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Another Crab’s Treasure: sharing a drinks can

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I like the idea of the Souls games. Difficult games which you gradually improve at, learning patterns and strategies, exploring the best route to go. The thing is that they’re just a bit … grimy. Everything’s grey and brown and dark, and dirty and smelly and tacky and it makes me project senses that aren’t there. Anyway.

Another Crab’s Treasure is a Souls-like, but it’s not like that. Everything’s quite happy and colourful, at least until you meet other crabs.

It’s got a cute story as well. There’s a new ruler of the coast, and they’ve bumped up taxes to the point where little crabby here can’t afford them. So they take his shell instead. This means I’ve got to travel to the castle to ask for it back.

I took a wrong turn at first, and found an enemy who killed me six times in a row. Luckily, when you get near said enemies the game creates a checkpoint, so you can just get your stuff back quickly and run away when you realise you’re too underpowered. I then followed the coloured confetti until I met an enemy I could defeat, where I gained a new shell. I say a shell; it’s actually a drinks can. At least it gives me a little protection.

Aero the Acro-Bat: leaps of faith

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I got some variety in the setting, after defeating the boss at the end of the circus levels. Maybe I should say bosses; there were two stilt walkers who sat on opposite sides of the screen, throwing things into the middle. There didn’t seem to be too much of a pattern to where these went, so it seems difficult to avoid them, particularly given the need for the diagonal attacks at their feet. Having built up a good stock of lives (about 20) over the previous levels, a good few of them were lost here. It feels like the designers of the game knew this, since when you die during a boss fight you respawn immediately without the boss’s health regenerating.

So, circus down, and onto a couple of new locations outside. There were some new mechanics introduced here, with pendulums to jump on and roller coasters to ride. One of the rides was a rocket sled that either sat on top of rails or hung beneath them, and I had to switch between the two states to avoid obstacles that appeared with minimal notice. Again, save states made this much more bearable.

The level-boss mechanics continued here. Multiple lives built up over the levels; multiple lives lost during the boss.

The controls still don’t feel that great, particularly shooting stars. Oh, yes, shooting stars, another way of attacking the enemies, which I hadn’t previously discovered because it seems that sometimes you will throw a star out and sometimes you won’t. You have to collect them first, but even when I had multiple stars in stock, I would stand still, press A, and nothing would happen. No idea what is going on there.

Anyway, I’ve just got into the museum and the difficulty has increased significantly. Let’s see if I ever get around to completing this.

Pokémon X: completed!

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The little diversion saw me travelling through fields of flowers and encountering a large number of new pokémon, meaning that I depleted my stocks of all types of pokéballs while travelling through the flora. I also met a couple of trainers with a massive unit of a pokémon. I finally found Wulfric, the eighth gym leader, frolicking in the meadow, and convinced him to return to his responsibilities in the ice world. Was it finally time to battle for the final badge?

Yes, it was. Now, I have mentioned before that I felt I might have spent a little too long on side quests, and as a result my pokémon were feeling a little overpowered as I took down gym leaders with one hit. Since that point my core team has changed little, with the main exception being Xerneus replacing Pikachu. This meant that I no longer had any electric pokémon – or even any electric moves – which is very much unprecedented in the way I’ve played pokémon games before. Electric moves are often quite powerful and have potential to cause paralysis, which has been beneficial many times in the past. They are also strong against water pokémon – and when the first opponent in the Snowbelle City gym sent out Cloyster I was starting to regret the change.

I needn’t have. Every other pokémon in the gym was an ice type, meaning that Delphox could generally dispatch them immediately, and as the availability of fire moves waned then Lucario’s fighting moves substituted. All gym trainers, plus Wulfric, were defeated very quickly.

And with that, I was invited to go to the Pokémon League. Getting there was possibly the most difficult part of the game, with a very long trek up victory road against high-level trainers and powerful pokémon. I had to travel back to Snowbelle City twice to revive and heal all my pokémon, before finally reaching the next pokécentre. This was conveniently located outside the Pokémon League building, and so refreshed and revived I went in.

In other pokémon games I have struggled a lot at this point. In Leaf Green I got to the Elite Four and managed to beat three of them before losing, more than once – and in the end I moved on to other games. In Sapphire I was so discouraged by my Leaf Green experiences that when I got to the Pokémon League my team felt far too underpowered to even attempt battles, and I ended up wandering off to do other things instead, never returning. In Pearl I managed to beat the Elite Four, only to get beaten by the champion afterwards. This has always been the climax of the game, and I have never got past it.

The entrance to the League, and the settings for the Elite Four battles was certainly impressive, with the Four themselves having a great deal of personality. I was told that they had their own specialisms – water, fire, dragon and steel, and I prepared for which of my pokémon should be first out in each case. By now most of my team was up to the high seventies, with the exceptions of Lucario and Xerneus who were a few levels lower. I reviewed my moves; I shifted around my pokémon, and then, with trepidation, I entered.

I needn’t have been so worried. Sure, most of the opposing pokémon posed some threat, with few instant defeats, but I beat all four at the first time of asking. Xerneus’s dragon-type move was invaluable against the dragons, but even other pokémon took off large amounts of health. Blastoise was a monster in the fire battles. The most difficult was the water champion, since I no longer had Pikachu – but I managed to adapt.

Then heal up, check the order, and it’s off to see the champion.

This wasn’t an easy battle. The champion, Diantha, had a large variety of pokémon, some of which I hadn’t seen before and so I was unaware the best way to face them. Luckily I had Edward looking over my shoulder, who told me, for example, that Gourgeist is a ghost/grass type and so I should use fire moves against it, and Tyrantrum is rock-type so would be dispatched with ease by Blastoise’s hydro pump. After defeating five of her pokémon, I had four still standing, and I threw out Lucario to use the mega evolution as a finale. That worked very well indeed.

Yes, I forgot to turn the 3D off when taking that screenshot.

There’s still a lot to do, of course. I recall seeing someone blocking me from a cave in the winding woods, saying it was only for champions. There are many waterfalls to go up. There are many black entries in the pokédex. But I’ve seen the credits roll, and so I can finally say I’ve completed the story in a pokémon game.

Worms: stupidity kills

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For some unknown reason I have the Playstation version of Worms registered on my account, and so when looking over potential reasons to upgrade Playstation Plus I noticed I was able to download it to the PS4. And so I did.

I’ve not played the Playstation version before as far as I’m aware, but I put many hours into the Mega Drive version and also played the original Amiga game at Kevin’s house several times. There’s not a huge amount of difference, to be honest – the Playstation has some pretty cringy FMV segments, where the worms use a different art style to in-game – but the options and game types and presentation is all very familiar. I tried to set up a StOGS team, but fell at the second hurdle when I was told there was already a worm called “John” – part of the Beatles, of course. My team ended up being Timbo, Kieron1, Johnno, and Hiscock.

I chose initially to play against teams where the AI was set as “poor”. This was a mistake, because rather than making the game easier it seems as if the AI was programmed to use up airstrikes and teleportation in the first couple of goes, meaning that I often found that members of my team were killed before I even got a chance to move them.

Moving to compete against other teams, more average in skill, actually made the game easier. I wasn’t that easy to work out which ones to choose, mind – the only place the AI level is noted is in the team editor, and they’re not listed in order of difficulty, so you have to go as if to edit the teams, make a note on which to compete against, and then back out to the menu.

The game still works well, and benefits from a lack of bloat which later games have introduced – there is a focussed and tight selection of weapons here, making weapon drops genuinely exciting. I may suggest we play this next time we have an in-person games day.

It’s almost worth it for the logo nostalgia alone.

Pokémon X: just leave me alone

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Time to go and get the last gym badge, then? No.

Professor Sycamore asked me to meet him in the next town, so I travelled on Route 18 to meet him. At which point he battled me. As you do. Bear him easily, of course, with my Delphox’s flamethrower coming in very handy. Luckily there was no side quest introduced at this point, so I went off to find the next city.

It was a bit of a winding path, through swamps and across bridges. And just as I arrived on the last bridge, my friends turned up. Were they here to support me, to encourage me, to journey with me?

Of course not.

Friends defeated, I went into the next city only to find that the gym leader isn’t there. Another little diversion ahead.