Mess With Fight Crab And You Get The Claws

Published: June 21, 2020 12:00 PM /

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Fight Crab Preview Image

There's a lot of games in the world that make sense. A mage and her party going on an adventure, a robot destroying others of its kind, or a photographer taking pictures of squirrels. Then there are the kinds of games that you just have to marvel that someone came up with it like Fight Crab. Then you begin to wonder why this hasn't happened before and the missed opportunities that there have been for crabs fighting other crabs in video games. It's just the level of crazy that when you transfer it onto the screen it's going to earn some laughs.

Fight Crab Statistics
I know it's early but I really think the Calappa will make it to S tier

The premise of the game is as simple as the title. You're a crab and you fight other crabs. You can control each claw with an analog stick and move with the directional pad. As you face off against your crabby opponent you need to raise or lower your claws to punch and grab. When you start playing it feels like a "pat yourself on the head while rubbing your belly" kind of situation, and it doesn't get much better. The upside of this is the pure randomness of moves that come from trying your best. An ingenious idea for movement from developers Calappa Games is that movement is only something you need to toggle. You can start your crabwalk and then go back to fighting with both fists giving you the best of mobility and attack power. With a thumb required to make sure you're fighting efficiently you don't want to be wasting time controlling movement.

The end goal of Crab Fight is to flip your opponent onto their back and have them stay there. Each crab is pretty low to the ground but has a percentage meter that slowly fills as they take damage. Much like the percentages in Super Smash Bros, the higher you get the easier it is to push your opponent around. It gets to a point that you can just start moving forward and swinging your arms around that there should be enough momentum to flip them. When flipped there is still a chance a crab can do enough punching to get themselves back up but it takes some work.

Fight Crab Equipment
Pure... chaos...

Each fight earns you credits that you can use in a variety of ways. You can level up the stats of your crab including their strength, resistance, endurance, dexterity, and agility. You can also purchase a variety of weapons for your crab to start out with, and even new types of crab each with their own stat block. It's a strange feeling to be comparing the turning speed and reach of two crabs to see which might be better in a fight but I'm all for it. The demo will take you through a tutorial, prologue, and two additional levels. Crustacean City where you get to rampage around a coastal metropolis, or Crabby Chivalry: Sword and Shells. The latter level focuses on fighting against other armed crabs. It also allows you to test out some improvised weapons like candlesticks, chairs, and exploding barrels.

Fight Crab Preview | Final Impressions

Needless to say, Fight Crab is a weird game and a weird concept. With access to a variety of weapons and crabs, the demo does give players pretty great coverage of what they could expect. The battles are fun and comical, too many limbs in too many directions. It will be interesting to see what can be done to expand upon the game and keep players wanting to progress. 


TechRaptor previewed FIght Crab on PC via Steam with a demo freely downloaded as part of the Steam Game Festival: Summer Edition.

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| Senior Content Manager

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