Fight Crab 2 stands out in an unusually crab-heavy playing field by asking the important questions: what if you could pilot a giant battle crab from atop its back, somewhere between a mecha and a horse? The overall premise is a good litmus test; schlock aficionados like me will be chomping at the bit, while others are left confused. Fight Crab 2 makes few concessions for the skeptical, but that’s the game’s greatest strength.
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Clawing To the Top
Throughout Fight Crab 2’s career mode, you will fight and train a crab of your choosing. First you carefully select their background, fighting style and weapons. There are a surprising number of crab types to experiment with. Some only unlock through advancement, and they each behave a bit differently. I outfitted Nancy—a mitten crab named after my favorite Like A Dragon crustacean—with a sword and a yo-yo to mix short and long range attacks.
Fight Crab 2’s career mode knows its audience, giving you just enough story and progression to keep going. You are a crab farmer advancing your way through the league ranks to gain access to the fabled Crab Nebula. This takes the form of a creature-raising menu a la Monster Rancher, where you select from a range of three activities for the month. Battle-hungry warriors can skip straight to ranked matches, while the more intrinsically motivated can try the sillier events. Nancy and I defended a village from giant enemy crabs, kicked some exhibition ass, and took our first tentative steps into a league match during my review playtime.
Crab-Grown Experiements
Despite extensive and helpful tutorials, only one thing truly matters. Win against your opponent’s crab by flipping them on their back for three seconds. Less than three seconds, and the match continues. Your crab can strafe, rotate, and even fight autonomously while you hop off its back to fetch thrown weapons or objects.
Your crab can hold up to two weapons and four items in reserve, each with their own effects. Each of your crab’s massive pincers moves separately via bumpers and triggers. One arm can guard while the other attacks, or—as I often did—both arms can flail wildly. Super meters and unique stances keep things from feeling too stale, but fundamentally each crab match is a battle of limbs.
Fight Crab 2 initially presents the Classic control scheme—what I affectionately call sicko mode. It operates according to its own Armored-Core-esque rules. Modern uses a more traditional two-stick movement setup. I ultimately used Modern, but Games Done Quick has taught me that a certain kind of gamer will absolutely finesse the classic controls, giving them access to chained dashes, wall crawling, and truly wild weapon throws.
In A Bit of A Pinch
Fight Crab 2’s biggest strength and greatest weakness is that you never feel fully in control. When it works, you are immersed in the goofy glee of riding on a huge, lumbering crab, pelting your enemies with rocks and yo-yos. When it doesn’t, the camera tilts awkwardly or an enemy’s hitbox intersects just so. Fight Crab 2 doesn’t aim for graphics excellence, but even the single-player fights in smaller arenas had noticeable chugs and frame rate drops. I wasn’t able to reliably test online matches during review, but based on my single-player findings, I’m not optimistic. It’s nothing that can’t be buffered out with a few post-launch patches, but still worth mentioning.
Verdict: A Walk to Crabmember
Fight Crab 2 is a mix of deliberately cumbersome and cutting-edge, lobbing control schemes, art styles, and weapons with relentless abandon. It may not aim for graphical prowess, but the game’s charm and option to upload VRoid models as your avatar give it legs within an admittedly niche audience. Performance and frame rate issues are the only thing that had me in a pinch. Fight Crab 2 will delight B-movie mavens and frustrate those expecting more traditional controls or game structure. It won’t be for everyone, but that’s largely by design.
Great
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Delightfully goofy physics and weapons | Noticeable performance issues during single player matches |
| Surprising crab customizability | Some stage textures were distractingly pixelated or muddy |
| Separate control schemes for different play styles | A sometimes cumbersome camera |
| Career mode that values player time |
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