CrossCode

Solid game, decent amount of content, deep skill trees and inventory/gear system. and a lot of pretty traditional swich-flicking and block-moving puzzling. Also has really fine-grained difficulty sliders, you can make timed puzzles move at half-speed, reduce damage taken to 20%, and reduce the frequency of big enemy attacks, so if you want a challenge, it's there, but you can also tailor the game to your needs. Soundtrack is really good, but the art style can be a little jarring at times (isn't always obvious what you're looking at, a lot of enemies are just a mess of muddy pixels blending in to the background, and it can be difficult to tell if a platform is on the same plane as you when trying to do platforming or puzzles where you have to shoot projectiles off walls, etc). Controls are a mixed bag. Huge credit to the dev that you can move with WASD/left stick and aim with mouse/right stick, that's a huge step up from most ARPGs still using rudimentary Diablo or Zelda controls, but combat is stil quite rough. Melee attacks ignore mouse aim/right stick and attack in the direction you're moving, not the direction you're aiming, and most attacks interrupt your movement/walking becomes very jerky when in combat. Also, you can't assign your mouse's back/forward buttons, or change the default mouse controls at all. The UI for customising controls only accepts keyboard keys as inputs.

Where the game shines is when exploring the environment. Everything else is either a drag or extremely grindy. I spent 133h (!) with the DLC. Maybe a fourth of this was fun. Pros: Large game world (split in maps consisting of smallish rooms with a teleporter every few rooms), beautiful graphics, interesting characters, lovely dialog animations and a good story. Complex skill system, tons of items, custom saves. Cons: The music is terrible and and keyboard controls are clunky. These becomes an issue later when you need to do precision jumping while skating on ice. The delay when blocking makes it totally pointless, the dash is too short to be useful but happens all the time accidentally on platforms. While the elemental powers are great, switching them in battle with numeric keys is a PITA. Besides, the elemental overload is bad design and a PITA in boss fights. Indeed, the whole fighting system is just no fun. The aiming delay is a bad idea, besides later every 2nd normal enemy and all the mini-bosses are immune to normal attacks. You need to trickshot them in the back, switch elemental powers and use the level (converters etc.) while enemies fire homing missiles causing continuous elemental damage etc. Normal enemies are bullet sponges and typically give 1 exp which makes progression very grindy. You need to smash thousands of plants to collect stuff needed to buy potions. Also the elemental skill tree is somewhat messed up and the stealth section are simply buggy. The map shows the current room, but not your actual position. So setting markers is problematic. Then there's the puzzles and while some of them are fun, lots just aren't. The mix of timed switches, precision jumping, switching elemental powers at the right time etc. is already a PITA, but some of the wall reflections are based on luck since you can't really judge the angle. Since the temples are a mix of dozens of puzzle rooms with arena fights and you're without your party, they are really annoying.

A solid story, tight gameplay loop, and engaging, appropriate sounds and graphics. One of my all time favourites; whatever the price, buy this game.

Criminally underrated indie game. It's rare to see a game with this much content and all of it being of top notch quality. Highly recommended!

Crosscode takes a lot of inspiration from 16-Bit action RPGs, but modernizes the experience. The game delivers a ton of content and a level of polish that many AAA games never achieve. There is fluent combat, brutal puzzles, amazing 2D level design, and a cute story. Buy this game! Bye, Lea!