| Another Crab's Treasure | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Aggro Crab |
| Publisher(s) | Aggro Crab |
| Writer(s) | Caelan Pollock |
| Platform(s) | |
| Release | April 25, 2024 |
| Genre(s) | Action-adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Another Crab's Treasure is a Soulslike action-adventure video game developed and published by Aggro Crab. The game was released for PlayStation 5, Windows, Nintendo Switch and Xbox Series X/S on April 25, 2024. [1]
Another Crab's Treasure is a Soulslike action-adventure video game played from a third-person perspective. The player controls Kril, a crab stripped of his protective shell. Shells function as Kril's armor, granting defensive capabilities, statistics, and even unique abilities. By scouring the seabed, Kril can transform discarded trash into functional tools for survival. [2] A rusty can becomes a defensive powerhouse, while a chipped bottle transforms into a ranged weapon. Combat is deliberate and slow-paced, demanding players to dodge enemy attacks, identify openings, and leverage their shell's abilities to survive. [3] Microplastics, remnants of a polluted world, become Kril's currency for upgrades and resources. Unlike most Soulslike games, Another Crab's Treasure allows players to change the difficulty at any time. [4]
The underwater world is a web of interconnected environments. As Kril navigates these treacherous landscapes, he encounters environmental puzzles and gradually unveils the story of the polluted ocean and its history. Similar to the Soulsborne series that inspired it, Another Crab's Treasure offers a challenging experience. [5] Enemies inflict significant damage, death comes with a penalty, and victory hinges on learning enemy patterns and strategizing one's approach. The world itself is designed for exploration, with shortcuts and hidden areas waiting to be discovered. Newfound abilities grant access to previously unreachable locations, encouraging players to revisit areas and delve deeper. Environmental storytelling is emphasized by Aggro Crab, integrating the narrative into the world design, item descriptions, and cryptic messages from fellow inhabitants. [6] [7]
Another Crab's Treasure unfolds beneath the ocean's surface, where once-thriving aquatic domains now grapple with an ominous curse. Underwater landscapes have succumbed to the weight of environmental degradation and mysterious afflictions. [8] Pollution threatens the delicate balance of marine life, rendering survival a precarious endeavor.
In a quiet tide pool, Kril, a misanthropic hermit crab, is informed by a loan shark (represented by an unknown entity carrying a shark toy) that the tide pool has been annexed by the undersea Duchy of Slacktide, and Kril owes backtaxes. Unable to pay, due to Kril having been separated from ocean society for most of his life, the Loan Shark confiscates his shell as collateral and returns to the ocean.
Kril follows, and finds many of the ocean's denizen overcome with a strange affliction that renders them nihilistic and violent. He manages to arrive at Castle Slacktide, where he strikes a bargain with the vain and greedy Duchess Magista to obtain a treasure in exchange for his shell. However, upon Kril's return to the castle with such a treasure, Magista and her guards have succumbed to the affliction, and Kril is forced to kill her in defense.
Kril pursues the Loan Shark to New Carcinia, a massive city built out of trash in a nearby reef. There he meets Firth, an entrepreneuring hermit crab; Nemma, the owner of a tavern in the lower crust of the city: and Konche, the hermit crab curator of the city's museum. Kril eventually finds his shell in the possession of Prawnathan, a shrimp owning a pawn shop, who refuses to return it. Before Kril can fight back, a garbage patch passes over the city, raining garbage onto it. As undersea society uses trash as both a currency and building material, the citizens see this as an economic boom.
During the trash rain, a torn cereal box lands in the city. The pirate-themed children's maze printed on the back of the box is interpreted by the citizens as a treasure map. Initially, Roland, the wealthy and powerful isopod CEO of the trash-scavenging Shellfish Corp intimidates the citizens into backing off and allowing his company to find the treasure unopposed, but when Prawnathan offers Kril his shell back in exchange for the treasure, his enthusiastic agreement spurns on the other crabs to rebel against Roland and search for the treasure as well.
Kril ventures across the ocean, finding pieces of the map and learning in the process from Chitan, a lobster that formerly guarded Castle Slacktide has become a traveling vigilante, that the affliction, referred to as "Gunk", has been spreading and getting progressively worse.
After finding the pieces of the map, the treasure is revealed to be located in a lake of polluted sludge near a drop-off. Roland, as the only crustacean with the resources to dredge the lake, confiscates the map and resolves to take the treasure unopposed. Krill, Nemma, Konche, Firth, Chitan, and a handful of townsfolk band together to find a vessel that can traverse the lake. As they sail to catch up with Roland, the other crabs discuss their plans for if they find the treasure, and agree to split it amongst themselves, save for Kril, who only wants to buy his shell back and return to his old life of doing nothing and not interacting with anyone.
The group catches up with Roland's barge at the drop-off, where Roland ambushes them, revealing that his allowing them to follow has been a trap to lure them onto private property so he would have the legal grounds to kill them. As Roland's enforcer, Inkerton the squid clashes with Chitan, Kril manages to defeat Roland in battle. However, Roland recovers, and the barge extracts the massive treasure chest from below. Roland condemns the group for resisting, and resolves to let his employees attack the group, but Kril, furious, attacks Roland directly, offsetting the barge and causing it, the treasure, and all aboard to tumble into the depths below.
Kril awakens in the Unfathom, the ocean's abyssal depths, with no means of returning himself or the others to New Carcinia. He finds Firth with the treasure, revealed to be a fortune - in American 100 dollar bills, rendering it worthless to undersea society. Firth ruthlessly scolds Kril for dragging them all on this quest, and for getting them all trapped in the Unfathom. Dejected, Kril begins wandering through the darkness, where he begins hearing a strange voice asking him his thoughts on the state of the world, and what he intends to do about it. Eventually he succumbs to an infection of Gunk and an attack by creatures of the Unfathom, but is saved and nursed back to health by Nemma. Agreeing to help Nemma, Konche, and any other survivors find a way back to New Carcinia, Kril explores the unfathom, eventually finding a Moon Snail Shell, one of the game's save and fast-travel points, which he uses to help Nemma return to New Carcinia. Konche however, recognizes the architecture of the ruins in the Unfathom as belonging to an ancient crab kingdom that houses a treasure that could make them all rich, and remains below, inviting Kril to investigate with him.
Kril explores the abyssal plains under Konche's guidance, eventually stumbling upon Roland and Inkerton. Inkerton, succumbing to the Gunk and fed up with Roland's scolding, executes Roland, and is subsequently defeated by Kril. Kril and Konche finally find the entrance to the Old Ocean, a bleached coral reef holding the ruins of Carcinia, the former seat of power for the fallen kingdom. Konche, who grew up in old Carcinia, reveals the treasure to be a shell capable of conferring godlike power to its wearer called the Perfect Whorl, created by hermit crab sorcerers and coveted by Carcinia's king. As Kril explores the city, he speaks more to the mysterious voice, which identifies itself as a god and speaks of an impending apocalypse.
Kril makes it to the throne room, and defeats Carcinia's still-living king, Camstcha, who has fallen to madness and bleaching. In a cavern below his throne, Kril and Konche find the Perfect Whorl. Before they can claim it however, a Gunk-afflicted Chitan arrives and kills Konche. Chitan is revealed to be under the control of the entity Kril had been speaking to, revealed to be Praya Dubia, an enormous siphonophore comprising the souls of all ocean life that had succumbed due to pollution. Pray Dubia, the source of the Gunk, reveals that they had been attempting to groom Kril by exposing him to the ocean's agonies so that Kril could claim the Whorl and use its power to end the world. But Kril, in his single minded determination to reclaim his shell and newfound appreciation of his friends, never succumbed to the nihilism of the Gunk. Furious, Praya Dubia attacks, forcing Kril to fight Chitan as well.
Once Praya Dubia is defeated and destroyed, Kril resolves to use the Perfect Whorl to heal Chitan, but before he is able to do so, Firth arrives and takes it for himself. Firth refuses to hear out Kril's requests and instead decides that as a self-appointed God, he can singlehandedly save the ocean with his entrepreneurial ideas. Kril follows him into a vortex that leads them to the top of the trash island above the ocean's surface. Firth reveals his plan to save the ocean is to sink the garbage patch directly onto New Carcinia, thus prompting an economic boom, and with the new technology to be developed during that prosperity, the city will be able to use less trash in the eventual future. Kril calls out Firth for the paradoxical nature of this plan, and realizes that the only way to get his point across is by force. As the trash island sinks, Kril manages to defeat Firth, claiming the Whorl for himself. Unfortunately, the Whorl had cracked during their battle, and so Kril's singular usage of it before it shatters is to punch Firth hard enough that the trash mass below him explodes, scattering all across the reef.
Kril wakes up in New Carcinia, which has been buried in trash. Firth is crushed by a falling boot, as Kril, not sure what else to do now, resolves to get his shell back. Kril confronts Prawnathan, who refuses to return the shell, prompting Kril to execute Prawnathan and take it back by force.
An epilogue reveals that New Carcinia began cleaning up its trash, Chitan survived and began training again, and that Kril decided to remain under the sea as a traveling adventurer, using his skills to protect people from monsters and those succumbed to the Gunk. A final shot reveals that he gave his shell to a homeless hermit crab.
Another Crab's Treasure was announced during a Nintendo Indie World presentation in 2022. Aggro Crab showcased the game's Soulslike concept. [9] Following the announcement, details about the game emerged throughout 2023. Information regarding the core mechanics like the "Shell System" – where discarded trash becomes Kril's customizable armor – and the emphasis on exploration and environmental storytelling were revealed. Additionally, the developers confirmed the game's release platforms, including Nintendo Switch, PC, and Xbox One and Series X/S. The confirmation of Xbox availability, including its inclusion on Xbox Game Pass on launch day, came in June 2023. Aggro Crab announced that the game would be released on April 25, 2024. [1]
| Aggregator | Score |
|---|---|
| Metacritic | 79/100 [10] |
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| Game Informer | 7/10 [11] |
| GameSpot | 7/10 [12] |
| IGN | 8/10 [13] |
| PC Gamer (US) | 80/100 [14] |
Another Crab's Treasure received "generally favorable" reviews from critics according to Metacritic. [10]
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