Everything Is Crab Review

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“The Animal Evolution Roguelite. Hunt, Flee, Scavenge and Thrive in a living ecosystem. Choose from 125+ Evolutions and Specialisations for unique creature combinations in every run. Adapt to survive the natural curve in order to beat carcinisation… or get Darwin’d trying!” – Steam Description

Everything is Crab is a rogue-lite about evolution. Visual progression is one of the biggest draws for me in rogue-lites/rogue-likes, and truthfully in any game. If you’ve ever seen me play an MMO or RPG where the armor can change you know that I will pick the option that looks the best over what is statistically the correct way to play.

There’s over 130 different evolution paths, which are ways to customize your character. There are different bosses to fight, but you don’t need to fight them. In fact, there’s even an achievement for going through a run without dealing any damage.

Graphics– Fantastic pixel art! The way that your character evolves with every new evolution is charming. It makes you want to select every option just to see how your little blob character can evolve.
Gameplay– The core gameplay is eating food you either scavenge or hunt in order to level up. Every level you are given a choice for an evolution. These will be either a new one or an upgrade to an existing evolution. Some evolutions have branching paths that change them so sometimes even the same base evolution might look different as you progress.
Sound– Everything Is Crab has some satisfying sound effects for attacks. The music is cute and engaging while you play. The music changes for boss battles help you know when trouble is around.
Controls– The controls for Everything is Crab are intuitive if you’ve played one of these style of rogue-lites before, WASD to move. Spacebar to use your movement which is a small Dash by default.
Story– This is a sandbox style game where the only story is the narrative you can make around your creature. Starting as a basic blue slime like you’ve been isekai’d into the world, I think the best way to have a story for this is to give your best impression of Sir David Attenborough and narrate like you’re on the National Geographic.

Final Thoughts

Pros:

One more run mentality

Each run you can change your evolution path so it can feel wildly different

Become Crab

Cons:

Enemy variety can get repetitive

Some options just feel stronger

Becoming crab makes you take more damage

The amount of time I spent playing Fishy on AddictingGames as a kid is probably too embarrassing to recount, but just know it was a lot. I think this is my favorite parts of fishy, but with my most favorite part of visual changes. It scratches that Binding of Isaac itch in a game that I feel like I can actually pick up and complete a run. Each run lasts 20 minutes and at the end, I always want more. Luckily, the developers have anticipated my brain requiring more Everything is Crab, and they have added an Endless Mode that you can work your way up to. I highly recommend getting Everything is Crab.

With that I leave you with all of my successful run children. At the end of every run the game gives you the option to save your little crab as a gif as well as all the run info in a graphic.