just as kind of a reminder. And they're they're good. They're good mechanics tests, right? Like
00:37:36
Speaker
They very much like Dark Souls bosses avoid the attack follow up when the boss is vulnerable. But, um, some of them introduce very lethal attacks that you absolutely cannot be hit by it, right? This is the, uh, just mash light attack killer in Dark Souls. It's like, Oh, the person just ran up on me and is hitting me continually grab attack that does 75% of your health or something like that. Right. Um, but they also, they have a really cool. visual design, which I know you've you've ah um mentioned. i Imitation crab was actually the one, and intimidation crab, sorry. I said the thing that it's a joke of, not the thing itself. That was the one that forced me to be like, OK, I need to stop for a second and figure out if I'm playing the game right. And I wasn't. I had not leveled up my skills. There was a bunch of stuff I was leaving on the table as far as combat options.
00:38:34
Speaker
um
00:38:36
Speaker
If this was armored core, it would be like, yeah, I got through as many missions as I could before changing any weapons, right? Yeah, maybe you should start changing your makeup a little bit. The pistol's not working on Baltaeus. I don't know. um
00:38:56
Speaker
by to the game's credit, um as a single player game, ah there's a big difference between the, I'm gonna say, efficacy of some of these skills and what you can do in like and Dark Souls, right? um The comparison we're gonna make, because this is, you know, mostly Soulsborne podcast, is in Elden Ring, there was Bloodhound Step at launch. which was a skill that basically was a teleport. It was a perfect dodge. It had an absurd amount of iframes. It made the wood grain ring from Dark Souls 1 look like chump trash. um It was so good.
00:39:35
Speaker
and They nerfed it eventually, I think, but I think it's still decent. and A lot of the abilities you can use in another crab's treasure have similar levels of efficacy. It's just like, oh yeah, hard dodge to the boss and then follow up with a massive counter attack. Or like, take no damage on block and it's fairly easy to do. like Really, really good stuff. Get an extra shell. Have to deal with like, oh, this is a lingering hit box and other stuff. It's fairly straightforward. Yeah, I will say the only one that might be close to a really difficult or a bullshit is an optional boss that you kind of have to explore to find. And it's my favorite boss in the game. It is a rectangular prism in its shape, and it is the consortium.
00:40:29
Speaker
Yes, it has the best music in the game. It's the best fight in the game. like and Essentially, it's like a if you imagine like the shopping cart. um Sides where it's like it's like a mesh of steel. Imagine a rectangular cube of that and inside of that is a bunch of different sea creatures. Yeah. One of which is like a crab arm. There's a tentacle. ah There's another thing holding a gun. ah But basically it has all these different types of attacks, but all of them are so lethal. I think it's a crab trap. I think it's like one of those crab cages. Oh, that actually makes a lot more sense. Yeah. But it's- What Jake said it was. It actually adds a humorous bent to it because the thing is absolutely packed.
00:41:15
Speaker
with creatures right like they're just sticking out the sides and stuff which means like a couple creatures maybe you could see getting stuck in the trap but then like they just continued to pile in doesn't really make sense um yeah but that boss is like you're specifically trying to hit the the quote unquote weak points where the whole thing is tied together. So there's like, I think six different tie points. You have to break those knots yeah um and everything kind of pops out. But what were your thoughts about this boss that I forced you to go find? Yes. Yeah. I mean, I think I spent like an hour being like, and now we have to go here and now it's selfish. Look for it. Look for that. Yeah. Um, it was a very cool boss. It was very unique. Uh, it's also, it's kind of,
00:42:03
Speaker
Brave is too much credit, but they should get some credit for introducing clearly optional boss fights that have um unique mechanics in jazz like that because you can't always do that. As an indie game, you might not have the bandwidth to work on some other things. Like it's the same thing as software development, right? At what point is it safe to add optional things to to your product? And, uh, this is a really cool optional fight, um, in the way that you might normally just see in like old school RPGs and jazz like that. Um, and it's unlike any other fight in the game. Well, to be fair, all of the fights are unlike any other fight in the game. I mean, to an extent, but not this extent, right? Yes. This is, it is wildly different because some of the enemies enemiess will have like a certain pattern. You could recognize maybe like two or three moves.
00:43:01
Speaker
And this one's like got like seven or eight. Yes. Literally different tells, depending on what side of the cage you're on, or sometimes it'll point a gun at you and you're like, like an octopus tentacle and you're like, ah, or it can crush you. Right. If you actually get crushed by it at any point, it's it's instant death. Yeah. Um, so that's something to be cognizant of you. This is the, this is also the, are you just spamming light attack and not paying any attention to the boss check type of fight? Because there were many times I was spamming light attack and I wasn't paying attention to the boss and they just got to see me get crushed over and over again. um But I love this fight. this This fight was one of the most interesting because there were so many different ways to like
00:43:52
Speaker
go about the actual engagement. Which sides do you want to take first? How much do you want to rely on the grappling hook to stay in the air for the entire encounter? Stuff like that. Constantly, by the way. Yes. Surprising amount of iframes. Ground's hot lava. Let's go. And in Jake's case, if you ah use the grapple at the right way, depending on if the boss is between you and the grapple point, you could launch the boss into the air. Yes. Yeah. You can overcome its weight entirely. Maybe slightly easier to do because you're underwater, but it still doesn't really make sense. awesome I did want to. Before I keep rambling about stuff, I do want to talk about some of the story. Sure. I'm saying it had a good story and good, good writing. um What do you think the the moral of this game is?
Themes of Pollution and Environmentalism
00:44:40
Speaker
It's hard to say because basically. I kind of have to turn the question back on you first because my impressions of the story really came in more towards the end.
00:44:51
Speaker
Yeah, and I also kind of like have some of my own questions and gripes about what perhaps happened at the end, like the actual resolution to the story. um So it might be better to to to lay the groundwork. um We actually didn't even spoil, this wouldn't have been a spoiler technically or or a very minor spoiler, but the overall plot is you play as Krill, the hermit crab, trying to get his shell back, his home. Yeah. That's, that's main quest. That's up there at the top of the journal. okay um At the beginning of the game, Michael Reeve steals it and you're like, wait, come back.
00:45:34
Speaker
Yeah. And then weirdly, you fight Michael Reeves at the end. We don't have to lie anymore. We're we're full spoilers now. um But yeah, basically, my takeaway is like, obviously, like Kirill's living his, quote unquote, sheltered life, um not being into the deep ocean, just kind of being in his own little area. And then when he's forced to go into the larger world, um he realizes like, oh, there's this whole society and things are happening and oh, some things are not so great. Oh, there's a lot of pollution here. um Now, pollution is viewed ah differently by different characters ah because a lot of them trashes how they make things. they They make their buildings, they make their weapons, they make ah a way of living with it. So for them,
00:46:25
Speaker
When it rains down trash, that is opportunity for them. Yes. um But with the accumulation of trash, you keep seeing more of this black gunk yeah or whatever it's called. It's called gunk. Yeah. Oh, it's gunk. But basically the gunk ah kind kind of transforms the crabs from or other sea life from being normal, having no thoughts and opinions to essentially being like restless zombies, it infects them in a way. This is the T virus of yeah of another crab's treasure. So it seemed very much like a major point of the game is pollution is bad. OK, which I think everybody can agree upon. um But as you're going throughout the game, you kind of see, I would argue, more of that, ah but it also talks about
00:47:18
Speaker
some real life parallels as far as Roland being this major person who's in charge and how he just wants wealth and he doesn't care about the people who work for him. And it's like, oh, exploitative. I think his corporation is literally shellfish Corp. Yes, which is if you need that one spelled out for you, not shell corporation, no relation and not selfish either, mind you. um Yeah, like it's obvious that they're set up as an antagonist and the way they're doing stuff is shitty. um And basically the whole thing feels like part of it is Krill realizing that he has the power to do something. And even though he doesn't want to do it, and he has to go out of his comfort zone, he is able to and is good at it and is inspiring other people to fight back and do something as well.
00:48:17
Speaker
Um, a later part in the game when you get into, is it the bottom of the drain or no, even, even further, actually, I mean, how when did you fight, uh, Kaiten Kaiten is in the the drain. Um, very, very late in the game. Um, cause this is after the porcelain throne. That's, that's where you fight. That's what I thought. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But like, I want to jump in and disagree though with one thing you said, which is Krell does not care about anybody else for almost the entirety of the game. There are several.
00:48:59
Speaker
Well, you said that he's inspiring all of these people and stuff. I just wanted to, I'm not even disagreeing maybe, I'm just clarifying. and But there's there's a treasure that they're all seeking. And ah the treasure can be used to literally uplift the lower class in the city, New Carcinia, and feed the homeless and all of this stuff. Or if Krill gets it, he can exchange it to get his shell back. And he is unwilling to cede the treasure to anyone else. He needs it to get his home back. And he realizes that this is just because he's a douchebag, right? Yeah, again, it's like he has such a a small, limited ah view of the world and throughout a lot of experiences, ah eventually that does widen to include other people.
00:49:53
Speaker
um But in that fight with Kaiten, you're fighting the anger of the ocean basically. yeah Which as you, after the Roland fight and you go deeper down into the drain, you start to get messages from an unknown entity that speaks in a very spooky voice um about like, you don't know how bad things actually are. um They can get so much worse. They can get so much worse. Do do you know what despair is? It is actually super, super edgy, right? I usually like edgy characters. And this is like the edgiest, edgy dialogue imaginable, really. But what I like about it is essentially when you get to that actual boss encounter, it's like I showed you all of these things. Why are you not ah as upset as I am? Like there's all these ah I want to say people.
00:50:51
Speaker
There's all these creatures dying in the ocean from pollution and corruption, all this shit. And nobody's doing anything about it. This just keeps happening. Why are you not mad? Yeah. Why are you not going to fight back against it? Why are you not going to do anything? um Which, again, you can take that to real life parallels very easily. Yeah. It's actually it's named after a creature, like a super deep sea creature. It's Pria Dubia. the ocean's agony is the name of the boss. That's what it is again. Yeah. it Also, the design of it kind of reminded me of that parasite that's technically the impetus for attack on Titan and Titans. I don't think it looks like a Metroid. Yeah. But yeah, I just.
00:51:43
Speaker
I like that as another angle for like, Hey, here's what the actual real world is. ah Um, and what are you going to do about it? Uh, cause the whole point of the ocean's agony was to be like, you should be in despair with me. ahha Um, it even asks, do you, do you even know what apocalypse is? Right? That's like, all right, this is X-Men. Yeah. But.
00:52:14
Speaker
basically the moral of the story for krill after the fact was realizing that He can act he can be mad and it was fine for him to be mad There are injustices in the world outside of him just losing his shell yeah And he can fight back and do something about it and he can channel that anger in a direction, right? um And he essentially ends up channeling it at first a Voice by Michael Reeves and he plays a perfect douchebag Because first is very much the quote-unquote entrepreneur who very much looks up to Roland in his business dealings um Super naive. Yeah, he he he's he's the benevolent businessman that's that's the role he fills basically because he's like
00:53:02
Speaker
He really looks up to Roland and then it becomes obvious that Roland is just like abusing the sea creatures to, to like mine garbage, basically ruining their lives and stuff. And so once first realizes the working conditions, he's like, man, someone should really tell Roland what's going on here so he can take care of it. And it's like, yeah, uh-huh. Yeah. Um, but yeah, at, at the end of it, basically. um He channels all that in to destroy ah the perfect whorl indirectly. and Which is the MacGuffin. To attain godhood, basically. It's the Dragon Balls. Going back to the Goku analogy. At the end, like he doesn't necessarily even
00:53:53
Speaker
walk away with anything outside of experience because the trash still rains upon the city, which was first plan and a crew really wasn't able to stop that. You know, that was already underway. Um, so like people were just dealing with the after effects and they're like, Hey, it is what it is. Like it can have some good sides. It can have some negative sides, but that's life. And we have to move on with it. But the big turning point for krill is after like, There's a flashback where he realized why he values the shell as much as he does because it's basically been his whole life. yeah Um, there's another hermit crab who doesn't have a shell who's just, I think they have like a crutch or something. They're leaning up against the building. He's just a homeless man. Yeah. Yeah. Just essentially a homeless guy. Um, he gives his shell that he's been working for the entire game.
00:54:46
Speaker
to this guy because he realizes he doesn't actually need that. He doesn't need a specific thing to be happy. So this is this is the point that confuses me. And this is maybe where we disagree. We haven't we haven't hashed this out or developed a script for the official soapstone stance on the plot of another crab's treasure. I'm good to be happy. But there's so there's two instances um where Kirill basically gets really angry and he makes the situation far worse. The first one is on the the barge that's trying to dredge up the treasure and he runs and charges um Roland and somehow throws off the balance of the barge or whatever and the whole thing goes into the abyss. Tons of people die and he's despondent realizing that his outburst basically caused this.
00:55:43
Speaker
He has to be peptal pep-talked. Pep-talked back up. The other time is when he's making that last attack against Firth, who arguably isn't even a bad guy, he's just stupid.
Krill's Growth and Self-Discovery
00:55:55
Speaker
After Firth gets the MacGuffin, the treasure that Krill was seeking this whole time. And he's just like, well, I'm a god now, so I'm just gonna make it rain trash so everyone can be prosperous. And Krill's like, I need the shell to heal Crichton. Crichton? Crichton. Crichton, thank you.
00:56:16
Speaker
um And you're not listening to me and also isn't trash where a gunk comes from. I have to fight you. That's like that second anger thing. But as soon as Krill gets the shell, he also goes to punch, to use the power to punch first and ends up breaking the shell entirely, right? So the two instances that he really lashes out in anger, um it's not really a net positive for anybody. But I do agree with the point you were making that Kaitan tells him, Hey, you need to carry my anger, right? Like you can use it to help people in jazz. It's just the story kind of has mixed messages on that anger, helping people. I guess the very last instance is literally the end of the game. The last command input is the loan shark. That is basically trying to get as much work out of krill, literally the entire treasure.
00:57:12
Speaker
um in exchange for a shell, Krill's home. At the end of the game, you can just, he's like, I'm not gonna give it to you. Like, why would I just give it to you? There's all this trash around here. And you can just attack him, right? And he instantly dies. He just like flies off into the background. It's like a shrimp in pants. And then you can put the shell on and that is the the end of the game until the the postcard or whatever where he gives the shell to the homeless man. but It did seem like there were mixed messages about Krell's intent in all of this. He specifically meant, he he's given the offer to stay with the town and this kind of like motherly figure ah character um provides. she's She's just like, Hey, you can stay with us if you need to. But he says to himself, he realizes he doesn't want to stay here.
00:58:06
Speaker
But he also doesn't want to return home in quotes because he literally did nothing. Right. um And so like. It would be a great place for them to throw in. A sequel, I guess, but it feels like Krill's story is unresolved. Like the character growth to give away his shell literally happens in the the credits, basically. at the end of the game and not necessarily at any point up to that unless you subscribe to him learning to just use violence to accomplish his own ends being the character ground.
00:58:55
Speaker
Hmm. I'm gonna let you, I'm gonna see on that one ah one at one last point is they also call out how violent he is. at the midpoint. It's also this motherly figure crab. I can't remember her name. Apologies. Um, but she's a little sad and girls like, why are you sad? And she's like, you realize that all of the like gunked creatures you've been killing were people, right? Like they're all people and girls like, huh, I kind of forgot about that. And then they kind of don't touch on that theme again.
00:59:29
Speaker
for the rest of the game. i figured it was i took that part is a little like lighthearted like slighted in humor you can as' kind of like a fourth wall meta that that kind of makes the most sense but it definitely got me started down the thought process of
00:59:51
Speaker
is one of your it's it's good when your hero has villainous traits to some degree right they they have to have some conflict internally um is krill's villainous trait that he actually enjoys all of this violence and they don't really play that out necessarily i guess they kind of do literally the ending is that right so anyways speculation another crab's treasure too you're going to be fighting krill as the final boss okay so I don't think he's a bad character as as far as like evil. I think it just as he goes through the game, um again, he's just learning so much about
01:00:36
Speaker
the outside world and um new Carcinia and its residents and things that they want, things that they expect, things that they hate and fear. um He just literally had no context for any of that. yes The only reason he's down there is because he's looking for his shell, which is his sole desire. Just let me get back to the way things were. And I think it's the motherly crab might be Clara, or that sounds close enough. Sounds close. So we'll go with Clara. Clara sounds great. But she says, like you sit keep saying you want to go back to normal, but like it hasn't really been normal for anybody for a very long time. Yes. It's just more like you kind of had your head in the sand. um So I feel like over the course of the game, he kind of gets his head out of the sand.
01:01:26
Speaker
um Yeah, I think one of the last lines he says to it, it's when you're, you're on the way to the, the, the, the lender or the loan shark or whatever is the, um, he recognizes and he acknowledges to himself that he's not sure where home is, which kind of leads into him giving the shell away. But he also knows that he doesn't want to stay here. So. Um, a little bit of wanderlust, maybe we'll see. I don't think he's going to be an antagonist. He's very, I think he's very much set up to be a protagonist for, uh, sequel, which is krill finding out what he wants, not necessarily the hopes, ambitions, and destiny of a people that is thrust upon him, which was the plot of this game, largely. oh I would be very interested to see if they did a sequel where they would go.
01:02:23
Speaker
Yeah, because like they started from the shallows and then went down to the very fucking bottom of the ocean with like lane. Yeah Yeah, like the the deepest lores shit there could be um Maybe they'll just up
Speculation on a Sequel
01:02:38
Speaker
the ante. I don't know also the old ocean I know it's the ah the equivalent to the um The Elden Ring sky area. I can't remember the, the depths. Laernia. No, something like that. The sky area. I know you know what you're talking about. It's like with all the dragons and, uh, where you'd fight. placidous acts Um, Oh, no, no, no. That's, uh, that's like the future. I was thinking like you go down the deep well, it's just the super long elevator. Oh, Siafra. Siafra. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. That's right.
01:03:12
Speaker
It reminded me instantly of that. you're like We just went down a really, in fact, they were both circular elevators go really far down and the reveal is you are now deep underground and here is a new sky. It's the the kind of hollow earth concept I'm a huge fan of. um Love that Hilaria though. I agree with you. You mentioned it's it's your favorite and same for me. Do you want to know what that ah that shell was by the way? Sure, yeah. Uh, so in that large area, um, there's some platforming you can do as you explore around, um, where you essentially. I think it's some shaving foam you launch and then you kind of have to jump around and that's like your moving platform. You have to keep going, uh, touching back on. Yeah. It's Mario platforming. As soon as I was on the home, I was like, they're going to make me do Mario stuff. yep Um, so there is one you can find and it's the most complicated one. Um,
01:04:10
Speaker
So after you do that for like a minute or so, maybe two minutes, you basically get a Dark Souls helmet. Ah, OK. If you remember the corpse of the guy where you get the first Estus flask from. Mm hmm. Yeah. And Dark Souls one. It's that guy's helmet. Oh, that's good. And it's also really cool and very strong. That's awesome. There's some other Easter eggs in the game as well. If you explore around, you can find them. Very cute. I also like the brands. So many of the brands are like very, very close to copyright infringement. like They barely changed it enough. it's It's definitely parody. It's covered under parody, but they're like the same logo, slightly different word or something like that to make it aquatic themed.
01:05:00
Speaker
I did like that because, again, it's just it's cute, but also I like the the ties back to souls type things like the sands between you were mentioning. Yeah. um Early on, you can find a thing. Oh, is that Old Bay? No, no, no. It's Elden Bay. It's just, again, a very small thing which just kind of makes you go. Oh, that's nice. Uh huh. They had Dura shell batteries. So dumb. Fun game, though. um I think maybe, you know, maybe, we maybe we're we'll, we'll have to revisit the philosophy of another crab's treasure later. That'll be another hour long episode and be like, we're going to dive into the, and into the, the depths to explore what it really means to be driven by anger and whether it's necessary, whether it's your own responsibility to fulfill the needs for others and things like that. We can get an hour out of that. That'll be fine.
01:05:58
Speaker
Um, or they'll make it easy on, on us and just release a second game. You know, one can hope.
Listener Engagement and Feedback
01:06:06
Speaker
If you guys have your own thoughts on the sands between and the rest of another crab's treasure, feel free to send it into us. Maybe you can refine our own opinions. Maybe you disagree with us entirely. Cool. Let us know soapstone podcast at gmail.com. Or you could join the discussion on Facebook. Facebook.com slash soapstone podcast. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Shout out to your trees out now.
01:07:23
Speaker
a
01:07:37
Speaker
you