Posted on: December 15, 2018
LittleCritter
Verified ownerGames: Reviews: 89
Blinded by nostalgia.
First thing you wanna do is go to the options menu and crank down the difficulty. Now enemies won't hit you like a ton of bricks you might actually get some enjoyment out of Crosscode. That is unless you are like me and find yourself sick to death of block pushing and flip switching puzzles. Which you will be doing for many, many hours in Crosscode. Also sphere bouncing, the main mechanic of this game. It starts out tame but will eventually require you to be so precise, it becomes infuriating. Sometimes I get the impression we are so blinded by nostalgia for games of early 90s, that we don't realize how very flawed that age of gaming was. Guys, let me tell you... NOBODY LIKES ICE SLIDE PUZZLES. You may think you do, but you don't. This is your brain lying to you because you used to do this as a kid back when your world was still rose tinted with childhood innocence. Aside from a few dungeons most of what you will be doing is grinding for quests and exploration. A gimmick of Crosscode are elevation puzzles, in order to reach a specific area you have to climb over ledges in the correct order. Isometric perspective however makes elevation judgment impossible. Plus you jump automatically when you run over a ledge, causing you to drop and fall and having to do everything over again. How I wish I just had a regular jump button. Not a fan of the MMO aesthetic, it cheapens the immersion when I'm constantly reminded that oooh it's a game within a game! Jabs at MMO & internet culture come off as trite rather than funny. The graphics look like standard pixel graphics, nice but nothing special. For some reason the scrolling backgrounds made me oddly dizzy... The plot takes hours to get going, characters are flat and forgettable. I cannot fault Crosscode for lack of content, it is a solidly made time sink. What it isn't is a game, more like a patchwork love letter to a very specific era of videogames. With all the outdated sensibilities from that era.
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