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Fight Crab

Fight Crab

You don't want to mess with these crustaceans.

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2020 has been a weird one so far. With everything that has happened, hearing crabs have mastered human weapons and taken over the world wouldn't all be that surprising. Still, we are fortunate enough for this to have happened in a different, crazy world, the world of Calappa Games' Fight Crab.

Fight Crab is a third-person fighting title with gameplay similar to that of sumo wrestling. You're not asked to punch your opponent into oblivion or beat them to a mushy pulp; Fight Crab simply requires you to flip the other crab onto its back, forcing it to submit to your physical prowess. Doing this is not all that easy however, as being a crab is much more complicated than being a simple-minded, four-limbed human.

Aside from dealing with an opponent, you have to manipulate the crab's six legs into motion, which can be difficult since crustaceans are a little challenged when attempting to walk directly forwards. On top of that, you have two burly claws to work with, capable of cracking even the toughest of shells, each of which can also be used to grapple or block incoming punches. Pulling all of this together, you have eight limbs to worry about, all whilst being locked in the most vicious of crabby combat scenarios.

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The best method when engaging in a fight is to get up close and personal, bringing a flurry of punches to weaken your opponent. By landing hits, you make crabs more susceptible to being flipped by increasing their damage received percentage, similar to the Super Smash Bros. knockout system. You can also grab hold of crabs with your pincers to deal a bunch of damage, simultaneously taking away much of their movement. This action, however, will leave you open to taking hits, so use grabbing wisely. Claws are also ideal for picking up weapons, unique to each location and fantastic for dealing hefty amounts of damage, sometimes at longer ranges.

On the defensive side, you can pull your claws in to block some hits and reduce damage. This action does take some time to complete, so learning the timing and planning ahead is of the utmost importance when blocking. With training complete, you're ready to take on the first fight on your journey to become the global UFC (Ultimate Fight Crab) champion.

Fight Crab
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Fight Crab doesn't just take part over one location, the storyline takes you to a whole range of wacky places, some even from legend. You start in a simple rockpool and end up fighting in space or over the iconic blade, Excalibur in a medieval-themed hall. To keep with variety, crabs also don't discriminate, and will happily take a fight with any species of crustacean, even lobsters. The brilliant part of this, is you to can play as any crab you defeat, assuming you unlock them from the customisation menu with currency earned from winning fights. Each playable crab comes with a different statistical set of values, making them excel in certain areas, such as resilience to damage, or punching power.

You can also use acquired money to upgrade your crabs, making them deadlier and more efficient fighters. This is quite pricey, however, and only applies to each respective crab so choose what crustacean fighter to master wisely. Furthermore, money can also be used to buy weapons to bring into combat, each of which must be encountered before being bought. These are some of the wackiest tools, from shurikens to chainsaws, to revolvers and even mythological weapons like the aforementioned Excalibur.

The reason why spending money is so important is due to the difficulty changes as the storyline develops. Sometimes you'll face an opponent equipped with some gnarly weapon who is incredibly challenging to defeat without some ordnance of your own. The difficulty levels only accentuate this, as the harder modes require much more equipment and fight knowledge if you're to succeed. There are ways to move past this without spending to much money however, as Fight Crab does have a multiplayer co-operative mode, where you can team up to tackle any opponent as a crustacean unit.

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Perhaps one of my favourite parts of Fight Crab is the audio-visual design of the game, which pays homage to Street Fighter and the retro, arcade fighting genre. There are a ton of wicked retro basic effects, an amazing Japanese rock soundtrack, all the way to the iconic "fight" call at the beginning of a match that Street Fighter penny machines coined years ago. As a huge fan of fighting games, especially retro arcade ones, Fight Crab really hits home with its audio-visual design, which makes the experience so much more enjoyable.

However, Fight Crab is not without its flaws. The daft concept, well designed audio-visual and physics system are great, but the reason Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter and Smash have all survived the test of time is because they feel brilliant to play. Fight Crab can often feel challenging to move and maintain control, which could be argued as being part of its charm, but it's hard not to find it a little obstructive when you're immersed in its world. Even more so, there's only so many times you can slowly hit a crab with a mace until it falls over before it becomes boring. Comparing that to spearing someone with Scorpion and hearing the iconic "GET OVER HERE!" as you kick them into next week - there's not all that much competition.

With all this being said, Fight Crab really is quite fun. The design is brilliantly nostalgic, the combat is unique, and the world is so strange and wacky, sometimes it's difficult not to have a chuckle when you see a crab wielding a sawn-off. On the flip side, the replayability is really not in the same range as other great fighters out there, simply because of the lack of fluidity in its combat systems. Still, as long as you love a bit of silly fun, Fight Crab is certainly the game for it. There really is nothing more satisfying than beating your first crustacean over the head with a double-handed claymore. I bet he'd be crabby the next morning.

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Fight Crab
07 Gamereactor UK
7 / 10
+
Wacky, weird, nostalgic, and great silly fun. The audio-visual design will make any retro fighting fan feel very warm inside.
-
Feels a little repetitive and slow after playing for a while due to the lack of fluidity in its combat mechanics.
overall score
is our network score. What's yours? The network score is the average of every country's score

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Fight Crab

REVIEW. Written by Ben Lyons

"The design is brilliantly nostalgic, the combat is unique, and the world is so strange and wacky, sometimes it is difficult not to have a chuckle when you see a crab wielding a sawn-off."



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