CrossCode

Une perle, qui rend hommage aux zelda 2D et a secret of mana, mais avec un systeme de combat, au premier abord simpliste, mais tellement jouissif au fil du déblocage des differents élements. Je n'en est pas encore vue le bout, le jeux n'est pas avare, mais je ne m'en lasse pas :) Je recommande chaudement cette pépite des jeux indés ! Ca fait trés longtemps qu'un jeux indé ne m'a pas mis une telle claque !

Not much I can add to existing reviews, so I'll keep it objective. CrossCode is retro-inspired isometric platform puzzle game. You control the digital character (literally, as...well, spoilers and all that) Lea. Our girl Lea is a "Spheromancer"; a ranged ball-thrower. And she can learn various abilities from a rather extensive spelltree. There are 4 different elements in the game - Heat, Cold, Shock and Wave. All which will be learned and must be managed throughout the game. But be careful, staying too long in any elemental mode will eventually cause it to overload and become temporarily disabled. You must guide Lea around in CrossWorld. Along the way she meets friends (and some not so friendly) who parties up with her, though their abilities are non-controllable apart from setting their overall combat behaviour (offensive / defensive / non-combatant). You will also get various comments from party members if you stay in combat for a prolonged time, which can be really funny. Leas elemental abilities are crucial to progress through the ever increasingly difficult challenges and boss fights. All which is sadly done solo - the party fighting is exclusively done in the open world fights against the classic grind monsters. But remember to ball any fauna or flora that you see. Enemies will drop loot, like items or gold, in addition to XP, while the flora will drop required items to craft certain combat gear. Personally, I find the elemental controls quite annoying as they can be rather finicky at times - you take a second too long to select the right one, and a puzzle challenge restart awaits you. The puzzle difficulty can be changed in the options to give you more time to solve it. Guiding a ball from point A to point B might not sound difficult, but... To close it all up, the soundtrack got that genuine 8-bit vibe, and I like it. The late-game puzzles arguably requires a walkthrough unless you're really good. I heartily recommend the game overall.

... And 80% other stuff that actively ruins the experience. I'm talking about the puzzles of course. I wouldn't mind them if they weren't so pervasive. On the same note, I'd say that the area design makes exploring a puzzle too. Again, too much. There are only so many chest on a ledge too high to reach that I can handle without losing my patience. It's a shame because the RPG aspect is very fun - combat, story, etc. Why not focus on that is beyond my understanding.

I hate this game. Timed puzzles, timed bossfights, timed wave fights that all restart form the beginning when you fail. Sure you can turn down the difficulty, but I will play this game the way the developers intended. I don't mind when a game is difficult, but I do mind when it takes a long time to get back to where I failed. Don't buy it unless you have a lot of spare time and patience.

You ever wondered what 2D Zelda would be like as an MMORPG... but without that pesky MMO part? Wonder no longer!