Another Crab's Treasure feels a natural evolution for an underwater Soulslike

I read a horrible theory recently that nature wants to turn lots of things into crabs. I think the theory was basically talking about crustaceans, but the gist of it was, regardless of the evolutionary challenges crustaceans faced, crabbiness seemed to be a preferred answer. The raised body and tail, the flat shell, the lofty pincers. Crabs are OP.

And this came to mind when playing Another Crab's Treasure this morning. It's not just that there are crabs all over the place in this game – and there really are! It's that Another Crab's Treasure is a Soulslike, and the Soulslike increasingly feels like the equivalent of evolutionary crabbification for mid-budget video games.

To put it another way, I can imagine a time, a few years ago, when Another Crab's Treasure would have been your classic action platformer. Its setting – a kingdom on a micro-plastics-ravaged seabed – is perfect platformer stuff. There is outsize junk scattered in the sand that would have given simple jumping and bottom-bouncing that Carpet People vibe: here's a cliff made of an old flip-flop, here's an enemy hiding behind the curving gloss of a beer bottle. There are castles that are also sand castles, with lobster guards and fence posts made of cigarette butts. And actually, Another Crab's Treasure is a bit of a platformer still: I've just played a sequence that required finding a secondary path into a complex environment, and it had me jumping between battles and drifting from one tower to the next like I was Yoshi.

But in between that it's definitely a breed of Soulslike too. Instead of bonfires, there are shells where you can rest and restore health, and also restore any defeated enemies hovering nearby. There are huge progress-blocking bosses. There are shortcuts you open after navigating challenging areas – open a door or drop a line down from on high and voila, distant points are suddenly surprisingly close.

And there's that combat, with a lock-on and then the one-two-three attacks, as you see how far you can push offense before you need to rely on a dodge. No stamina so far – I'm only about two hours in – but I've just unlocked a parry and a dodge, and there's that same feeling that Souls games have: one of these enemies I could handle, but with two or three at once I'm more likely to overextend myself and make mistakes.

I should add: Another Crab's Treasure also has a lot of its own character. Instead of a shield, I was given a drinks can to use for defense at the end of the first quest: with my current shell stolen in the first sequence, this drinks can had to replace it, and I had to wear it as well as wield it. That's quirky and fun, but it's also part of a compulsive thread that dips and weaves through the whole game, as different objects – banana peels, bottle caps, you name it – can also be swapped out and used for defense. Each has their own durability and weight to consider – and, oh yes, each has their own skills too.

The skills come down to the game's take on magic, which it calls Umami. Umami is built up by doing damage and then you can cash it in on big attacks, which is particularly useful when you meet foes who only respond to Umami – a bit like Jay Rayner, I guess. But your choice of artificial shell also grants you a specific Umami attack, which means that you need to think about magic – and offense – as well as protection and speed when you're deciding what to wear.

The more I play, the more Another Crab's Treasure keeps unfolding with stuff like this. I can put items in my shell to grant it special abilities, so there are loadouts to juggle. I can learn new moves from downed bosses. The microplastics I collect can be cashed in on leveling up, which has a simple Soulslike suite of choices. It's familiar, and different – and you're never far away from knocking another crab about.