Name: Crime Crackers
Item: Crime Crackers
Author: Retro Replay

Crime Crackers

Crime Crackers starts with a simple, pleasingly scrappy hook: a three-person bounty-hunter crew answers a distress call, then heads into first-person missions full of enemies, pickups, and bosses. Its most distinctive idea is the way combat asks you to commit. Enter attack mode and you gain an aiming cursor and the ability to block, but your movement drops to left-right strafing, making every close encounter feel more deliberate than a standard run-and-gun shooter.

That tension gives the game some personality, though it can also be the source of frustration when you want to reposition quickly. Switching freely among Amelia, Drann, and Liza is the stronger idea, since each brings a different weapon and separate health and weapon-energy concerns. Crime Crackers is a rough, early take on anime-flavored console FPS action, but there is enough tactical character management and bounty-hunter charm here to make it worth a look if you enjoy unusual PlayStation shooters.

Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

Crime Crackers grabs you with a premise that is much livelier than its basic corridor-shooter outline suggests. You are not just one armed protagonist pushing forward; you are running Team Pink Dolphin, swapping among Amelia, Drann, and Liza whenever their particular weapon or condition makes more sense. Amelia is the crack shot, Drann brings an automatic rifle, and Liza uses a sword. That spread makes changing characters feel like a practical decision rather than a cosmetic one.

The attack-mode system is where the game either clicks for you or starts rubbing you the wrong way. You have to shift into that mode to fire, gaining an aiming cursor but losing full movement in favor of strafing left and right. Blocking helps offset that vulnerability. In a good fight, this turns shooting into a small positioning puzzle: decide when to plant your feet, line up a shot, absorb pressure, and switch to someone better suited to the job. In a bad fight, being unable to move freely while attacking can feel restrictive.

Keeping three separate life and weapon-energy meters in shape gives missions a welcome layer of pressure. You can switch at any time, but you cannot treat the team as disposable. Items matter, and the shops between stages give you a chance to buy and sell before heading back out. That loop of fighting, scavenging, managing the crew, and preparing for the next job has more staying power than the straightforward stage structure might imply.

Each area ends with a boss, so there is a clear rhythm to the campaign: explore, clear enemies, gather what you can, then face a bigger test. The game is at its best when the limitations of attack mode force you to think about character choice and defense rather than simply holding the trigger. Go in wanting an eccentric, deliberate first-person action game, not a fast and fluid shooter, and its odd choices become easier to appreciate.

Graphics

The game is viewed from the first person, putting you directly into its futuristic missions rather than showing the team from a distant camera. The anime-styled cast gives the crew clear silhouettes and personalities: Amelia is a redheaded leader, Drann is a large dragon-man, and Liza is a sword-wielding fighter from the Fox planet.

Story

The setup has a good pulpy sci-fi flavor. A long galactic war has ended, but its survivors and technologies have fed a surge in piracy twenty years later. With the Galactic Police overstretched, bounty hunters called Crackers take the dangerous work when the price is right. It is an effective excuse to send a capable crew into trouble without pretending they are spotless heroes.

Team Pink Dolphin makes for a more memorable center than a generic police unit would. Amelia leads, Drann carries history from the war through his connection to her grandfather, and Liza brings a samurai-like manner to the group. Their differences give the team a useful sense of texture even before their combat roles come into play.

The distress signal that opens the game is exactly the kind of invitation a bounty-hunter story needs: direct, suspicious, and impossible for this crew to ignore. Short dialogue scenes between stages keep the plot moving, while communications from the support team during missions help maintain the feeling that Pink Dolphin is an operation rather than three people dropped into a vacuum.

Overall Experience

Crime Crackers is a game you meet halfway. Its first-person shooting does not chase effortless mobility; instead, it asks you to accept a tradeoff between aiming, strafing, and blocking. That can feel awkward at first, but it also gives combat a distinct cadence that separates it from more automatic shooters.

The three-character system is the reason to stick with it. Separate health and weapon energy turn the party into more than a set of alternate guns, and free switching encourages you to respond to trouble instead of grinding forward with a single favorite. When that management starts to click, the game becomes a more thoughtful action experience than its premise initially promises.

Still, the friction is real. Anyone who wants constant freedom of movement while firing may find the attack-mode restriction hard to forgive, and the game’s bosses can put that discomfort under a brighter light. But if you have patience for an early, unusual PlayStation first-person shooter and enjoy a colorful space-bounty-hunter setup, Crime Crackers has enough personality to earn a curious play.

It lands as a flawed but interesting genre experiment: not essential for every shooter fan, yet far more memorable than a routine mission-based blaster. Give it a chance for its crew management and deliberately constrained combat, and you may find that its strangest decision is also its most compelling one.