Another Crab's Treasure is a lot of fun, and really made for folks who like soulslikes but want a change of pace. It has a good story and thematic gameplay. If you are fishing for nautical nonsense with satisfying bosses this is your game. As for length, I completed the game and all achievements in 26 hours. I think I arrived at the final boss at around 22 hours.

As for things you can sink your claws into, the game really captures being a crab underwater well. You are underwater and a hermit crab in a mostly open world game. You don't swim well, but you can flail about a bit to fall a little slower. There is a deflect and parry mechanic in the game that is tied to using your crab's shell. If you hide in your shell, it will absorb and negate some damage (deflect). If you exit your shell just as the attack lands you will perfect parry, taking no damage and giving the opponent posture damage (and allowing for a riposte when you get that upgrade). The parry mechanic takes a little getting used to as you have to be in your shell first and exit at the right time. Many games do the opposite, where you have to time your deflect just as the attack hits. By the end of the game I was parrying swimmingly.

With respect to difficulty, if you don't learn the game mechanics you are going to have a bad time. I found the platforming bits in the game much more difficult than the combat; but I tend to not like parkour in games so that may just be me. All that said, if you flow with the game its a decent challenge and a lot of fun. If you find yourself getting frustrated they added in an "Assist Mode" with a bunch of options. Normally I ignore that completely, but there is an achievement for using one of the Assist features. That one involves giving your crab an actual handgun that just one shots anything. I have heard you can use that on bosses if you want to just surge past them.

The story is actually pretty good. We start off with some light tax evasion and end up less of a hermit. There's a lot of "obvious subtlety" in the art and mechanics about ocean pollution. Microplastics are the main currency and trash is something you interact with all the time as your shell is made of it. The way the ocean dwellers interact with it is best described as aggressive capitalism, which keeps the story light. The music and level art are great too, and fit with the theme well.

As for issues, I did encounter a few small glitches here and there. There were several times that I exited the scenery and had to find a way back into the level. I also had the game go into "slideshow mode" when my controller disconnected. Overall nothing to be too crabby about. Mechanically, it is a little less "snappy" than games a lot like it. What I mean is, sometimes I would press an input for an action and nothing would happen as it was finishing up a previous frame of something else. That was a little frustrating.

The achievements are not miss-able in this game, so its a good one to 100% if you are into that. Like this review to Acknowledge Knowledge!

The only souls-like I actually finished.

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