In recent years, souls-based games have become a popular category, and various manufacturers have also made their themes into tricks, including "Elden Ring" with a dark fantasy style, "Wolf" with ninjas as the protagonist, "Hollow Knight" with Metroidvania-like "Hollow Knight", and "Pinocchio's Lies" with the fairy tale "Pinocchio" as the background change... This time, Aggro Crab focuses on the ocean, and the story unfolds from the perspective of a small hermit crab to discuss the age-old problem of marine debris.
Speaking of Aggro Crab, he is an independent game studio founded in 2019 in Seattle, USA, and only one dungeon exploration game called "Going Under" was released before the announcement of "Crab Crab Treasure Hunt". This time, the production team moved the game background from the office to the bottom of the sea, and the game genre also changed from "meat pigeon" to "soul-like". So what about this game, which was nicknamed "Crab" and "Soul of Seafood" by players before its release?
His garbage, your treasure
The story of the game begins with a "debt collection", where the protagonist Creel, the hermit crab, is unable to pay the debt before 10 tides, and the back shell has to be recovered by a loan shark. In order to pay off his debts and find a "home" that can protect his safety, Creel has to go to the bottom of the sea to ask the queen for a job. Unable to let him enter the castle because he was poorly clothed, Creel had to go to the charity center to find something to wear. Eventually, Creel arrives at a vending machine, and soda cans become his temporary "home".
After meeting the Queen, the two reached an agreement that Creel would go to the cave west to join the advance team, and if they found the trinkets, they could defer the payment of taxes. What kind of journey will Creel face next, and will he be able to find that "home" that is truly his own?
The ocean depicted in the story of "Crab Crab Treasure Hunt" may be a little different from what everyone knows, and the royal principality of the tide is full of human garbage, which becomes a "treasure" when it reaches the bottom of the sea. Scraps of paper and cigarette butts make up the road to the Queen's Castle, the siege of the castle and its gates are made of sand shovels and cardboard, the guards in front of the gates are armed with disposable drink cup lids, and the turtles that take off their shells carry an hourglass on their backs...
▲ Paper drawn hermit crab and hourglass sea turtle in the distance
The production team depicts the plight of underwater creatures when they are forced to coexist with human waste, and tells the story of real-life situations such as hermit crabs being forced to live in drink cans. If that's not impressive, later in the game, when Creel heads to a dock, a large number of already disposed of compressed garbage blocks and toxic sludge will take over the screen. All kinds of garbage will become the only foothold, if accidentally fall into the silt, the physical strength and mobility of the small hermit crab will be greatly reduced, and the idea of protecting the marine environment has been deeply imprinted in the player's mind after experiencing it firsthand.
▲ Hermit crabs that live in jars in reality
In recent years, there have been fewer and fewer games without Chinese, and various manufacturers are trying to do a good job in game localization, and "Crab Crab Treasure Hunt" seems to be very attentive in this regard. The most intuitive is the dialogue text during the plot performance, when the little hermit crab is directly replied to "about my birds" when the shark takes back its back shell and begs for mercy; when he wants to enter the castle and is stopped, he will praise himself as "so cute that he can even hug it"; when he encounters the first boss, because he is the captain of the guard, he will be questioned "dare to raise a knife to the law". From this point of view, Aggro Crab is obviously much more careful in terms of localization than some large manufacturers that directly translate the original text.
At the same time as having a better localization, I have to complain about the map design and level guidance of this work,The map of "Crab Crab Treasure Hunting" is presented in the form of a picture book,Players can only understand their own location and surrounding facilities when viewing,The most terrible thing is that the map can't be enlarged and moved at will。 In the process of playing, what to do next where players can only know according to the plot, there is no guidance beyond that, and in the process of the plot performance, you don't know what to do next. Although the game has a compass in the upper left corner, it is only visible in towns, but the markers indicate the location of the various shops and have no effect on the game's advancement.
The immovable map combined with little to no guidance makes the game experience plummet.
▲The picture book boss is still very cute
A design that makes a difference
As mentioned earlier, the little hermit crab Creel had to choose a drink can as a temporary residence due to debt, which also involves the core setting of this game - to change shells and fight anytime and anywhere.
The Royal Duchy is littered with garbage, most of which could be used as a temporary residence for Creel. Not only do these backshells block damage, but each has a carapace spell. These spells are designed based on the back shell, like a soda can that releases air to push enemies away and deal damage, ice cream cones that freeze around and slow down enemies, and tennis balls that move at high speed and roll into your enemies. There are as many as 69 types of shells in the game, and although some of them have duplicate skills, in general, these types of shells are enough to easily deal with enemies in different scenarios if used properly.
There are three weight classes of the back shell: S, M, and L, and the heavier the back shell, the higher the damage it can withstand, and the corresponding impact on Operation Creel. With the back shell equipped, the player can also "raise" some crustaceans on it. Some of these crustaceans are simple and brutal and directly bring a numerical layer to Creel, some can make enemies easier to knock down and make the battle easier, and some can directly assist the player in battle, and the stronger the effect brought by the crustacean, the higher the Creel's own ability will be.
In addition to the skills and abilities that come with the Carapace, Creel can also learn skills in the course of battle. The rebounds that are necessary for souls-like games and the weak point attacks after the enemy is exhausted need to spend materials to learn. The Predator True Crab Way in the three upgrade paths encourages the player to use the Bullet Counter Sojourn Way to increase the player's survivability.
After defeating certain bosses, Creel can also get a powerful mimic attack, defeating the pistol shrimp allows Creel to launch bubbles to consume enemies remotely, electric eels give power generation to attack enemies while also passing certain levels, and some special adaptive abilities need to be obtained through map exploration.
Speaking of soul-like games, players love and hate, hate that this kind of game is too difficult, under normal circumstances, a boss has to challenge for hours, love is the sense of accomplishment that can be brought after a successful challenge, which is not comparable to other types of games. "Crab Treasure Hunt" adds a support mode to the Souls game, and players can choose to turn on multiple options at the same time to reduce the difficulty of the challenge. If that's still difficult, you can choose to give Creel a gun, at which point the carapace on his body will turn into a gun, and all enemies will be killed with one hit.
After talking about the eye-catching part earlier, let's complain about the shortcomings of the game. The levels of this game are divided into multiple parts, such as shoals, lost woodlands, and valleys of drifts, each with its own unique landscape design. Among them, in the process of helping the queen find trinkets in the early stage of the game, the tight combat rhythm and the eye-catching shell-changing battle design bring players a straight increase in the game experience. By the late game, a lot of puzzle solving and pathfinding were added, resulting in a straight down of the tempo, and the down-and-out combat became a side dish. Coupled with the fact that there are a lot of puzzles that just move something to a certain place, it will affect the overall smoothness of the game and make players feel uncomfortable.
In the process of playing, the author also encountered a BUG that caused me to fall directly from a high place, so complicated that I couldn't tell where I was after falling, and the climbing route allowed me to turn on the pistol mode directly when I returned to the falling position, and no longer wasted time.
▲Let's go find a fuse
The last is the locked perspective during the battle.,Unlike other games that only fix the perspective after locking.,This game will enter the "movie mode" after locking the enemy.。 This design is supposed to be a feature of the game, but the problem of the easy to get stuck in the camera after locking it will cause players to be reluctant to turn on this mode.
Review Summary
The fun of "Crab Crab Treasure Hunt" is mainly concentrated in the 3-4 hours when players are new to the game, and in the middle of the game, problems such as lengthy levels and poor guidance are gradually exposed, and the fun begins to decline. The "shell change" design that makes players feel bright will no longer be fresh in the later stage due to the problem of high skill repetition. The assist mode, which was originally used to reduce the difficulty, can make the game experience increase instead of decreasing when turned on.