CrossCode

One of the only games that I think EVERYONE needs to play! It has everything! The characters are memorable and great, love them to bits! The story is amazing, combining both the game's story and the actual story worked better than I expected! The combat is some of if not my favorite in an action rpg, it's not braindead and the elements are fun to mess around with. The game just has so much for you to do as well, almost every area section has something for you to do. The side quests are fun for the most part, some are the rpg-generic quests, but the others have nice side-stories to them with fun gameplay tied to them. There's so much more to mention, but genuinely just play the game! It's too good not to experience!

Overall interesting game and unique enough that I’d recommend playing it. CrossCode is an adventure game alternating between three distinct types of gameplay : combat, puzzles and thorough exploration. The first two are essential to the game and cannot be avoided while the third one is optional. I'll go through these three types of gameplay in order to understand what kind of game CrossCode is. [b]Combat[/b] The combat is more interesting and engaging than what I expected from the first few hours in this game. The character can shoot, hit in close combat and dash. These three alone made me think at first that the combat would mostly consist of hit and run. This description is in fact very incomplete once you progress in the adventure and unlock new abilities and “stances” (I’m keeping it vague to not spoil too much). Once you have multiple options, there are various ways to approach combat, it’s quite interesting and fun and doesn’t fall into complexity territory. The character also has a shield that you can use to absorb some damage (but you can’t do that for too long). Trying to avoid all source damage by running and dashing is not always the best option (sometimes it’s barely possible) and using the shield is an interesting mechanic. Overall the combat is quite fun and is nothing too hard. [b]Puzzles[/b] CrossCode contains a lot of non-trivial puzzles (but not too hard either) that you have to complete in order to progress in the adventure. If you don’t like having too many puzzles in a video game, I’d therefore recommend avoiding this game. The puzzles are usually found in the dungeons where you have to go through multiple rooms with a puzzle to solve in each one of these rooms. Fortunately, it didn't get too boring for me (though I wouldn’t say it was super exciting either) and some of the puzzles were interesting enough. [b]“Exploration”[/b] This one is optional. The CrossCode map contains a lot of chests in plain sight that can only be accessed if you meticulously search for certain passages. These passages are not hidden per se but they are cleverly put at certain places so that it’s easy to miss them. The chest contains equipment, loot or food that you can use in combat for temporary bonuses. All of these are optional to find since there are shops where you can buy similar products anyway. However you can buy to a certain extent since buying requires both money and a set list of specified “materials” in a certain quantity and these “materials” can be conveniently found in chests! So yeah, you are somewhat encouraged to thoroughly explore the map to get these chests (remember it’s also completely optional to finish the game). It’s not the most exciting gameplay I must say, but can be pleasant in small doses. I didn’t try to get all the chests, only some of them. [b]Everything else[/b] Crosscode is a cool adventure with a lot of content (this not a hyperbole, there is truly a lot of content). The pixel art is close to excellent, it’s vibrant, the characters' portraits are full of variations for various moods, some of them are very funny. The world doesn’t feel empty, it has a lot of characters you can interact with. Speaking of interactions, the dialogues are usually not very serious, they are lighthearted and funny, I liked it that way. CrossCode is overall a good game. For the negatives and why CrossCode isn’t necessarily the most memorable game : some parts of the game felt slow to play (trying to explore the map for chests or having to solve multiple consecutive puzzles in a row). You really have to be patient to play this game.