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Ep.187: Another Crab's Treasure Review Discussion
188 Plays6 months ago
Aggro Crab has crafted an incredible soulslike that both satisfies genre veterans and welcomes newcomers with open claws.
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Transcript
Introduction & Game Overview
00:00:19
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Episode 187 of the Six One Indiecast, AKA, your review discussion for another crab's treasure from Aggro Crab. My name is Mike Toundrow and I'm joined by Kyle Stevenson. Kyle?
00:00:34
Speaker
Hello. I'm looking for, I brought a plastic fork down for the intro and I don't know where it went. I also messed up. I do have a krill pin somewhere that I picked up. Oh hell yeah. Hacks West krill best boy of 2024. So far, honestly, there's our review krill best boy. I'm not going to put it on and interrupt any further, but here, here's the boy. There he is.
00:01:02
Speaker
Oh, how are you? I'm okay.
Excitement & Humor in Indie Gaming
00:01:06
Speaker
I'm happy. I'm happy to talk about another crab. Are you excited to get shellfish?
00:01:11
Speaker
I'm always, I'm not usually a shellfish person, but today I'm excited to, to be a little selfish. Let's not delay. Let's not delay any further. Let's get through the rigmarole. You're listening to the six one indie cast, a weekly video game podcast, amplifying the indie scene, a smaller games outside the triple A space. New episodes drop each and every Monday morning on all major podcast feeds and youtube.com slash six one indie supporters on patreon.com slash six one. Indie could tune in live as we record, except for today. Cause of the embargo.
00:01:38
Speaker
and gain access to clocked out the indie cast post show, except for today. Cause it's just a review. Uh, but if money is tight, no worries. You still can share your support with a simple click wherever you're listening. Go ahead and leave this podcast or review, follow six one indie on socials, subscribe and hit the bell on YouTube and tell your friends all about us.
00:01:53
Speaker
Shout out to the PD fans supporting on Patreon, Brett Griffin, Colby Cordes, Ellie, JC, Jill Groat, Marcus O'Neill, Nicholas Johnson, Nicole Humphrey, Playa Jason, Silk Cannon, The Compound, and Cole, AKA The Good Sir. Housekeeping, you already know the deal with the 690 showcase happening at a later date, closer to the fall, late summer. Who's to say? We'll talk about it June 1st. The M.U. Game Awards happening later on in the year. All good. Let's get into it.
Praise for 'Another Crab's Treasure' & Accessibility
00:02:22
Speaker
Studio head and art director, Agro Crab, Nick Caiman asked, do you like it? Well, Nick, great question. Thank you for writing in. I'm sure there's no like, you know, vested interest in this question. You know, it's just a general curiosity thing. Nick, I'm here to tell you that you and your development team have created my game of the year so far. Another crab's treasure.
00:02:51
Speaker
has one goal, to be an accessible and approachable souls, like something that is not all too common in the space. And it achieves that with flying colors. It does that in a few factors, or I should say it does that in a few avenues.
00:03:08
Speaker
It's vibrant. It's colorful. The aesthetic is overall welcoming. It does not push back in terms of the overall look, vibe, and feel and the narrative as well. The narrative is straightforward. It's delightful. All of the agro crab humor that you and I both love and adore so much is in this game.
00:03:27
Speaker
There's nothing hidden in items. There's nothing hidden in the lore. And the most important thing is the gameplay. The gameplay, while it is satisfying for Souls people like myself, I could totally see this as a Souls player's first entry into the Souls genre. That's due to, and we'll get into this a lot, but that's due to a lot of the skills and gameplay elements, but also the
00:03:52
Speaker
assist mode. The assist mode in this game is remarkable. There was the joke going around of the pistol in the game. The pistol is the difficulty option where you could kill every enemy and every boss with one shot of the pistol. That is accessibility. That is the way to get through these games. If you want to experience the story and the narrative and just live in this unbelievable world for
00:04:14
Speaker
in my time for 15 hours, you could do that with ease with a lot of these assist things. And if you don't want to go as crazy as putting a pistol on your little crab, there are things where you could expand health and slow enemies down. And yeah, it's just something that really feels like a breath of fresh air for the genre and something that's like highly necessary. This genre can be quite gatekeeping.
00:04:39
Speaker
especially when it comes to difficulty and being the hardcore or whatever it may be. Personally, I was never like that. I know you as a somewhat new lover of the genre, you are not like that. We want people to love these games as much as we love these games. And yeah, another Crap's Treasure achieves that wholeheartedly. And again, as somebody who maybe not the most intense Souls player out there, but you know, Bloodborne, one of my favorite games all the time, Adore Elden Ring, love a couple of the Dark Souls games, Demon's Souls,
00:05:09
Speaker
And a couple of the games outside of the formula lies a P. Um, it is satisfying for somebody like me.
Game Mechanics & Player Experience
00:05:17
Speaker
And I found so much fulfillment in playing through this game moment to moment. Um, and again, that's to the credit of how vibrant and beautiful the world is, how endearing and charming all the characters are, how goddamn hilarious the dialogue is and the writing is. And again, the gameplay, the gameplay rocks.
00:05:38
Speaker
I mean, yeah, I can echo exactly what Mike said. Um, uh, myself, I'm not too far into the game. Life things happen. Couldn't play as much as I wanted to, but my favorite part of another crab treasure is exactly what you said. It is such a great entry point to people who
00:05:57
Speaker
see this wildly popular genre and want to play them but always feel overwhelmed. I mean, that was me a few years ago before I decided to do Bloodborne on a whim to, you know, quote unquote, prank my co-host on the trophy room by platinuming it behind his back without telling him. It's always seen such like a daunting task of, is it too hard? How am I going to know what's going on?
00:06:27
Speaker
having to rely on in-game lore and in-game items to tell me what to do. One of my favorite things is an actual narrative told to you. And there is a story and there are characters for you to
00:06:42
Speaker
follow along and, and keep everything moving. I mean, from the get-go, just a little, the little shark tax boy, I forgot his name come and be like, Oh, the Duchess is requiring your tax payment, you know, and like steals your house. And that's the whole driving point of why Creole was on this adventure and just running into like really fun other characters. Uh, the first boss fight of like the, the captain, right? Like,
00:07:08
Speaker
just being over aggressive for no reason and overprotective and learning how to use your shell or whatever. It does take a little bit of a learning curve just from, you know, playing other souls games in the past where, especially when it comes to like blocking and using the shell, it's definitely, you need to rewire your brain a little bit, especially if you played a ton of them before, but
00:07:34
Speaker
It's so rewarding. The, the, just exploring everything is great. I love the simplistic version of like the level up system. It's just agriculture. I feel like nailed it for sure. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. I think, um, that was probably when I first jumped in and, um, you know, you get in, you know, the whole first, let's say like, it took me a while because I was exploring a little bit. I would say like the first,
00:08:00
Speaker
two hours fresh of the game while you're like really taking your time and you're really starting to understand the systems. It does, like you said, it has a bit of a learning curve, but I think again, like you said, it has that learning curve because we are used to traditional parry mechanics, shield mechanics, combat mechanics that these souls tend to share. What I love about Another Crab's Treasure, it does feel inherently fresh from
00:08:23
Speaker
anything else in the genre while also having those touchstones, like light and heavy attacks, light and heavy attacks sort of, but tied to one button, which I really appreciate that too. Everything is just streamlined. Like instead of the more obtuse skill tree, not skill tree, the skills that you see in most souls, likes like
00:08:43
Speaker
I can't even name all them right now. Endurance endurance, whatever from soul stuff is going on. It's dexterity, strength, whatever it may be. Like crab has four skills, vitality, crab, fat, crab, fatality, strength.
00:09:05
Speaker
Ooh, it's for the special attacks and the shell strength itself. I forgot the exact terminology and I apologize for not remembering that, but those four
00:09:21
Speaker
just balancing those super simple. You know exactly what each point is getting you. You can see on the menu itself, like how much you are getting that improvement. And it's unlike other souls. Like it's not just walls of texts. It's like, here it is. One simple sentence, one simple percentage with a point value to it. That's what you're getting. Great. Done. Call of the day. Move on. Um, so like kind of piggybacking off that, like, yes, it has, like I mentioned, those touchstones of the traditional soul's likes.
00:09:50
Speaker
but everything is so streamlined. I will say this game, as you get into it a little bit and you start online, like you go through the main tutorial segments and you unlock all of the tools to the trade that carry you through the entire process and the entire game, you're able to kind of cater the game how you want to play it. Like this game does have a little, why are you laughing?
00:10:16
Speaker
Cause I'm just thinking of like you unintentionally play this game on hard mode because you skipped out on a boss that allows you to get to that. That's why I was giggling. Cause I was just thinking of, you're like, yes, it teaches you the skills in order to be successful. And you completely do one thing.
00:10:34
Speaker
It ain't that critical because I got through the rest of it without that level. No fair, totally fair. But when you get to the not missable points of the game where you start to unlock your, you're able to unlock skills and your skill tree, this game does have bloodborne elements to it where when you block with a shell and you lose some of your shell health, if you are aggressive and attack quick enough, you can regain your shelf, your shell health.
00:11:00
Speaker
Um, it has the second term pay agriculture. Yeah. Use shelf. There you go. Um, it has the secaro, uh, grapple mechanic, like straight up has a secaro grapple where when you unlock that skill, if you see a boss about to attack you with an unavoidable attack, you could hit him with a grapple and
00:11:19
Speaker
stun them a little bit and try to lure them in to increase their stagger bar. And just like Sekiro as well, there is a stagger bar where you stagger them or you hit them enough or parry enough where you could fill up this bar, you stagger them and get in some additional hits without any interruption. And of course, just like the Dark Souls games, there is a parry system that you can unlock
00:11:41
Speaker
That's where you definitely have to rewire your brain a little bit, because as opposed to hitting the button when the sword hits your shield, for example, in like a Dark Souls game.
00:11:56
Speaker
you have to stay hidden in your shell and you pop out of your shell as the attack hits. So it's like kind of the opposite. And it's a simple switch instead of like pressing the button, you need to release the button at the right time. It's on paper, very easy thing to comprehend, but in action, when the attacks are coming at you pretty fast, it takes a little bit.
00:12:22
Speaker
And I will say like those three elements, once you have them all unlocked and you learn how to utilize them in sync with one another, it is such a satisfying sensation of playing Dark Souls, Sekiro and Bloodborne all in one formula. Like that's something I never thought I'd ever really want. And when I like use though, like granted the FromSoft games are very dense, they're very daunting.
00:12:46
Speaker
But again, I think the word of the day is streamlines, like the way that Agrocrab was able to craft those systems into their version or their interpretation of the genre, it worked so damn well. And as a fan of two of three of those games, I'm not the biggest Sekiro person in the world, the Sekiro elements worked so damn well for me. The grappling thing, like being able to grapple an enemy and either propel myself towards them or reel them in towards me,
00:13:13
Speaker
I was doing that constantly as soon as I unlocked that skill. Like I'm so surprised that all three of those major inspirations are balanced so well throughout the entire game. Similar to that, not combat oriented, but the ability to hook onto fishing hooks for traversal elements when that gets introduced early on.
00:13:34
Speaker
I like that unlocked the Metroidvania fan of me in my like, I saw all these hooks early on, not knowing what they were for and seeing buildings that I can't get to the top where I see a glowing item. And then when that moment allowed me to do the things like, okay, I have all this area now that I already know about. I'm going to go back and figure out what's there and some cool little things like that. I love how they're using
00:14:01
Speaker
which is another like difference from most souls games where like traversal is just the thing you do. And it's everything's like available to you pretty much from the get-go, from the get-go, like, like Eldering, you can access pretty much everything. Uh, if you know where to go and discover it, but like, this is very much like hinting at other places, you know, in the verticality and whatnot. And then when you go back, the skill just opens things up even more, which I love the traversal of this game.
00:14:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great thing. Also, like to be totally clear, you unlock that in the beginning. And I think the, there, there is, the game opens up with essentially a tutorial area and a handful of tutorial bosses. And I think this game does such an outstanding job of slowly introducing you to the mechanics of the game. Like it's not gonna,
00:14:55
Speaker
give you that grapple right away. It doesn't even give you the weapon right away. It doesn't give you the special attacks right away. Like every little piece is introduced to you. Doesn't give you the show. I was trying to attack like the big glowing purple eye crabs. It took me forever because I kept dying because I had no extra like defense. And then once I got a shell, it went back. It's like, Oh my God, this is so much easier. I should have just waited.
Environmental Themes & Creative Design
00:15:18
Speaker
But like as a like former, not former, but as someone who plays other souls games, like
00:15:23
Speaker
You just try and try until you figure out the pattern and like getting a shell was critical. And I didn't have all the keys yet to actually play the game the way it was intended at that point. I mean, I'm sure it's doable. Oh yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. It really does do a great job of just like giving you a little bit. It's like one thing at a time. So you're not like totally overwhelmed. And I think that's to the credit of the approachability of the game as well, where it's like,
00:15:49
Speaker
Hey, like Elder Ring, for example, and again, not to shame any of the Frums off the games or anything, Elder Ring, one of my favorite games of all time, I adore that goddamn game. But it's not a thing of like, hey, here is every single system of the game and a big open world, have at it. Like it does a really great job of just slowly introducing you to the world and the pace of the game itself. Can I just bring up another point of why I love another Crab's Treasure so much?
00:16:18
Speaker
Souls in my head or so, games of this genre, like action, souls, parry, block kind of combat, takes themselves way too seriously. Yeah.
00:16:30
Speaker
And this brings such a breath of fresh air and the humor is so good. Like you can watch it right now on youtube.com slash six, one, any, when we face that boss, that, you know, is holding back some tutorial things for Mike, when that ended, we're like, Oh my God, it's their second phase. And then it, the boss just was like, Oh, you're not here to kill me.
00:16:50
Speaker
Oh, and then the cutscene ended and like, I was like, bravo. Amazing. And just, it just hits. That's something I credit or I celebrate in my review. That's available on sixwayindy.com. I love this game so much that it pulled me out of my writing review retirement that I set aside a lot, like about like two years and I go now it's my first review in two years.
00:17:13
Speaker
Yeah. The comedic timing and just like the way the dialogue is written is, is very specific to agriculture. Like since going under, I've been a fan of just like their vibe, their, their tone, like their sense of humor. And, um, they really poured themselves into this game and it is, it is abundantly clear. Like not even like in the dialogue, like not solely just in the dialogue or the cut scenes or the comedic timing like that, but like just the world itself, like,
00:17:43
Speaker
like I mentioned in my review and like, I, we're not going to spoil much here, but, or not spoil really anything at all. Yeah, please don't. I'm not, I'm not done with it yet. Yeah. Yeah. For Kyle's sake, but like in the main city of the game, like your hub area where you could go to like the different merchants and like sell off essentially your, your microplastics. Yeah. You sell off
00:18:08
Speaker
Breadcloths. Yeah, breadcloths and stuff to get more microplastics, which are your souls to level up and do your currency.
00:18:16
Speaker
Just like how that world or how that city is detailed, like playing card benches, milk carton, buildings. My favorite thing is the receipt, all the pathways are long receipts and there's a reference to CVS. Like there are long CVS receipts, which I think is just so goddamn brilliant. This game is just riddled with stuff like that. There are so many tongue in cheek references to our real world that agriculture is just unabashedly making fun of or just like,
00:18:45
Speaker
not even making fun of, but like in a lovingly manner, just like referencing. Yeah. Like obviously in, in real life, it's an awful thing that happens, but using discarded flip flops as platforms underwater, like using trash that is in our oceans, unfortunately as level terrain.
00:19:07
Speaker
just makes it feel so unique and authentic in a very upsetting way for me to say. I mention that in my review. The game is a horrifying and delusional commentary on pollution and the real world effects of it. But the way this game is set up and the narrative is set up is that trash is the economy of this game and what everybody is obsessed with. And it is literally polluting
00:19:34
Speaker
the inhabitants and that's what the enemies are. It's introduced very early on. You don't know why, I'm not going to tell you why, but it's introduced right from the get-go that certain other inhabitants of the sea are just losing themselves because they're just going crazy from what they call the gunk, which is all the trash and pollution. But yeah, it's funny how something so awful can be spun in
00:20:01
Speaker
a vibrant manner because like the way these cities are crafted, the forest, the brilliantly named the sands between, which is the open world area, um, even the boss design and the enemies designs, like the trash helps it give character, which in of itself is like horrible to think about that. Like it is pollution that is giving these creatures character, but I think that's another meta commentary to what this game is trying to do.
00:20:29
Speaker
And again, as somebody who rolled credits and saw the story through to the end, it does a great job of telling a narrative about pollution and I guess the treasure at the end of the rainbow and stuff like that. And to add on it, just not being a part of the landscape and environment, but
00:20:49
Speaker
actually tying into the shells. And I, I again, super early on, I don't know the exact number. I'm sure you don't know, but I feel like there's a ton of shells. They, they said the number, I think it's 66 is. Okay. I mean that that's a whole lot and each one having a unique skill to it. And they're both pros and cons. And again, leaning into that awful, just pick up trash, throw it on your back for a new home and
00:21:17
Speaker
have something new and fresh with each one is a great way to go about it and make it feel different from the other souls games. Yeah. And again, it's like having to rely on trash for your own security, whether it is economic or your life, feel like your literal life is. Horrifying, but like in such a sadistic way and like, uh, it just like, it really, uh, puts a lens on humanity in such a fascinating manner. Yeah. And even.
00:21:47
Speaker
outside of that, like for a game where you play as a crab in like a fantastical world with like so many, so many like brilliant characters, all that helps it feel grounded. Like it always feels like, like who the hell knows? Maybe that's what the deep oceans are like. And we just don't know. Like, even how this game opens up, like I'm not going to spoil how the game properly opens up. But like, I love the, the opening cut scene going into like,
00:22:11
Speaker
the driving narrative of the game and the driving force of the game. I think the way it's staged is awesome. I kind of wish they leaned more into it. I'll let's say a man eater, maybe, but like, I think that would have potentially gotten in the way of the characters themselves. But yeah, it's, it's great, man. I cannot say enough good things about this video game. It's also probably a minor thing. And people are like, Kyle, I love their use of
00:22:38
Speaker
scale with other animals in this ecosystem. Like looking up and seeing giant sharks swimming above you or in the opening area, seeing birds, you know, and just giant Godzilla like Kaiju. It feels like to this little tiny hermit crab krill. Um, it's great. It's, it's just a nice little touch that they obviously put a whole lot of thought into. Yeah. And that's carried throughout the game, especially with some of the bosses that you end up facing. Um,
00:23:08
Speaker
And I will say all the bosses also just purely on the design side of things. Awesome to look at. I think I mentioned in the review, all of the bosses, whether it was the bosses themselves or their arenas, were all welcomed with a grin. And I don't want to spoil anything here. I didn't spoil anything there, but a lot of those specific designs are so stellar and so fun and hold such a unique twist on
00:23:32
Speaker
of what the sea creature would be if they were overcome with this gunk or the trash or whatever it may be. Even just like the next best boss that we got to fight, giant crab with the two dual wielding chopsticks. And the arena being a sushi boat, like a boat platter kind of thing for sushi. Dope, it's so brilliant. They nailed it. Yeah, it's so good. Do you want to get into some community questions?
Progression, Difficulty & Accessibility
00:24:01
Speaker
Yeah, let's take...
00:24:03
Speaker
I'll take still candidates. If you want to start with, with, with theirs. Yeah. Yeah. If one of the, cause a lot of these questions, there's multiple questions that from people. Sure. If you want to just take one at a time. Yeah. Okay. So it's still kind of the, it starts off their question with the demo was awesome, but we had a lot of skills open and we couldn't spend our micro plastics. How does the progression feel? Progression is awesome. I will say,
00:24:29
Speaker
in the beginning of the game, similar to how we felt during next fest. Um, we kept picking up these items that like, you know, in traditional souls games, they are the type of items that you pop for souls. So like we, I remember asking ourselves during the demo, it was like, how the, how do we pop these? How do we spend these? Like we want to use these to level up. How the hell do you do this? The same sensation is that that same sensation carries out through the beginning of the game. You were able to sell those items once you get to the hub city.
00:25:00
Speaker
Once you have access to the shops and stuff, yeah, you could sell those and yeah, that's where all those items come in. As far as spending the microplastics, aka the soles, you could do that at any
00:25:13
Speaker
moon snail shell, AKA the bonfires. Um, you can do that anytime, which is great. Um, when it comes to the skills. So yeah, I mentioned earlier skills pertaining to like the bloodborne vibes, the, the Sekiro vibes, the, um, the parry system, like Dark Souls. There is on top of leveling those four basic skills up. There's a whole skill tree as well. Um, that is a part of the tutorial process, like the opening area. Eventually you will meet another character that gives you
00:25:42
Speaker
the power to use another currency, which are umami crystals. Umami is a big thing in this game. Umami is essentially magic in this game. Um, so you get to harness the power of umami to, um, yeah, just unlock new skills. And those skills could be, like I mentioned, the, the shell health thing, the, the be able to grapple enemies, uh, parrying, but also things like,
00:26:08
Speaker
I mentioned earlier, being able to propel yourself with the grapple or dodging while jumping, like things like that. Um, being able to run and, uh, use your weapon, like kind of like a running jump and hit kind of thing, which I use constantly. So yeah, that's all in the beginning. Once you get past that tutorial area,
00:26:33
Speaker
everything opens up for you. Everything is, is available to you. Um, I will say I, I did feel the length of the beginning a little bit. I think the game does as a souls player, it can feel a little slow of like you just want to get into it. But when replaying it on PS five, um, I put about, I, so I put 17 hours on scene deck. I put three hours into PS five replaying it on PS five and like knowing that like,
00:26:59
Speaker
Oh, this is the tutorial section. It's okay. It felt way better. But yeah, once you get past that stuff, the progression just opens up and it feels so great. I will say a critique is I wish I didn't have to go back to the hub city to pop those things or sell the items. Fair. It kind of slows things down a little bit. And there were times where I was like, I just wish I could...
00:27:20
Speaker
at my shell, at my bonfire. I wish I could just pop things or sell them or whatever it may be and level up here and then quickly go over to the boss. Minor critique that can slow down the pacing a little bit, but every time I went back to the hub area, I was like, oh, well, maybe I could go buy a new shell or I could buy a new costume from another vendor. There was always another reason to go back, so it felt okay.
00:27:43
Speaker
to, to add to that. So Canada also asks, is the progression smooth or are there spikes of difficulty after upgrading? And also just for me, like, or did you ever feel feel difficulty when you're past where I am, which again, very early on is like, do you feel the need to grind?
00:28:04
Speaker
I never felt the need to grind. Again, take that with a grain of salt. If you are a Souls player and you're used to these kinds of games, you may have an easier time than others, but I never personally felt a spike in difficulty. I will say towards the later half of the game and
00:28:26
Speaker
once I was able to unlock, or was able to upgrade my adaptations after fighting the boss that tells you how to upgrade your adaptations or your special attacks.
00:28:38
Speaker
Once I unlocked that and I fully upgraded the giant crab claw, the swinging crab claw, I was wrecking the shop, dude. And especially that paired with the baby shoe shell, which gives you another life. All the shells have shell spells and the shell spell for this one particular shell. As long as you activate it, if you die, it revives you.
00:29:03
Speaker
And then that paired with a skill that, um, brings your shell back after it breaks, like those together is like, you'll have a pretty decent time. That being said, I still like, I wouldn't, I wasn't like one-shotting bosses or anything like that. Yeah.
00:29:24
Speaker
I still, it's the funniest thing in the world. Hey guy, Hey Matt, Kyle, you want to record an optional boss for embargo? Like sure. Yeah. Will it spoil anything? No, Kyle, you're good. That's not so optional. I guess not so optional for reference after the
00:29:47
Speaker
the chopstick boss from the Nexus demo. So the first main area of the game is the Grove. The main boss of that area is a giant crab with chopsticks. This is something they've shown publicly a lot.
00:30:05
Speaker
Once you get past that boss, it will tell you to go back to the hub area and move on to the next major area of the game. But you'll notice that there is another path open behind it. So you can go through that path. Once you reach the end of that path, there is another boss. At the time, that was the one boss where I felt that there was a difficulty spike. So in my mind, I was like, okay, clearly I'm not supposed to be doing this boss right now.
00:30:27
Speaker
And like, you know how I play these games. I'm stubborn. I want to do every single optional boss as I get to it. But 20 tries and I was like, okay, I can't do this. I will go back later. No worries. So on youtube.com slash six one indie right now, you can see myself, Kyle and Matt playing that what I thought was an optional boss. But that optional boss is actually another vendor that helps upgrade your special abilities called adaptations, which are like,
00:30:57
Speaker
big skills tied to the right trigger. The one I like a lot is... That use umami. That use umami, which are essentially your mana.
00:31:05
Speaker
My favorite one is the first one you unlock, which is a giant crab claw. So leveling that up to level three, which is the max level, I was able to... It pretty much circles all around me. It's a lot bigger and it uses a lot less mana. So by the time it was all leveled up, I was able to freaking just spam that constantly and do major damage to both health and the stagger meter.
00:31:29
Speaker
So as long as you're smart and you defeat that boss at the proper moment, pacing feels really well and you might have an easier time with some of the areas that might have a difficulty spike. I will say there is one area towards the end game that is just a straight up nightmare.
00:31:48
Speaker
Okay. Like I don't want to spoil anything, but just really quickly to throw Marcus O'Neill's questions in here. Cause it ties into it. Sure. Sure. Seriously. How hard is this game? Are we talking about Dark Souls level difficulty or is the comparison to Dark Souls games overstated? And we already talked about difficulty, difficulty options. There's accessibility to make it.
00:32:11
Speaker
There's the accessibility, there's the assist mode. There is of course the gun that will one-shot any enemy, any boss. So if you do want to just experience the world, the narrative, the story that it's telling, you can put that on there. If that is too much for you, like I said, you could slow enemies down and you can give them less health. You can do things like that. It is super great. All these games should have these options. Maybe not the gun, but depending on the tone.
00:32:35
Speaker
as somebody who played it without any of the assist options. Like I tossed the gun on just to fuck around for a little bit. There's a trophy tied to it. Oh, there is. Okay. I was just going to ask cause I haven't messed with it yet. Shoot a crab, it'll unlock a trophy. Cool.
00:32:51
Speaker
I will say, and again, take this, you know, mileage may vary. I'm a person who was used to these kinds of games and used to the rhythm of souls games. I did not find myself having too difficult of a time. There are bosses that will kick your ass for a little bit. There are areas that will kick your ass a little bit, but I never found myself frustrated or wanting to like put the game down because like a boss is like way too hard aside from the one optional boss that I do think
00:33:17
Speaker
if that boss is a tutorial and a vendor and whatever it may be, like maybe he should have been toned down a little bit. But aside from that, no, this is no way in comparison to any of the FromSoft games, I would say. Like you're gonna have a great time with this, even if you don't use any assist options. Backtracking to what I was going to say before Marcus asked that question, in the end game, there's one area of this fucking game,
00:33:44
Speaker
that again, to reiterate as a goddamn nightmare, not to spoil anything, but think of war of the worlds except under the water. Oh no. Kelsey was watching me go through this area. Actually Kelsey, Kelsey,
00:34:08
Speaker
Kelsey was watching me go through this area and just the terror on my face. Can you come here and like, without spoilers, describe the area, what we compare to war of the worlds. Here. I don't know how to describe, no, but I don't want to be on camera. I look like war's war quad. Okay, good. I'm describing the terror of the area. Whatever, however you want to. Okay. There's a lot of neon. Yeah, but don't go without spoilers. I know.
00:34:37
Speaker
Just the sensation we felt. Heart racing, but also how? How is the best word to describe this? Oh, yeah. I guess just pure terror. Pure terror. That's great. This game quickly turns into a sci-fi horror game. But also just what? Yeah, also just what if he picked up. I'm imagining those little tentacles of the camera.
00:35:03
Speaker
that are kind of like rolling all over the place from war to the world. So getting far off. What was it? Tim Robbins, right? And his basement. I think it was Tim Robbins. Yeah. Not a bad movie. Why should they get recently? Yeah. It's a good blockbuster action flick. Uh, yeah. That was the one area of the game where I was like, I can't explore. I, what am I supposed to be doing? Like, no, like I, I, I just need to run from point A to point B. I would like, now that I'm,
00:35:30
Speaker
I've rolled credits and maybe I'm a little more upgraded and whatnot. I will go back and attempt to scour the lands for some of these items and stuff, but man.
00:35:40
Speaker
It literally turns into world war three at some point, like saving private Ryan levels of avoiding enemies. Hell yeah. Like it ramps the fuck up. And just with Kelsey just mentioning neon, I'm like, hell yeah. I love neon in just general. So I'm
Boss Designs & Exploration Mechanics
00:35:57
Speaker
excited. Yeah. Towards the end game, the use of neon is really damn cool. It's awesome. It's great. I'm excited for you to get to that area so we could talk about it. Yeah. Yeah. It's awesome. It's something.
00:36:07
Speaker
green gorilla writes in, I won't read everything green gorilla. Cause we touched on a lot of the stuff, but basically green gorilla muted everything. Cause he heard it was a crab game, the source like combat. And he wanted to wait until he bought it, which I appreciate it. I appreciate the dedication. He asked, are the movements true to how a crab would move? Like, can you climb up walls, crawl under the sand?
00:36:32
Speaker
a little bit of yes, a little bit of no. Um, so with your grapple, you're able to grapple on to, well, not even just with the grapple. There are certain walls that, um,
00:36:44
Speaker
have nets on them and you could climb nets. There's a lot of verticality to this game. And essentially what this game, like the best way to describe this game, it is a character platformer blended with the souls. Like it feels very much like a character platformer. Like I felt like there were, I was playing a Banjo-Kazooie game at times, just with the amount of platforming and whatnot. With the hover jump. Yeah, like nice hover jumps. So yeah, you're able to, you can't freely scale walls a la,
00:37:10
Speaker
of the wild or anything like that, but you're able to climb nets and whatnot. Again, a lot of verticality. There's jet streams that will help you levitate a little bit up in the air and propel you to a higher platform. As far as crab movements go, if you are a great detail, if you're locked onto an enemy, it does do the side to side kind of thing.
00:37:31
Speaker
Um, not the rave, but just like the way the crab movement is. Gotcha. Um, also a thing that I don't think we will be able to fit into any of these topics, but you showed us in that, uh, boss fight for that YouTube video and I experienced it playing it, but the idle animation where you're throwing around your help pod, like,
00:37:56
Speaker
will drop it and you have to go pick it up or else you lose it, which is awesome. Nick did an interview with I think games are in our future game show. So one of the, one of the organizations, he just mentioned like that. I think it was a boy. He had a crush on
00:38:13
Speaker
He was just like hacky sack around. So he thought like, what would you do when you're bored and just standing around? It's like, oh, just hacky sack. So yeah, the idle animation krill pulls out a kelp, which is essentially your Estes, your health, whatever you want to call it. And if you interrupt the hacky sacking and you run to a different direction, he will drop it and you have to go back and pick it up.
00:38:37
Speaker
Yeah. Great little detail. And last thing that green girl asked that we haven't touched upon yet is how customizable is krill?
00:38:49
Speaker
There are costumes in the game. So it's not like other souls' likes where there's equipment. You're not picking up helmets, armor, leggings, gloves, different weapons. Again, that's with purpose. Everything is very streamlined. There are no stats attached to equipment or costumes or aesthetic.
00:39:10
Speaker
But the game does have costumes. Costumes can be purchased at one of the vendors or found throughout the world. There are certain costumes exclusive to the vendor and certain costumes exclusive to the world. A lot of the costumes are reference to other games, pop culture things. They're very fun.
00:39:31
Speaker
I, well, they did, they have blatantly showed a bunch of these before. Should I say what some of them are? I mean, the April Fool's video has one that you have. So yeah, the April Fool's video has Solaire. So you could find Solaire from Dark Souls. Of course it's not exactly Solaire. No. It's, it's yeah. My favorite thing. Legally distinct. Yeah. My favorite thing is the description of
00:39:55
Speaker
Uh, the costume, uh, which is cause I put it in, uh, our private discord. Um, the cost was called sunlight. So like praise the sun. So sunlight, uh, increases your Dodge roll. I frames by 30%. Haha. Just kidding. Again, that humor, like little things with the humor also with every time a tutorial pops up or like a prompt pops up. Oh yeah.
00:40:19
Speaker
Acknowledge the knowledge. Acknowledge knowledge. That's brilliant, man. It's so good. It's so dumb. And like, I don't think it was going to speak to everybody, but it is so my kind of humor. It's exactly our kind of humor. That just like, it's brilliant, man.
00:40:37
Speaker
It's like that fine line between dumb and brilliant. Even on my PS5 save, and this is something I didn't realize in my first playthrough, in that first area, the shallows, I found a popsicle stick that was embedded in the sand and has a joke on it. Has a joke on it, yeah. The joke was something like, man, I don't exactly remember what it was. It's like,
00:41:00
Speaker
Why did the crab escape? Oh, why did the crab run away from home? It's like the chicken cross the road kind of. Yeah. It was like, why, why did the crab run away from home? And you can't see the rest of the joke because it should bury in the sand. But if you swing at the popsicle stick, you'll pop out of the sand. And the punch line is because he's a tax evader.
00:41:22
Speaker
There's so many tongue-in-cheek things that are wholeheartedly targeting spiraling millennials, I would say, and people dealing with depression and crises constantly. It is a great reflective experience. I will say- It's a story about survival. It's a story about survival. In that YouTube video that we put out when we're facing Totoda, I think, Topita, Topoda,
00:41:49
Speaker
I think it's that topota topota, uh, voiced by, uh, Zalavere Nelson Jr. Uh, strange scaffold, which is why very cool. Um, he, uh, he's going through the tutorial of like, you have to feel the spiral. Everything's a spiraling into a cycle spiral to spiral that and krill krill says something like, yeah, I spiral quite a bit. It's like so good. Like all like the little quippy one liners. I was like, damn,
00:42:18
Speaker
game rocks, man. Question from me that I got from the Twitter questions that we received. Cause there, there are a lot of the same thing of like crab, how many crabs, like how, how crab can a crab? Can a crab crab crab kind of thing? Yeah. And enemy variety. Again, that's super far in. Are we mostly fighting enemy crabs that are polluted?
00:42:48
Speaker
Or do they progressively get like more intense? Obviously a little bit. Like I never felt like there's enough variety there where I never got bored. I never got bored. I never felt like I was doing the same thing over and over again. Each area has its own enemy type. And it's got like a theme has like a bit of a theme. But yeah, I never felt like I was doing the same thing over and over again, which is great. Yeah. It always felt refreshing and fun to fight them. And you get to a point where like,
00:43:18
Speaker
just like all souls games, like you will want to just avoid things. Cause like, it's not worth the amount of souls you'll get. Sure. Yeah. Um, especially in some of those nightmare areas where like very much probably worth fighting some of those enemies, but you will want to run to the next bonfire in the distance. Um, but yeah, it felt, um, it never felt tiresome or anything like that. Great. Um,
00:43:46
Speaker
Green gorilla also asked, uh, he asked about exploration. So, um, is the world fun to explore? Does it feel empty with knowledge to do? Um, the exploration is everything in this game. There is so much with like that verticality and like how detailed all the hubs are.
00:44:05
Speaker
There is so much in every nook and cranny, whether it is one of those umami crystals that will help you upgrade your skills or your adaptation abilities, an item, whether it is a costume or I forgot to mention also, there's the stowaways. Stowaways are pretty much attachable things that give you certain buffs and debuffs. It's like, for example, talking super basic, like a muscle will give you like plus four attack. So it's like things like that, that help you customize your builds a little bit.
00:44:35
Speaker
two out of the three slots. You have nine slots to mess around with and certain stowaways will have a certain value to it. So let's say that one takes up two slots. So now you have seven of the nine slots available. At first, you only have three slots. You could upgrade that number. I like that system a whole lot when it comes to this, where you're not
00:44:57
Speaker
just relying on one accessory slot and then call it a day, but actually have to customize it and get like a unique build going. I think it's great. So that you find a lot of stowways by exploration, you will find just like fun Easter eggs and fun surprises through exploration.
00:45:18
Speaker
Yeah, and taking the time to explore will give you the upper hand for when you are doing some of the main path, critical stuff. The amount of times I found items to upgrade my weapons or get me another kelp in my pouch to get an additional heal.
00:45:39
Speaker
an item to upgrade my mana. There are so many things that are so easily missed. If you just go from point A to point B, the game very much encourages you to take your time and explore. The does it feel empty question is interesting.
00:45:58
Speaker
The game comprises of, if we want to use the word biomes, it has multiple biomes that serve as your main drive to start an area and get to a boss and find the MacGuffin of that area to propel the story forward. All those areas that are built for like, hey, here's a platforming area from point A to point B, find the boss, fight the boss, get the thing, get the fuck out, move on. All those feel incredibly detailed.
00:46:27
Speaker
just brimming with personality and you automatically know the tone and the vibe of the area as soon as you step into it. Incredibly detailed, filled with enemies and NPCs, especially the main city. The main city just feels so alive and again, so grounded because of a lot of those trash details.
00:46:48
Speaker
The sands between is the one area that feels empty. And I think a lot of people will criticize it for being empty, but I think it's done purposeful. I don't want to spoil it, but the sands between is meant to be a very dangerous area that no one
00:47:12
Speaker
is comfortable exploring and it's supposed to feel like you're constantly in danger and you're rushing from point A to point B. Granted, that could be the excuse to not flush out a little more. There will come a point where you can freely explore that area. Once you're able to freely explore that area and really get to the outskirts of certain
00:47:38
Speaker
nooks and crannies. There is life. There is detail. There is things to explore. There are secrets to uncover. There are a lot of fun little Easter eggs to spoil one little thing. That's where I found the Solaire costume. I'll spoil it, whatever. Somewhere in the sands between there is a bonfire and it's essentially just a tribute to Dark Souls.
00:48:05
Speaker
So yes, why I can understand the criticism of it feeling empty once you're able to explore. It feels like it's empty with a purpose, like it's deserted with purpose. Again, that could be an excuse, but that's kind of how I interpreted it.
00:48:23
Speaker
Apologies if everyone watching, if you're watching and you might see me giggling. No, it's fine. Whenever you say it's like Dave Matthews band. So I'm just playing my hand. The sense between. I do understand the joke. The sands was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I get the Elden ring joke. I was like, I don't think they're making a Dave Matthews band joke. No, I know they're not, but that's like, I hear the space between in my head whenever you say it. Getting inducted into the hall of fame.
00:48:50
Speaker
Wild. Frat brothers everywhere are rejoicing. Good for them. I will say we didn't talk about any of the criticisms I have with the game and there's not a lot. I would say my major thing while how important, how vital exploration is, like the game does have a map.
00:49:14
Speaker
You cannot move the map in your menu, so you can't scroll around and see what's around. It's a beautiful map too. It's a beautiful map, beautiful hand-drawn treasure map. Oh, I love it so much. But yeah, you can't move that map around in your menu. So let's say you're all the way on the east side and you want to take a peek on what's on the west side. You're not able to do that. It's not like the Elden Ring map. Granted, I'm grateful there is a map there.
00:49:40
Speaker
when I got used to or I accepted the fact that I couldn't scroll around and I got used to not being able to scroll around, it was still helpful. But man, it would have been so great to be able to move that map around, especially when you are able to explore the sands between, which is a big area and there's a lot of shit you can't miss. I will say my biggest tip to
00:50:01
Speaker
exploring that area is just
Technical Performance & Replayability
00:50:03
Speaker
go around the edge of the sands between because that's pretty much where all the goodies are. But on the off chance, there is something towards the middle that I missed. I wish I was able to see that on the map or even mark that on the map. I think that would have gone a long way, especially with how much this game does in support of accessibility and approachability.
00:50:27
Speaker
Taking notes from Eldering in terms of their mapping system, I think would have been fantastic. Because even, again, going back to the joking thing of like after I fought that optional boss, 15 hours late, and unlocked his skill, which was like a big, a big old punch. Throughout the world, there are these blocks, like these glowing blocks. And the first 15 hours of the game, like I didn't know what the hell those were or how to unlock them.
00:50:56
Speaker
It turns out that boss gives you the ability to unblock those and once you start unblocking those, those are hidden paths to get usually rare items or a costume or whatever.
00:51:11
Speaker
my time with the game, like before leading up to that point where I was, where I got that ability. I wish I was able to mark all those on the map. So now, so I could easily go back instead of like trying to struggle to remember like, Oh, where the hell was that thing? Or even like, I remember I, in one of the areas I came across an NPC who had a quest, which is few and far between. There's not a lot of NPC quest, which I'm totally fine with, but there was an NPC with a quest of like.
00:51:37
Speaker
Hey, I, he's like trapped in a cage or something. I was like, Oh, I wish, um, are you able to get me out? If you had the ability to do this, I bet you can get me out. And then later on I was, I got that ability, but I have no idea where that NPC is. So again, being able to like mark things on the map would have went a long way instead of just trying to remember where things are. Yeah.
00:51:59
Speaker
What I love about the map, especially for some of the optional bosses, it does mark where those bosses are, which is great with beautiful doodle-like illustrations. Again, let's say for that boss, for example, if I didn't remember where he was, it would have been a great asset to have the ability to go back to the map and remember, oh yeah, that's where that dude was. Let me go back.
00:52:26
Speaker
It, that leads into like the old treasure map, like with like Kraken being drawn all like in the sea, like an olden times. Yeah. Um, that's probably my biggest critique. I will also say, um, the sands between is again, I think it's, it's purposefully dense in terms of draw distance. So you can't really see too far ahead of you.
00:52:51
Speaker
paired with the inability to scroll around your map, exploring the sands between can be daunting at first. That's why I recommend once you get to that point, just explore the sides. Just scale all around, just hug the sides, and usually you'll be able to find what you need to find. That's probably my other major critique, but aside from that, man, genuinely, again, it's my game of the year so far.
00:53:19
Speaker
It's not going to speak for everybody. I know Jill Groat, the Indian former, for example, we were talking about it behind the scenes, she ain't a fan at all. So it could just be a me thing. I think it's just the perfect storm of mechanics, tone, vibrancy, and just fun, downright fun gameplay that created just such, in my mind, a special and memorable experience that it's rare that
00:53:47
Speaker
So I reviewed the game on Steam Deck. I played it fully on Steam Deck, start to finish, mostly docked. Butch, by the way, game runs well on Steam Deck. You will notice some frame imbalance, I'll say. Like there are moments when there's nothing happening on screen where the game is running how it's supposed to run like full 60. It's beautiful.
00:54:06
Speaker
It mostly hovers around the high twenties, low, like high twenties to 30. And that is noticeable, but it's nothing that took away from like combat or anything like that. It didn't feel like it was interrupting gameplay. You get a little bit of that PlayStation, just like loading into like a bigger area. There's a little bit of... Yeah, there's like that initial hitchwinds loading in the area, but nothing. When you're in, it's pretty good.
00:54:29
Speaker
But yeah, to the game's credit of how I feel about this game, I did the rare thing of as soon as I rolled credits on the Steam version, I immediately booted the PlayStation version and I wanted to start
Conclusion & Community Questions
00:54:42
Speaker
a new game. And granted, I primarily did that to see how it was running on PS5, which plays fantastic on PS5. I cannot go back to the Steam Deck version now. Granted, on PC, it's great. It's not verified for Steam Deck.
00:54:55
Speaker
totally understandable, but I can't, God damn, I can't go back and play on steam deck. You're a console boy through and through. Yeah, of course. Yeah. But yeah, I booted up just to check it out, to see how it was running. And then all of a sudden I was
00:55:07
Speaker
for, I, I defeated the first four to five bosses in the first, in like two and a half hours. Then now all of a sudden I'm back in and I want to just play through it again already. I get that platinum. I absolutely want to get that platinum. Um, and yeah, that's just to the credit of the game and how much I genuinely adore another crab treasure. Hell yes. Shout out to pop agenda, the nacho crab for giving us codes to play the game and review it. Appreciate you all much. Thanks.
00:55:37
Speaker
Yeah. Any closing thoughts? Any closing questions? Do we miss anything? No, I think you nailed everything. Uh, I apologize that I'm not further in, but like, I'm so excited to keep going. And, and now that I know that there's a war of the world's level in my future, I'm excited to see it. It's very much like the
00:55:58
Speaker
lies a pee moment where I finished the game. Like Mike, you have to finish. I got to talk to somebody. So I'm very excited to keep going. It's, it's one of my favorites of the year for sure. Yeah, for sure. Um, to close this out, I will rattle off some of the questions that, uh, we got on Twitter. Oh, okay. When I put out a call for questions, uh, one Kelsey Lynn town, Joe, exactly how many crabs are in the game? A lot.
00:56:26
Speaker
Metaboidal, AKA Yellow Lab Games. Shout out to you guys. Go check out Metaboidal. Dope-ass Metrophenia, or Dope-ass Metrophenia, I think? It's like a metal survivors like, I believe. Can you kiss other crabs? You have to find out. Wait and see. Chris Becker, Word of the Buttons.
00:56:46
Speaker
You know, a X B Y. Yeah. There's an attack. Traitors. A draft theory to crab or not to crab. How many roads must a crab scuttle down before you can call them a crab? How much crab could a crab, crab, crab, if crab, crab, crab, crab, crab. A lot. Pretty great. That was a good read, Mike. It's just almost fell apart. Next showcase. We got to put one of those from the teleprompter for us. Robo asked the question, is it true that crab? It do be true.
00:57:15
Speaker
Jesus Christ. And finally, one Rob Manuel from IGN. Was the real crab's treasure all the friends we made along the way? Ironically enough, that kind of sums up the narrative very well.
00:57:30
Speaker
That's great. Without spoiling anything. That's kind of the theme of the story. That's awesome. Cool. Thank you so much for hanging out and listening to our another crabs treasure review discussion.
00:57:45
Speaker
As long as everything goes according to plan, there should be my written review up on 6.1indy.com at this very moment. If you are listening to this the day it publishes, tomorrow you'll get to see our gameplay video of taking out that quote unquote optional boss. If you're listening to this after April 25th, go check it out right now, youtube.com slash 6.1indy while you're there.
00:58:09
Speaker
both for this video and that video, like the video, drop a comment for the algorithm, give it a thumb up, all that good stuff, subscribe. Got a lot of cool stuff happening. A lot of games are coming out. We're playing them all, every single one of them. Can't believe it. We're trying. Kyle, thanks for hanging out. Of course. Thanks for having me. Everyone listening, thank you for hanging out. Go crap. Go crap. I don't know what that means.
00:58:37
Speaker
That's fine. It is what it is now. Be shellfish. No, I need to go to sleep. Yeah, we need to go.