CrossCode

The battle system is very good. The story is very very good. I loathe the puzzles. For the first 20 hours the puzzles are okay. At around the 30 hour mark I turned the puzzle timer down to 50%, the minimum setting. At the 40 hour mark I had had enough, I began using Youtube for all puzzles. The worst part of the puzzles is you always feel like an idiot. The puzzles introduce the most basic of concepts to you, ie this block does that, this power does this to that block, then in the next room proceeds to completely catch you off guard by shuffling the deck. What I'm trying to say is that the puzzles do not build off of each other making you feel like you're learning, getting smarter, and are in control. It's more like aceing a physics exam, then being immediately thrown into an english literature exam. Or perhaps...going from playing Tetris, to playing Bejewelled, to playing Myst. Even worse...if you're an acheivement hunter, the puzzles are timed. There are also puzzles to defeating the bosses, especially the final boss. These puzzles are not difficult as long as you have the stats to survive the battle to figure them out. If your stats are high you will not need a second try or Youtube to figure it out. I like those kinds of puzzles. There is one other bad facet of the puzzle system that extends to the rest of the game. Frequently you do not know if you have the ability to do something. Can you get that chest on this screen with your current power set? No way...it's too far away. However, in actuality you could, you just needed to enter the screen from 3 screens ago. Can you find and talk to an NPC and his NPC friend in the city in order to further the plot? Well I went all over every inch of that city exploring and I never saw him or his friend. Oh...I got the bad ending...so...he and his friend WERE there!?!? DAMNIT!!! I'm giving it a 4/5 because the battle system, world, and story are good enough to make me power through the 500 obtuse puzzles.

And that's not to say that this review is based on the nostalgia factor. Actually, as a game goes, it's extremely well designed and fun. It was clearly designed with the sights and sounds of games like Brainlord and Secret of Mana. You do get party companions, and the premise of Cross Code is super cool. It isn't based on 1990's thinking. It's based on 2015 thinking. Modern day elements drive the story arc and getting to know the storyline and characters has been enjoyable to say the least. In the game, there are in-game NPC's, that the game actually tells you are NPC's, and then you have npc's that are presented as actual people within the game. I won't spoil it too much here, but the concept really is genious and it's an absolute pleasure to get to know what's going on in with the storyline. Whether you play on keyboard or gamepad, the control system is tailored to your gaming play style. Playing with a gamepad is INCREDIBLE, as it utterly has that SNES feel, but MAN your options with the gamepad are robust. Also, instead of the up-down-left-right gamepad style of SNES, the gamepad style of Cross Code has your toon running around in a 360 degree analogue fashion. Like every other modern game in there. Playing Cross Code has brought be back to playing SNES, except with all of the upgrades and improvements of not only modern day hardware, but with incredibly well thought out game world and storyline. If you're sitting on the price tag, don't bother. Other games like oh, ACTUAL secret of mana, even on android, runs you close to $30, and that's just a re-hash of an ages old game. This one is 100% worth the purchase even at full price, and that's saying a lot, I've spent over 150,000 hours of my life playing video games over the last 35 years. I know what I'm saying, and this is one of my top RPG's of all time. And yes, I've played them all! JUST BUY IT!

I got this game through a bundle on Itch. The best way I can describe it is like Legend of Zelda on Steroids. The dungeons and combat are excellent, while also being quite difficult. The only real criticism I have is that the story kinda ends on a cliffhanger and you need the DLC(which I haven't played yet to get a proper conclusion. So keep that in mind before you get it.

Cool game, story, art and characters but the puzzles are way too long. Should have cut it down to a 20-25 hour game. Focus on combat + story and be be done with it. The game puzzles drag on for way too long.

It was sitting there all the time in my library and I didn't even look at it... what a mistake! It ticks all the boxes for me: ARPG, big world, secrets, many many quests, a cute pixel art... Well, I need to play so I'll cut the review here :D