Recent reviews by Ho Hum

After 5 months of playing this game and completing all of the DLC, I absolutely would recommend that you play this game! I was instantly addicted when I first started playing all the way back in January, and by the time I've completed the main story, I instantly bought all of the DLC. It's very casual, fun, and charming, and I would argue that it is the best Touhou fangame ever made. You don't even have to be a Touhou fan to enjoy this game, it is a fun restaurant simulator in its own right and being a gateway into the Touhou Project is a bonus. If you are a Touhou fan, this game strikes a fine balance between lore accuracy and fan service. And as expected from a Touhou fangame, of course the soundtrack is phenomenal.

My only criticisms of the game would be the occasional spelling error (which is honestly just a nitpick on my end), the (as of the writing of this review) still-untranslated section of DLC 5, and the gameplay getting repetitive the longer you play it. But I would still encourage anyone to take a chance on this game, you won't regret it!

10/10

This game is HARD, but satisfying when you win. I enjoyed the ghost theme though.

7/10 - Yaga is literally me.

Another Crab’s Treasure was my introduction to the soulslike genre. I otherwise wouldn’t have picked up this game of this genre, but the only reason I dipped my toes into it is because I really loved Aggro Crab’s previous game Going Under and I wanted to see if that love could be carried over to the second game to their name.

In Another Crab’s Treasure you play as Krill, a young hermit crab living in solitude in the tide pools along the beach. He is content with his life until his shell is taken away by a dubious loan shark, forcing him to venture into the dreaded ocean to get it back. Krill very quickly learns that microplastics have become the main currency among the denizens of the ocean and slowly corrupting them into becoming mindless monsters. But with the help of the diverse cast of characters he meets along his journey, Krill learns how to cope with the harsh environment of the ocean.

Gameplaywise, I had a lot of fun playing this game the more I played it. The main gimmick of Another Crab’s Treasure is the various human trash littering the ocean floor that Krill can use as shells. Each shell has unique stats such as weight, armor, and abilities that can help or hinder you in different situations. There is also a skill tree that unlocks different abilities, collectables that can boost or nerf your stats, and various special “adaptation” attacks that are gained primarily by beating bosses. And in true soulslike fashion, combat in this game is pretty hard especially for soulslike noobs like myself. There is a big learning curve that you must overcome to fully enjoy this game. It can be frustrating sometimes, but that comes with the genre. And if you think this game is too hard (or easy), there’s an assist mode menu where you can adjust the game to your pleasure. This game is perceived as “baby’s first soulslike” for a reason, and the accessibility options it has for soulslike noobs makes sure that fun can be had by everyone who gives this game a chance.

Storywise, much like Going Under, Another Crab’s Treasure is a satirical social commentary. This time around Aggro Crab tells us a story that critiques the effects of pollution on our oceans as well as the uncaring greed of capitalism. And don’t be fooled by the Spongebob-like aesthetics, the game gets pretty serious out of nowhere towards the end. It can get a little inconsistent sometimes, but it didn’t ruin my overall enjoyment of the game. There is one moment in the story that might make the player reflect on their life, but I won’t entirely spoil it - you’ll have to play the game to experience it yourself.

Aggro Crab is slowly becoming my favorite indie video game studio. Their games have a unique charm to them that I first saw in Going Under and was pleased to see again in Another Crab’s Treasure. I can’t wait to see what genre they decide to take on next!

8/10 - Among other things, this game’s OST is also fun to listen to and has Aggro Crab’s writing all over it (at least when compared to what I heard in Going Under).

Every time I try to get back into playing this game, I'm immediately reminded of why I stopped playing in the first place. It's a shame because I used to have so much fun playing this game. But it's just not the same anymore...

#SaveTF2
#FixTF2

For a small indie company with only two video games to its name, Aggro Crab stuck the landing with its debut game Going Under - a fun and quirky dungeon crawler that you can casually play if you want to kill time.

You are put into the shoes of Jackie Fiasco, a young lady fresh out of college excited for her first internship at the soda company Fizzle, only for it to turn out that it's not exactly the kind of work she had hoped to do. To her displeasure, she instead is sent by her boss, Marv, into the depths of the building to fight off goons of other companies that have since gone under in hopes of avoiding the same fate. The story is a satirical take on corporate work culture that anyone who has worked a job in the industry would come to know and despise. This is also reflected in the art style which is the same Corporate Memphis art style that many companies use.

The characters and setting that helps the story build up to a Regular Show-style climax all add to the charm of Going Under in one way or another. The employees at Fizzle act as "mentors" that give you perks in the dungeons as you do more tasks / side quests for them. There's the company CEO Ray, the brains behind Fizzle in Fern, the overworked secretary Tappi, the tech-savvy computer genius Kara, and the hourly barista Swomp. In my opinion, Swomp is my favorite one character-wise and gameplay-wise. But the others have unique perks that could help you out in a certain way that you see fit. There are other perks such as "resume skills" and "apps" / "Fizzle sodas" that you can find throughout the dungeons to help you complete them.

As for the dungeons themselves, they're all unique in their own ways as well. There's Joblin which is based off of job websites such as Indeed, the dating app company known as Winkydink, and the cryptocurrency-themed Styxcoin (this one is probably my favorite just for how utterly goofy the boss fight of this dungeon is). Along with Fizzle, these other failed companies are all owned by the retail conglomerate Cubicle, which takes obvious inspiration from Amazon.

Overall, this game is fun to play casually and does well as a dungeon crawler and roguelike for people like me who are not familiar with those video game genres. Another aspect of the game that I love very much is the soundtrack. The Going Under OST is the first one that I've ever purchased on Steam because of how much I enjoyed it.

But as for negatives, I will say that it can be hard to complete some tasks that the characters give you because the dungeons are randomly generated. It can take a lot of patience just to complete one task (especially the last one given to you by Swomp). And depending on how familiar you are with dungeon crawlers, it can take you a few attempts to complete a dungeon once in this game. But I guess that depends on your own skill set.

8/10 - I'm surprised this game isn't more popular, but I hope the success of Another Crab's Treasure sheds some light on it!

Answering the call for a fisherman for hire, you travel all the way out to the Marrows where you're expected to go out and harvest fish day and night and make end's meet. But within your first few days, you soon find that things are not what they seem in this vast ocean...

There are many people to meet, many biomes to explore, many fish to catch, and many ways to do all of it. I was drawn to this piece by its fishing theme, and I got what I was looking for and more. This game's art style and music are both worthy of praise as well - they do a great job of selling the gloomy atmosphere of living in a quaint fishing settlement like the ones we see in DREDGE.

For me there are no real flaws that stuck out in my playthrough. This game is well polished and I cannot get enough of it. I hope to get my hands on the DLC soon so that I can prolong my experience with DREDGE.

10/10 - If only fishing were this easy in real life...

All of the hoopla on the internet about this game is well earned! I won't say much about this open world survival game because it is best played going in completely blind! There are some bugs that still need to be worked out, but they didn't take away from the overall experience in my opinion.

10/10

A fun and quick HL2 mod with high replayability. I especially love the weapons variety and limited inventory, it gives you the opportunity to experiment with different loadouts. But since this is a smaller project, don't expect anything on the level of Entropy: Zero 2. It's more of a quick experience that you can play to kill some time.

As of writing this though, there are some bugs and quirks that the dev team still need to work out. The voice acting is fine, but is sometimes hard to hear. And I wish this mod came with achievements. But the game is still young so I'm sure things will be improved on eventually.

8/10

Are you a Touhou fan? Are you a Metroidvania fan? If you're one or both of these things, then Touhou Luna Nights might be the quick fix for you!

Since I'm more of a Touhou fan, I will speak more from that prospective. This game is the epitome of what the Touhou fan community can achieve (and I must stress that this is a fan game, not an official game). Even if you've never heard of Touhou or played an official Touhou game before, Luna Nights serves as a good standalone game or can serve as a great introduction to the series that has had a strong fan following for almost two decades now! If you've been on the internet long enough, then you've definitely listened to the classic pieces such as "U.N. Owen Was Her?" or the fanmade "Night of Nights" before and you get to listen to them again in this game, alongside many other Touhou songs!

The story is simple: Remilia creates a pocket dimension that is an exact copy of the Scarlet Devil Mansion to have some fun without causing any trouble in Gensokyo. Her maid Sakuya, the main character of the game, plays along (not that she's given a choice) by exploring the fake mansion, but eventually has to convince Remilia to return them to the real dimension. All other inhabitants of the real Scarlet Devil Mansion (except Koakuma) appear as bosses. Other Touhou characters that appear in the game are: Nitori, who sells items to Sakuya that can help her along the way; Akyuu, who records Sakuya's actions and acts the the game's primary save function; and Marisa, who is her own standalone boss alongside the Scarlet Devil Mansion inhabitants. The post-game segment also features Reimu and Cirno as their own separate bosses.

In terms of gameplay, Touhou Luna Nights is a Metroidvania platformer that incorporates bullet hell mechanics that Touhou fans that have played the official games are familiar with - namely the graze mechanic. In official Touhou games, grazing projectiles adds to your score. But in Touhou Luna Nights, grazing is important for regaining HP and MP, the later of which allows you to use different power-ups after finding them scattered throughout the mansion. And Sakuya's ability to manipulate time also paves the way to two different mechanics; freezing and slowing down time for a short while. These mechanics can help you solve puzzles and make fighting enemies and bosses easier, and you can increase the period that time will remain frozen as you progress through the game.

This game can get a little grindy the further you are to the end as enemies will get harder as you progress through the game. This is alleviated by the previously mentioned power-ups you find along the way and a level-up system. The more enemies you kill, the more XP you gain to level yourself up and get stronger. It will test you patience and I highly recommend that you kill all enemies you encounter early on if you can so that you don't have to grind as you get closer to the end.

There are two criticisms I have for this game though. One of them regards Cirno, one of the most popular and recognizable characters in the series. She wasn't originally in this game upon its initial release and it wasn't until 2020 when she was added as a boss. But it looks like your fight with her is the only encounter you will have with her in that playthrough and save file. She doesn't even appear in the boss rush. If the developers ever come back to this game, I hope they will fix this oversight.

The other criticism is its length: it's too short. The story and post-game can be completed in approximately six hours. You'll have a lot of fun with this game, but it'll leave you wanting more content by the time you complete it.

But overall, Touhou Luna Nights is a fun little adventure filled with charming characters that fans are familiar with and first timers will learn to love, but its length leaves some things to be desired. I would love it if Team Ladybug made another Touhou fangame that explores another setting and features other characters in the Touhou universe.

9/10 - Great game and love letter to the Touhou Project, but it should be longer.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=SJKJxPh6Hgw