CrossCode

this game starts as a mute* woman playing an mmorpg with a french woman, and ends with what can only be described as the chorus lyrics of DM DOKURO's roar of the jungle dragon

Quite possibly one of the best games ever created, one of two games I've ever played where there isn't a single dud amongst all of the main and side characters. Every single character is written with tons of love, care, and quality. The combat is snappy, flashy, and in depth. There's so much more to say but no time to say it. Please, for the love of god, play this game, it's absolutely fantastic.

Favorite game. Touching story, engaging combat, and post-game fun. LOVE the puzzles as well!

this game is a little grindy and has a bit of a slow start, but it's so worth it for the story, the dungeons, the puzzles, the boss fights, the music, really everything about this game. please play it, i promise you won't regret it.

I am someone who often tries to 100% games, and then stops having fun in the middle and remembers to just do the parts that are fun. But in this game, I just... had fun doing everything! It's definitely a game that deserves more attention. Also the story is pretty cool too!

This game feels like darksouls and I love it. You can't just button mash, you MUST engage with the mechanics or you WILL fail. but hey, that's what makes the game worth playing

Beautiful game with fun gameplay, pixel action rpg of this quality is insane. Totally recommended.

I really enjoyed this game. It's exactly what it says: A retro-inspired 2D RPG with a great story, fluid fast-paced combat and puzzle mechanics.
The very unique story is in my opinion one of the best parts about it.
The combat is fun but towards the end game with the introduction of tier 2&3 combat arts it started to get a bit too chaotic for me. Thankfully the game allows you to tune the difficulty so it wasn't too bad.

The puzzles are also pretty good, but some of them were very tedious to the point i actually looked into modifying my save to avoid them (didn't actually end up doing it, but i did get as far as running the game with the SDK version of NWJS before I realized that it's easier to just do the puzzle).

I played this game almost entirely on the steam deck and it runs perfectly (unless you go out of your way to mess with the settings and break the achievements like I did).
I wouldn't recommend playing this game with a mouse and keyboard, it plays significantly better with a controller.

I definitely recommend getting the DLC since that's where the story really ends.

This game holds a special place in my heart. Few games stick with me and even fewer do i recall with such fondness. I'd like to give a big Thank You to the dev's for making Crosscode. And to everyone else who helped even a little towards its creation. and a thank you to all fellow buyers for supporting this work.

Finally finished the game.

I originally started it on the switch, but never got around to finishing the post game until now.

Story:

The main story revolves around Lea, who lost her memories. As it goes along, and as she regains it, more becomes known about her connection to Sidwell. Shizuka. Satoshi, Gauthum, and Sergey. It is pretty much a terrible twist of fate, that had friends stuck in a blackmail, and Sergey trying to find them. Though, in the process, did find a true friend in Lea who cannot talk might I mention.

It is a pretty heavy story.

Post Game:

Following Lea's return, it dives into Sidwell, and hunt for him. It also shows how the characters now live, and mentions of future plans. The last section are three chapters, with an extremely long final dungeon.

System:

Real time, strategy combat. There are tons of status adjusments, as well as five modes. Neutral. Fire, Frost, Wave, and Shock. Each are needed at some point or another. Everything in the game is a puzzle.

Side Quests:

A lot.

Maps:

Quite a bit.

Puzzles:

Might wanna consider a PHD.

Music:

Amazing.

Art Style:

Amazing.

New Game Plus:

Completing Trophy requirements gives you points for add ons. These additions makes for quite a funny second run.

Overall:

Extremely good game, if anything. I think the last dungeon is too long. I mean seriously, it took me hours to get done. It is pretty much two to three times longer than the previous one, which is kinda ridiculous. This is a moment when less can be more.

Anyway, that aside, highly recommend the game. Also, there is a bit of something you'd probably be wondering about Lea's speech, and that is answered at the end of the post game.

A little slow and cheesy in the beginning, but man does it get GOOD later on. The combat is super fun and intuitive, and the puzzles are all perfect ♥

The titular "hidden indie gem". It's insane how unpopular this game is considering how good it is.

I started off thinking 'This game wont be much, may not even finish it.' I was so wrong. I am not done just yet, but, this game is breathtaking, lovely, funny, any positive trait you may consider. The story is wonderful, every character is a joy to see on screen, the art is impeccable, the gameplay can keep you in it so easily. Easily within my top 5 games of all time. Please play it, you wont regret it.

This game is easily an all time classic for me. I love these characters. The puzzles are tough and combat is slick.

This game is very good and is filled with personality, story, and fun gameplay. While there are a few minor bugs, like the screen very occasionally going white for a brief moment, it doesn't take away the core experience. There is a huge amount of attention to detail in both the characters and a very perceive combat system using different elements and special attacks. It has an extraordinary amount of content and is one of the best and under known indie games ever made, and I definitely recommend it.

Lea is one of most incredible silent protagonist ever.
The Puzzle is quite challenging and make my brain fried.
The combat is fast and intuitive.
Retro graphic without limitations.
9/10

i cant put into words how fire the combat is in this game.
i cant put into words how fire the writing is in this game.
i cant put into words how fire the puzzles are in this game.
if u dont mind grinding get ur moms credit card and play this game ASAP. if u hate grinding grow up get ur moms credit card and play this game ASAP.

A really, really good game with an amazing flow save for the occasional puzzle you get hard stuck on. Years later and I still have great memories of getting lost in this world. Easily worth the price point.

A very hesitant thumbs up.

The game has an EXTREMELY slow start, and tries to dump a ton of information at you at the start while keeping combat fairly straightforwards. Despite this, we get little to no incentive to push the main character forwards other than being told it will "help her remember stuff" after suffering from amnesia. You're also dropped into an RPG world where NPCs act as players of an MMO, and they lampshade how trite the quest design can be. With a few notable outliers, most quests feel ripped out of a much less inspired game.

But that's the point.

The game has a plot twist that comes around ~20 hours into the game, and relies heavily on you understanding that the game's story is more about using video games as a way to connect with people, and the line between a real person and a video game character they control and use to represent themselves. I think pacing could definitely be improved in future projects, especially since ~30% of players don't finish the first chapter.

Dungeon design is very Zelda-like, alternating between fighting groups of enemies and solving puzzles, typically with a tool given to you in that dungeon. Puzzles are almost always intuitive and follow clear logic, but the exceptions are astonishingly bad in terms of how certain mechanics are communicated to the player (mostly in the final dungeons involving the "Wave" element). Combat is generally pretty good, but I'm not the biggest fan of later bosses; certain late game bosses basically force you to block or dodge before they stand still for a few seconds, forcing you to wait for "your turn" before you can actually make progress. Normal enemy encounters don't really suffer from this issue (except for the landsharks in the desert). Some puzzles require twitch reflexes, and those are awful in my opinion. Thankfully many puzzles let you solve them at your own pace.

Art and music are both good. Not the best but it's consistent and there's a surprising number of portraits for every character; this is definitely a passion project and not something made for the sake of it.

There's multiple endings, but getting the 'Good' ending requires you to do something I consider unintuitive, requiring you to either get another ending first or using a guide. However, the objective for the good ending requires you to talk to a certain character; in the story at this time you're trying to find a group of characters to get everyone to meet at a certain place and time. They could've just put the certain character next to another character we needed to talk to and cut the bad ending out entirely, especially since it's much shorter than the good ending.

I dislike the achievements for this game. Many of them expect you to scour regions for every treasure chest, beat dungeons within a time limit (ie solve puzzles AND fight bosses), and defeat a unique enemy on your first attempt. There aren't fun objectives, they're frustrating an either require a guide, time to explore every inch of a place, or reloading until you can clear fights/puzzles quickly and without making mistakes.

Despite my gripes the game is well put together and has no real load times or bugs, which is very impressive! If you have the patience for a slow paced story or are more focused on the gameplay, I think you'll like this game.

Story 8/10
Good story with great and funny characters involved.

Music 9/10
Peak music!

Graphics 10/10
Pixel art game! <3

Combat 9/10
Feels smooth and have a great talent tree that you can switch up a bit.

Puzzle 5/10
Can be fun, but also annoying sometimes....

I give CrossCode 8 of 10, would recommend it! ^^

I was enjoying my time with the game, loved most of the characters, was compelled by the story and liked a lot of the puzzles, but I was never any good at the combat and didn't really feel comfortable with the parkour. It was shaping up to be one of my favorite games, It might still be but I did not finish the game. Why?
30 hours in I got stuck on a boss and after over a hour of attempts, I beat it then went to another dungeon and could not get past an early basic enemy room even with being a little over leveled and having completed over 50% of the total quests, most of the time I would only kill one of the enemies before dying.
I think this is a problem with how the game wants to show off element by having you be required to shoot through the changer to activate a thing, then later in the dungeon when you can use the elements as much as you want, this tedium is trivialize making you feel stronger, but in this case it felt impenetrable. I decided to not be the guy who killed hedgehogs until they were level 99, but maybe time will change my mind.

There's also a glitch with the full screen where a white box sometimes flashes in the middle of the screen after giving an input.

I dislike jump puzzles, I don't like offline/ single-player games who try to emulate an MMORPG in terms of complexity and atmosphere. BUT I LOVE CROSSCODE to bits and pieces.

This game feels like an actual MMORPG from the good old days that triggers so many nostalgic moments from my old WoW, Age of Conan, Darkfall Online, Guild Wars 1&2 etc. times, that my heart aches and my brain is over flooded with memories while playing CrossCode. CrossCode feels like a pre-Sword Art Online and Hack Sign mix with its own art style and story.
The world building is interesting so far and the battle system and features got me hooked from the get go.

I am so happy that I gave this game, which is usually not directly in my genre of choices, a chance. Absolute GEM of a game.
Try it, you (most likely) won't regret it :)

Do you like zelda?
Would you like the combat to be way more engaging?
Would you like the puzzles to be way more interesting?
Would you like there to be an actual story you can get into?

Of course you do!

For a 2D isometric platformer with lots of combat, This game is fantastic.
The open areas have tons of jump puzzles to find secret items, and all jumping is automatic.
Your character slowly gets stronger, and you can feel it via character progression and yourself personally getting better.

Get this game, You will be glad you did.

So, I say this as someone with Autism and ADHD. I have hundreds of hours in another, completely unrelated game called ULTRAKILL. It has given me so much happiness, been such an excellent outlet for my energy, and has saved my life at one point by simply being an incredible distraction from tough times. You could call it my hyperfocus.

When I say this game, simply due to its outstanding story and incredible characters all across the board, is able to not only meet ULTRAKILL's "top spot" in my tier list, but also give it an honest run for its money, I'm not kidding nor exaggerating. I am absolutely flabbergasted, in fact. This game is a gem within a gem within a gem, and I am mortified that it's no longer receiving content updates. I can't believe I'm actually sad that this isn't a live service...

There is another, older game which this game reminds me of, called OneShot. It might not ring a bell for you, but if it does, you know EXACTLY why I bring it up. That game has inflicted so many positive emotions unto me that nothing else compares. Nothing else, of course, except for this. And this game doesn't just compare; it somehow manages to surpass the emotions that OneShot gave me.

You do NOT want to spoil yourself for this game. Get it. Now.

i wish there was an option between recommended and not recommended. i love the combat, puzzles, style, and general vibe of this game, but there is just such an unnecessary amount/style of grinding. i love having to put in a bit of work to achieve something in a game, but the grinding in this game is just so painfully repetitive.

This is my favorite RPG, I don't think I was ever as satisfied completing it as any other rpg (despite my personal few story dislikes)
It is a masterpiece and deserves all the praise it gets
Amazing gameplay, vibes, worldboilding, puzzles, combat and much much more

One of my all time faves :)

Difficulty can be all over the place sometimes, but a fun game

This is a very good game. I really enjoyed it... but to have the true ending be a DLC plug? and the bad ending to be that rough? "I had to delete everything you care about in the story" aggravating.

Cross Code is one of the best indie games I've ever played.

It's story and overall progression is very reminiscent of pre-BOTW Zelda games.
It combines the aforementioned progression with a typical action combat system that's very responsive and fun to play around as well as a nice open-world in which there are many secrets to find and sights / dungeons to explore.
The narrative has great pacing and managed to surprise me multiple times with various, well-executed twists.

Overall, CrossCode is a steal for the price the developer is asking. If you want to see everything the game has to offer, you're roughly looking at 80-100 Hours worth of great content in this game.

Highly recommended!

Overall this was a extremely good game. I had so much fun with it and its so well done. The characters, facial expressions, and story all really bring you in and make a great experience full of twists and amazing world building. The combat and puzzles I really enjoyed too. The concept as a whole was really well executed and overall I would easily suggest this to anyone looking for a game to sink time into.

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.

One of the best games I've ever played, where I sank 90 hours in a blink of an eye without even noticing, also sacrificing my already fu**ed up sleep schedule even more beyond.

Simultaneously

A game riddled with puzzles made by Devil himself that made me question my sanity and (fuck Wave element by the way) made me feel like I need 4 academic degrees to solve them. Now imagine solving these godforgotten puzzles mid-bossfight while that dumbfu** doesn't give you a 5 seconds peace. Once you solve them, you actually appreciate the thought behind these puzzles and understand why the masochists that defend these creations of someone's sick mind proclaim that these are one of the best puzzles ever conceived in a videogame. Doesn't change the fact that they are infuriating to solve and I would commit a slew of warcrimes after entering 4 puzzle rooms in a row.

Fortunately, the good things heavily outweight the bad ones, but it makes the frustrating parts stand out more, and it is completely understandable why some people dropped this game, since sometimes it was just too much.

I'm doing "coding", it HAS to be good. Great story, music, and pixel art. Combat is smooth, puzzles are complex and mostly fair, and everything is satisfying. Only annoying thing is weirdness of jumping, but it's mostly fine.

CrossCode is probably the longest I've ever played a game without being sure I was enjoying it. I've followed this game since EA days a long time ago, so when it finally came out, I was thrilled to dive into the at times overwhelming litany of systems and interactions the devs had set up.

Core combat in CrossCode is so fun it was enough to keep my experience going the entire time even when no other bit seemed to hold up. The narrative has many promising themes but didn't deliver on them in a way I felt was satisfying. The puzzles are innovative, but each screen in a new area seemed to completely discard all the previous rules in favor of establishing new ones that were seldom if ever used again. The exploration always felt more like solving an obtuse cryptogram than actually moving around in a fun way, with out of the way items often necessitating guides. And towards the end of the game the combat even started to lose its glow, as most or all of the end-game skills and upgrades are purely stat based.

All that being said, I would still tentatively recommend this game, and might even do so strongly if you are more of a puzzle/Zelda fan. CrossCode is, to me, a game that resonates with potential. While, to me, it may not have fully realized all the elements it establishes, I'm quite certain anyone interested from a glance will enjoy at least sections of this game, maybe enough to keep them playing as long as I did.

More than anything, I can't wait to see what this team comes up with next.

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.

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 game is good. I am just not good at it. I would still recommend checking it out for yourself. Its charming.

10/10

You will want to off yourself when doing the puzzles. Otherwise, one of the best games that i have played. If u like challenging games that clap your cheeks every 2 hours, then this is the game for you.

100% recommend.

Incredible gameplay, incredible story. Really looking forward to the next game from these guys. Easiest 9/10 of my life.

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

CrossCode is an indie gem.

It ticks all the boxes:
16 bit-era inspired graphics, great soundtrack, smooth gameplay, a fun combat system, good customization and progression, and an actually competent story. It really is one of the best action-adventure game out there.
2D Zelda games should take note from this.

I'd like to highlight the spritework, both for the characters actually in the game, and for the conversation portraits.
They are suprisingly expressive and well-drawn!

Sadly the experience has some flaws, if you are interested, keep these in mind:

• There are a LOT of puzzles, and I'm not joking. I think it is a bit overboard, they make the game tiring to actually play.
  
• As much as I like the combat, it can be very frustrating, especially some special enemytypes and the very-very long endboss.(luckily you can easily adjust the difficulty, but it's still a shame)
  
[*]Exploration can be frustrating, as there are different levels of terrain involved, and they are very hard to progress through in my opinion.

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.

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]

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.

An intriguing story with fantastic gameplay, varied and interesting environments and a kickass soundtrack.
Highly recommended

Great puzzle and role play game. Off to my second playthrough

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.

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.

This might genuinely be one of my most favourite titles of all time, charming characters,beautiful art, very intiguing story that DOES need a bit of time in order to truly shine AND incredible combat/puzzles, alongside big skill trees and genuinely interesting side quests. Whenever I boot it up I play thinking it'll have to end,making me sad, so I guess you can understand how good it is.

P.S not reccommended for people who dislike puzzles,as they oftentimes are very tough.

I felt this game was a complete waste of my time. I spend more time figuring out where to go than actually playing the game. I'm told to "Visit FD HQ Southwest of the Market," yet there are no markers on the map pointing me to where it is. I'm sure that is by design so to "Encourage exploration", however I don't want to explore I want to tick stuff on a checkbox yet this game provides me no option for that. As an extremely busy person, I don't have time to be skipping over the same town over and over again just to find place x and looking up guides to complete a simple quest, I would rather my time be spent fighting enemies and theorycrafting builds, yet here this game is wasting my time cause "Exploration is good". If this game were to implement markers pointing you where to go, and give an option for entirely skipping puzzles, I will switch my review to positive. Otherwise, the game neglects me as a player and I feel very frustrated by that because I enjoy everything else about the game (especially the combat).

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.