NEO AQUARIUM - The King of Crustaceans -

By far the best game I have EVER played! Insane story, amazing graphics and the best soundtrack in gaming history (I shed more than a tear). Love the replay function <3

This is singlehandedly the most influential gaming experience I have had the pleasure of playing in my 2 decades on this planet. Thank you creators of NEO AQUARIUM - The King Off Crustaceans, this game has truly shifted my perspective in a way no other piece of media has yet managed. It has been an eye opening experience

It's never been better than this

I'm all for over-the-top off-the-wall wacky ideas for games, and I was more than willing to play a goofy game where you play as lobsters and shoot other crustaceans with laserbeams. But this game is barely even functional. The framerate is capped at 30 on a PC, the controls and actual gameplay mechanics are poorly explained (if at all), the controls are clunky and schizophrenic, and the game won't even start properly until you close an error tab that pops up every time it starts. It crashes before it even starts sometimes, and doesn't seem to know what to do with itself once you alt-tab out of it. All in all, a very sloppily-made and poorly-optimised game. I went into it with tempered expectations, and was still left disappointed. I know it was released 11 years ago, but I've played Steam games released much earlier by this point, and they still work as intended, so I don't really understand what went wrong here.

This is peak

Really great idea to do Mech shooter with crabs It has a good foundation but very, very poor execution. Good Super unique destruction system that makes full use of the crustacean theme. Each limb determines your movement speed and if your crab has claws, the ability to grab objects/melee. Taking damage will destroy each limb and slow you down, you can regrow your shell but it takes skill points and leaves you vulnerable. Also, you can purposefully choose to purge your limbs to turn them into flying turrets or swords, at the risk of having less speed and armor. Some charged skills are more effective with all your limbs intact so you have to regulate your limb usage closely. Bad Annoying "fake bad translation" text : It gives itself away by going overboard in the opening text and overstays it welcome by the second level. Lots of 2000s era internet humor, forced typos and non sequiturs that takes away from what would be an interesting story about sea creatures being captured and forced to fight in an aquarium for entertainment. Would be far funnier if it just played itself straight. A few songs also try way too hard to sound like Japanese "engrish" covers. I can only assume they were going for the Youtuber audience. Hard to understand controls: There's no tutorial at all and the control tips are very vague. After trial and error you can understand the breakaway system and your different attack and skill modes, but mechanics such as the power, oxygen, temperature and "organic" meter eluded me. I have heard criticism's of the crab's movement, but that seems authentic to the way they swim in real life. Feedback on when shots connected or hit you are also not clear, so battles can become very disorienting. I think there's some sort of blocking system but there aren't any sounds or effects for it, so sometimes hitting the enemy with melee will delete half their health, and other times it will do nothing at all. A score list of the sea creatures you killed during the stage appears at the end, but I'm almost certain that they do not actually appear and the numbers are made up. Repetitive: From what I was able to play of the story, you have to play the same stage repeatedly until you complete the campaign and unlock a new one, unlike most fighting game arcade modes where you get a variety of locations throughout each play-through. A big missed opportunity considering how diverse ocean environments can be. There seems to be a level editor but I couldn't figure it out due to the controls. BUGGY: Game would always crash during or when restarting level 4 of the story mode. Never was able to get past this point. Ace of Seafood is a very different game, but I enjoyed that one far more. I hope that someday either this developer or another could retry AoS or Neo Aquarium with a higher budget because the concept is very strong.

Absolutely incredible game. So glad I came across it. High shrimpgest you shrimp it. Shrimply shrimptastic!!! 🦐🦐🦐🦐🦐🦀🦀