CrossCode Reviews

This is an extremely good videogame. It has some moderate problems (puzzle fatigue, combat encounters that run very long, dungeons that run long, grindy elements owing to its JRPG roots; basically, it would have been better with some elements left out). But these are largely forgivable for such a fun, well-written, unique, and enjoyable game end-to-end. I played it twice through now, once vanilla and once as part of a randomizer run via Archipelago (modded). It was fun in both cases, and was surprisingly replayable as a randomizer. A lot of the more painfully meticulous puzzles felt good to breeze through on the second go. In terms of gameplay, Zelda is a close analog to what to expect here with a heavy puzzle emphasis. Most puzzles are relatively intuitive, but a few (especially in the overworld) felt less than refined. Combat, however, felt really great and I didn't have any problems with it other than fight duration and occasional uneven difficulty. The game does skew much harder than your traditional RPG, so be aware of that as well. It does have some difficulty sliders that help. And if it's your jam, there's a lot to enjoy here. Also, at $20, you'll have a hard time finding a better value for your money. Recommended.

I just finished playing CrossCode a second time since my first playthrough five years ago and fell in love again. I think this time around was even better because I paid more attention to all the little details that went into making this game as good as it is. To me, it strikes this perfect balance between exploration, combat, sidequests, puzzles and story progression that you might find for example in older Zelda games. It really feels like a spiritual successor to all these great Japanese Action RPG classics from the late SNES and early PS era. Think Alundra, Secret of Mana, Terranigma, The Legend of Zelda, Chrono Cross and sprinkle in some Final Fantasy, Phantasy Star, Lufia II and of course old-school MMOs like Runescape. All that while having this super unique playstyle of shooting orbs in a twin-stick-shooter like fashion. But don’t get me wrong, on the technical side this is still a modern game and a very snappy one! It flows extremely well. There are basically no loading times and it runs at a smooth 60 FPS. There are no lengthy room transitions or teleporting animations. There is no waiting around for cutscenes of doors opening, chests appearing and so on. They do what they can to let you stay in gameplay and only interrupt the flow when necessary. The game’s premise is of course quite different than the aforementioned SNES and PS games. I won’t go into it too much because you can just read it up on the store page. I will only say that I think that this might be the best execution of the „game-within-a-game“ premise I have ever seen and the overarching mystery goes places I did not expect. The overarching story takes a little bit to develop but it is all good because the likable cast of characters carries you through. Something needs to be said about the awesome music as well. It manages to create this instant familiarity and nostalgia while feeling quite fresh at the same time. You’ll hear a lot of inspiration from Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Phantasy Star and the like. All quite fitting to the charming pixel work. Also great sprites, great animations and effects and good sound design in general. What I also really loved about the game is the general approach to game design. The game treats you as a competent player and lets you figure stuff out to feel a real sense of accomplishment when you manage to overcome a difficult combat encounter or solve a tricky puzzle room in a dungeon. And that leads to a big payoff in the late game when you finally ascend to a galaxy-brained god gamer to complete the final dungeon. You can definitely achieve some kind of mastery over the game’s mechanics and the game tests you on this. And there is just so much stuff in this game! It is not just padding, either. My second playthrough took around 40-50 hours to finish up the main quest and all the side quests. There is just a lot to do. One word on the puzzles: A lot of games treat puzzles as a quick diversion from the main thing, which is most often combat. Puzzles then are mostly sprinkled in to provide a little bit of variety. If you approach CrossCode with this mindset you will inevitably be confused and are in for a bad time. You need to understand that in CrossCode puzzles are not there to pad out the game but are as integral to the game loop as the combat is. Even combat encounters sometimes have some kind of puzzle aspect to them. Here you find your big Zelda influence. I think the puzzle design is sublime and rivals full-blown puzzle games. They are however more Portal-like intricate puzzle webs than the typical "shoot the eye with an arrow" Zelda puzzle. In dungeons, they build on top of each other and always result in a big brain super puzzle as a test of your understanding of all the mechanics introduced so far. But you need to be able to focus longer than 10 seconds to get some of them. This is not everyone’s cup of tea. I am a huge nerd so I loved every second of entangling room after room and figuring out where and when to shoot the damn ball at. All in all, I can’t recommend this game enough. It is insane to me that CrossCode is still so unknown while being so damn good. And it is even more insane to think how small the dev team was that made this happen. I am looking forward to whatever this team puts out in the future and hope they’ll get a publisher that helps them to get on more people’s radar. Also: The DLC „A New Home“ is very good but takes place after the events of the main game. So you can safely buy it later if you know you will finish the game.

So far, this ranks amongst the best RPG I've ever played. As someone who is very action game-focused, this game delivers satisfying combat in spades. It's challenging and fun, requiring and rewarding focus due to how tight it is and rewarding it is to grow and master my arsenal of abilities. The characters also really appeal to me. I loved Lea's character as it was before she lost her memories, and every new character character introduced has a little something to them that makes them interesting. They don't just feel like NPCs and that makes the story engaging enough for me, even though I'm not someone who's keen on stories in my games. As for the story itself, it's alright. It doesn't piss me off, which is rare in games, probably because Lea is not just some would-be hero and her adventures have been very personal so far. In either case, I've been having so much fun just fighting around and completing side-quests that I don't really care and am enjoying the game at my own pace. And the art-direction!! Very beautiful!! I really like it and appreciate that there are amazing games that are not focused on dull realism. I'd currently give this game a 9/10, and I'm delighted with it. Recommended.

Best game I played in years, and by that I mean in a long long time. Great combat, characters, story, and puzzles that will melt the brains of game journalists. It definitely earned place in my top favorite games of all time. If you're getting this, then I'm jealous because you get to experience it for the first time. Note: Sorry for the lackluster review. I don't know how to write a good one.

[b]This game is truly something else. In a world of Ubisoft games, and yet another remake of the same Final Fantasy game, this is one of the better RPG games out there, probably on par with titles like Tears of the Kingdom.[/b] Story: The game's story takes place on a moon that has been terraformed for the sole purpose of making a half AR, half VR online video game that is basically FFXIV on steroids. Your player character cannot customize her appearance, change her class, or even speak, and she has lost all her memories. Luckily, she has a few friends outside the game who are trying to help her get her memories back. Side note: The story is the only one in a game that made me cry. Twice. Combat: The combat in CrossCode is highly addictive. There are five "modes" based on elements that you can switch between - heat, cold, shock, wave, and your default elementless mode. Picking up all four elements will take a new player around 40 hours. Each element has its own skill tree, or "circuit" tree, which allows you to unlock COMBAT ARTS. The SP bar at the top of the screen tells you when you can activate an art. Each element has unique properties when you perform an art - the dash art for cold leaves a trail of damaging icicles, while the dash art for wave repeatedly rams the enemy. The melee art for shock is relatively slow or only hits one enemy (yes there are two variations of the melee art) while the melee art for fire is heavy-hitting and great for crowd control. After getting half of the elements, you should soon get used to switching between them seamlessly. Take a bad hit? Use wave's throw art to heal yourself with homing projectiles! Enemy too aggressive? Slow them down and damage them with cold's dash art! Enemy stunned? Charge up a level 3 melee shock art and combo them for massive damage, and inflict a status effect on them. Since enemies tend to take some time to kill, pulling off combat arts is immensely satisfying. Exploration: A little mid. There are a lot of areas, but some of them are just big for no reason. If you're a completionist who's trying to get all the chests, some areas (Gaia's Garden) can be a nightmare. Otherwise, the atmosphere in a lot of the places is really well thought out. I especially like the Bergen Trail climb, seeing the areas get snowier as I ascend the mountain. Endgame: I'm going to try and not spoil anything, but the endgame is kind of similar to Zelda games - meaning that it's not good. There's some good endgame content in Rhombus Square, like enemy arenas, but they're nowhere near as good as Hollow Knight's Godhome. I highly recommend buying the DLC if you want some endgame content - it's decently priced, and neatly wraps up the story, as well as adding new areas and several new challenging bosses and enemies. Puzzles: Ooh boy. Puzzles. You either love them in an RPG, or you hate them. I am both. Some of the puzzles in this game are satisfying to figure out, some are a bit challenging, and others make you want to tear your hair out when you do them (I'm looking at you, Faj'ro Temple)...anyway, the only places you really need to worry about puzzles are the dungeons. There are walkthroughs on YouTube if you get stuck. Pacing: This game takes forever. I don't mean in a bad way - the cutscenes almost never waste your time - but just the shear amount of stuff. This game is packed with content to the point that we might need to raid Radical Fish's headquarters to see how much crack is in their desk drawers. It takes maybe 10 hours to get the first element, and then another 5-10 to get the second, and then there's a giant 20-hour gap where they make you chase a random enemy, do a "multiplayer" raid, and an entire other major story spoiler before they even let you enter the next area, and the first thing they make you do? Hit glowing poles for an hour. I'm not joking. And I haven't even talked about the side quests. Needless to say, if you want a game to fill your time, this game is for you. Overall: [b]Buy this game! It needs more love! And buy the DLC too![b]

A gem of an indie game. Great combat and puzzles. Good story and lovable characters. I highly recommend the DLC, as it is the real conclusion to the story. Can't wait for Alabaster Dawn.

This is one of my favorite games of all time It looks fantastic and [i] feels [/i] fantastic. It's very enjoyable to hit enemies, to hit plants, to jump platforms, and to explore the environment. Great music and visuals, nice story that very clearly references SAO, and godlike dialogue and characters. This game is kind of challenging by default (with an option to lower the difficulty), has some hard optional challenges for skilled players, and some very hard optional challenges for freaks. I am replaying this game for the third time and have a feeling that I will do so again in some time. Absolute gem and cinema.

The narrative and characters of this game are top-notch, but I personally feel like there's just far too many puzzles and it ruins the pacing. If you like story-focused RPG's and don't mind puzzles, you should definitely play this

One of the best games I've played on Steam. Great story, gameplay, audio, and visuals. The art for the characters in dialogue is so expressive. The dungeons and puzzles give me a zelda-ish vibe, but with more difficulty and complexity. The combat has variance, nuance, and difficulty to it as well. For those who enjoy finding secrets and working through multi-layer platforming puzzles, that is an optional form of content for you as well. The story is well thought out and felt very impactful to experience. For those who are interested in it, there are accessibility features which help tune the difficulty of the game in case the challenge is not desired. Overall, one of my top games played in 2024. Do recommend.

This is somewhere between a yes and a no for recommendation. The story and themes and characters in this game are all amazing, 10/10. The pixel art and music is great too. But the actual gameplay is some of the most obnoxious, tedious, repetitive, grindy, and time wasting stuff I've ever had to slog through. This game has more puzzles than actual puzzle games. It's a puzzle game first, and an RPG last in many ways. If that sounds up your alley, then you'll probably love it. But CrossCode to me feels like a fantastic game that winds up getting in its own way far too often. I'm glad I beat it, I loved my time with the characters, but the thought of ever playing this again makes me want to vomit.