Recent reviews by FlyingLobster

Absolutely peak, Toby Fox has changed my life once again. The amazing music, artwork, and WRITING in these two new chapters is phenomenal and has me incredibly excited for the future of this project (especially for a certain route. . .), if the momentum from this release carries forward DELTARUNE has potential to be my favourite game of all time I dunno man this AFFECTS ME.

PLEASE PLAY IT!!!

An absolute triumph in art, writing, and cosmic horror. The nostalgic veneer of playing an RPG Maker game quickly gives way to a highly impressive work of art that never stops scaring or intriguing right until the credits, with so many branching and randomly occurring events that every time I discussed the game with a friend who's also playing it, it is inevitable I will say something like "Oh wow you can do it like that?" or "I never even saw that in my playthrough!".

Some of the most impressive moments in the game are when something happens that you'd never consider possible based on what the majority of RPG Maker games show, such as mid-battle cutscenes and tons of transforming and evolving fights. Every time you fight an enemy (many of which are unique to their own particular encounters) you always go in wondering what horrific new form it will turn into mid-fight if you can't kill it fast enough. It's also quite well balanced, with seemingly insurmountable challenges becoming readily conquerable with intelligent usage of items and skills. It does a great job of breaking you out of any sort of JRPG hoarder mentality by greatly rewarding a more survival-horror approach to resource management, while at the same time offering a pretty excellent variety of builds and playstyles as you would expect to see in an RPG.

The plot is immediately gripping from its initial premise and never lets go, it excellently develops both a small scale story of a micro-community within an apartment building trying to outlast an event so much larger than themselves, as well as the more cosmic scale reality of what that event actually is. Also the writing can be really really funny and it contrasts excellently with the disturbing and horrific, like I'm laughing out loud to myself at a joke after just having my heart jump to 130bpm from seeing some sort of evil shadow monster in the corner of my screen.

This review might look structured but I'm actually just word vomiting all the things I liked about it after just finishing it in around 19 hours at a slow completionistish pace with some reloading to try out different events here and there. From this first playthrough I only got about half the achievements and there were multiple loose ends and possibilities that I wasn't able to chase up in just the one playthrough, so I'll likely dive back in soon to explore it some more!

Really fun go fast cute characters and nice little story, SEGA take notes on how to make going fast in 3D fun and challenging.

You are Peter Shorts is a short(s) but sweet metroidvania with an interesting platform fighter style combat system that transfers well into it's small but tight multiplayer suite. If you liked any of those buzzwords give it a go!

An absolutely fantastic game and so far the biggest surprise to me of the year.
I initially thought based on the jokey pre-release stuff that this game was going to be a bit of meme, but underneath it's Spongebobcore aesthetic is a well crafted Dark Souls/PS2 Mascot Game labour of love.
While the majority of the dialogue is driven by humour, this just makes those rare serious and empathetic moments hit very hard (I audibly gasped at one point in the finale that I will not spoil). The game's soundtrack doubly drives this home with some awesomely chill and beautiful pieces of background music that is able to elevate just about every scene and area you notice it in.
The actual gameplay is very fun, functioning as a more floaty and platformer-adjacent take on the type of action RPGs that FROMSOFTWARE makes, with more than enough unique and fun mechanics to make Another Crab's Treasure feel like its own game. I particularly really enjoyed its spin on the magic system, which encourages constant adaptation as the spells you have available change depending on which temporary shell you have equipped.

My only complaints with the game are some platforming related semi-bugs in the last area (the automatic placement system after falling off a ledge trapping me until I died happened once), and that the difficulty does not scale well through the mid-late game if you have a well built character. I found myself holding back against the last 5 or so bosses just so I could see their entire movesets as my MSG build was easily able to wipe out entire health bars in just a few seconds. Of course, this could also be seen as a good thing for less experience players in this genre, the relatively easier difficulty combined with the multitude of difficulty-based accessibility options make this game a wonderful jumping on point for anyone new to the genre or who perhaps find the Dark Souls/Elden Ring games a bit too brutal for their tastes.

Overall I highly recommend Another Crab's Treasure to honestly just about anyone, it's an exceedingly charming and inspiring independent game that has all the right treats to attract both experienced Soulsheads that want some new systems to play with and casual gamers looking for something just a tad tricky.

Jumped out of my foreskin when a friend played a sound on our discord soundboard while I was all alone. 10/10.

Incredible outstanding artistic vision and storytelling, as well as the only spooky game I've been brave enough to beat just because I needed to see more of it. Highly recommend.

Absolute ludo and proof that proximity voice chat MAKES any multiplayer game

Something beautiful is about to happen.
This game is beautiful and intriguing and funny and tragic and hurtful and healing, to me.

Obviously how much these words also apply to you depend on how much you like the writing and acting, as that is most of the game.
To me, it was a very moving experience, I loved the writing and characters and the world that the game builds as it drip feeds you little incredibly interesting facts that just make you wonder: "How could all of this insanity possibly be connected to my little murder case?"
And the way all things do and don't connect, is what turns a police case into a work of art.

You don't need me to tell you what everyone else already has, this game is a beautiful work of art and love and damn is it fun to play on top of that.