Text / Ah Mao
There is Cassinia, a land of wandering confluences.
The holy toilet has been cleaned, but there is no king in sight.
When the Legacy Vortex converges, the King of the Mariana Trench will awaken:
They are the people's entrepreneurs of Sewage Bay - Bincheng salt-baked skin shrimp.
Two-day first-class ghost warrior - matsutake steamed pine leaf crab.
Yanan City's senior old hunter - Portuguese stewed freshly pickled cuttlefish.
But the fishfish will give up their thrones, right?
And homeless seafood will rise -
It's a homeless hermit crab, but that's why it's so hungry for treasures......
Is it familiar to Dark Souls players?
Although the events of this opening sentence did not happen across the galaxy, after "P's Lies" and "The Fallen Lord" last year, you can see that this soul-like wind has indeed blown into a world that has never been imagined - the underwater world
So much so that even my group of soul-like lovers half-jokingly circulated a joke:
What to do this summer? Four crabs, six trees, and August monkeys.
August Monkey is Black Myth: Wukong.
The June Tree is the Ring DLC Shadow of the Golden Tree.
And the four crabs refer to this "must-play macho must-play" cute game-
"Crab Crab Treasure Hunt"
One
What exactly is a soul smell?
Is it the scream of love around the corner of the 360th line?
Is it the sudden enlightenment of another village?
Or is it the orgasm of the boss who blushes all night long?
But no matter how delicious it is, for many players, the weird and grotesque aesthetic is still a poison point that can't be crossed, and the typical one is the hair-making monster design, which is probably not acceptable to people who are afraid of insects anyway.
So, when "Crab" debuted at Nintendo for the first time with bright and clear art, I wondered what kind of future possibilities it would present?
For example, have you ever seen a philosophical van shrimp with a U-shaped lock and a suffocating plastic bag on his head? He is blocked at the entrance of the village in the posture of a big tree guard, and I can make two pots of crab meat noodles when I am executed.
Have you ever seen a ring-punk fathead fish that drives a happy otaku with bioelectric power? The foul-smelling submarine garbage station is like a flange manure pit in the Black Soul 3A scenic spot, and the hair is choked and buzzed a few times, instantly shattering the male chromosomes.
And the most wonderful thing is the lobster that guards the royal city and carries a toothbrush on his waist. When it jumped into the air, the moment the sanitary napkin armor behind it was wingspanning, there was no need to doubt its mental state, and the picture of the swooping down in an instant was a work of art.
The game uses seafood and garbage to combine all kinds of stupid and cute monsters, which is less cold and has more "black humor", because it is not the fire of "Black Soul" and the disease of "Bloodborne" that make the residents crazy, but the more realistic and satirical "marine garbage".
Like toothpicks, bottle caps, vomit bags, wine glasses, scissors, airplane cups, any mess of household garbage has become a weapon against players in the hands of hospitable undersea residents, especially when holding a lot of money through the labyrinth-like area, it is even more terrified to hold your breath and concentrate, and you are afraid that the producer's malice will pop out of the corner, and give a "stick education" about environmental protection.
YOU DEAD
You see, crabs don't just have to be an undersea soul cartoon soul.
Rather, through the shell of the soul, there is something that you want to express.
Therefore, the only character in the whole game who is not affected by marine garbage is the "Conch Fire Girl" who is closest to the player, who is graceful, plump, fat and juicy, and may also be the best food fire girl in all soul games.
Two
Undoubtedly, the highly unified character design of appearance, narrative and function is one of the highlights of "Crab", in addition to the aforementioned mad dog garbage guys, the most typical example is the protagonist.
As we all know, hermit crabs are in the nature of hermit crabs, but as marine pollution has become more serious, some studies have shown that hermit crabs have learned to live in symbiosis with garbage, and even show a fetish in the eyes of humans.
And our protagonist Creel was originally a traditional hermit crab with a snail shell, until his heavenly home was stolen, and he set foot in the materialistic city and was forced to live in garbage.
The mouse shell can release thunder and lightning, the anti-wine glass can punch drunk, the ink cartridge can spray ink and slip away, and the existence of a total of 69 back shells in the whole game can be said to greatly enrich the strategic depth of the battle.
In the past, the grinding process of running the map has become a relatively comfortable existence, and it is not a big deal to shrink the shell and drive.
If you are surrounded, you don't have to be hard-hitting, see the situation clearly, use the environment, find the garbage that can turn the tide of the battle, and slide into the shovel to release the combat skills, theoretically even if the handicapped party can use the environment to achieve victory.
The rest of the fighting feel of souls such as shield reversal, dodge, execution, etc., although "Crab Crab" is not excellent, but it is self-consistent and solid, that is, some basic functions are installed on the skill tree, and it is recommended that everyone give priority to finding a fireproof girl to unlock.
It is worth screwing out separately about the design of the fishing line.
It is not only an efficient means of movement to run the map, but also can accurately control and reduce the stamina of the boss in the boss battle, which is nothing, but the process of "fishing" will enter a confrontation animation.
Games that lack design and even some triple-A masterpieces usually add QTE animations at such times, but compared to those QTE animations where the people inside are devastating and I can only stupidly press the controller outside, "Crab Crab", a fishing mini-game that is just right but brings a strong sense of tension through the vibration of the controller, may make me feel more bloody and not dramatic.
Perhaps because of this combat system that is not just a soul-like system, many bosses in the game have left a deep impression on me.
is very representative of this squid teacher, with a fingernail pliper sawing the flesh and deforming, a pistol against the champagne cork viscera crit, a deep voice tentacles fluttering black trench coat, and the scabbard fish head is like a tricorne-
One move and one move, does it remind you of the figure of an old man on a hunting night?
This bowl of soulful seafood sashimi brings a charming new taste and is full of tributes that will make veteran players smile.
Three
It can be seen that the combat system of "Crab Crab" is relatively hard.
And in addition to the combat growth, its gameplay drive is also reflected in the exploration and story.
In terms of exploration, the map of "Crab" is not small, and the map also uses the 18th-century paper map of "Ring", although to a certain extent, it restores the surprise of the old-school soul game of wandering around and suddenly finding a hidden place, but players with a bad sense of direction are easy to get lost.
To this end, the production team ingeniously adopted a lot of weak guidance methods. For example, in a certain area, if the player deviates from the correct route, a high-intensity hunter will emerge, and before the combat power is increased in the medium term, the sheepdog can only be driven to the right path like a sheep.
In terms of the design of the exploration drive, the same cute pet style "Crab" also has a bit of the style of "Hollow Knight", and after cleaning up the bosses in some specific areas, players will also get a special skill that is translated as "mimic attack" (that is, the adaptive with pictures).
These perks simulate some of the boss's signature skills or abilities, which can be helpful not only in combat, but also in new areas.
The crustacean trinket slot is even more reminiscent of the rune slot, and the production team even made a seemingly useless "chair to sit on". When flying away with a fishing line and hooking claw attacks to derive, I even became a little too addicted to "Song of Silk" in a trance.
As for the story, "Crab Crab" is not a riddler, but has a complete plot line.
Why the protagonist's house was taken away, why the inhabitants of the sea are obsessed with garbage, and why garbage is mad will be unraveled as the story progresses.
Even environmental pollution is not the core of its irony.
Beneath the fate of the underwater world lies a metaphor for the real world.
Just as Aggro Crab's previous work "Going Down" is a Rougelike game in which an intern punches his head and kicks his colleague to the boss of the cake, the production team is very good at creating a refreshing feeling of deconstruction of the capital system.
The extreme way to ignite your anger and finally get you to vent at a key point in the game will probably be my first memory when I think back to this game many years later.
Four
So to sum up, "Crab Crab Treasure Hunt" is a bizarre work that seems to be open and happy, but in fact inherits the core of "Dark Souls". At first glance, the themes of undersea pollution and capitalism seem to be unrelated to the general frustration of soul-like spirits, but they are very logically self-consistent under the excellent construction of Aggro Crab, and even show the arc of "black humor".
For example, monster design.
One of the major inspirations for "Dark Souls" comes from "The Legend of the Sword Wind", in which it is Behelette who turns humans into monsters, and Behelet will amplify human obsessions, and then turn people into the appearance of their own desires.
"Crab Crab" rejects the gloom and grotesqueness in it, but uses garbage as its own Behlet to tell hellish jokes that belong to the perspective.
The objects on the Duchess's body were lace, jewelry, and cosmetics.
The residence of the president of the chaebol Pi Phi Shrimp is a huge casino pachinko machine.
However, the workers in the company town are shivering in yellow vests with dark circles under their eyes, and outside the safety zone are full of scenes of former workers falling into madness.
Such as exploration and combat.
In terms of setting, the protagonist is the one who wants to lie down the most and rejects industrial waste, but he has to use all the available garbage and master all the combat skills to pace alone in this malicious underwater world.
Fortunately, the production team did not insist on making it difficult for players.
Not only can the game's built-in modifiers be fine-tuned to suit your needs, including reducing trap damage, adding extra anti-bounce windows, and even allowing you to pull out a gun, perform an American home, and clean up ocean debris with fire.
Therefore, from the imitation of "Soul-like" to the interpretation of its own theme based on its structure, the gameplay of "Crab Crab Castle Adventure" in old bottles and new wine may be a game-breaking idea for today's soul-like games to roll into the Red Sea environment, guiding developers to step out of their comfort zone to explore the future development direction of "soul-like".
Just as the logo of the development team Aggro Crab is an angry big crab, when Untiy suddenly announced the charge last year, they were the first to come out and post a tough post.
At a time when Souls is inexplicably starting to become a conservative choice for developers, as an indie game, it needs a determination like Aggro Crab.