What did you like about Crosscode? thread

[⋆ Beetroot ⋆]

Add the spoiler thing if you're going to talk about something in the game that's past the very start.

[BROLY 32]

Gameplay-wise, I loved the bosses and the arena. Figuring out the battles, how to do them flawlessly, learning how to use each combat art and how to counter and break each creature. That was tons of fun.
The story was great, all the characters were very loveable.
The puzzles, meh, they're fun but they always overstayed their welcome imo.

What about you OP ? What did you like ?

[⋆ Beetroot ⋆]

Originally posted by BROLY 32:

Gameplay-wise, I loved the bosses and the arena. Figuring out the battles, how to do them flawlessly, learning how to use each combat art and how to counter and break each creature. That was tons of fun.
The story was great, all the characters were very loveable.
The puzzles, meh, they're fun but they always overstayed their welcome imo.

What about you OP ? What did you like ?

I haven't played a game quite like Crosscode, the controls are responsive and fluid. It's not a perfect but the game shows the love put into it.

[bugfragged]

I like that the control scheme manages to do a lot without making the player memorize so many key/button inputs. I find a lot of action RPGs hard to play on the keyboard+mouse because of all the different inputs required, but CrossCode avoids this issue with the way arts are activated based on the player's current action.

[Cowblitz]

The best part, in my opinion, is the combat, which probably isn't surprising considering what kind of game it is. It just feels good to play and you have a lot of freedom with builds and playstyles with the circuit mechanic and the various stats and modifiers. I could grind for ages and not get (too) bored. Every enemy also have their own attack pattern and way of breaking them, which can be fun to figure out.

The story is good, even with a couple cheesy remarks by the characters in regards to the whole "you're in an MMO" thing and MMO tropes. I typically don't play games for the story, I'm more of a gameplay kind of guy, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it all the way through and there was never a moment that I can recall where I felt like I just wanted to skip the dialogue to get to the action.

The puzzles I also liked, mostly because of the interesting and unique mechanics surrounding the last 2 elements you unlock. The jumping puzzles in the overworld would get tedious at times (and in the end just reward you with a couple consumables), but the dungeon puzzles I always looked forward to.

The Soundtrack is just great.

[Shyguymask]

Combat & puzzles gameplay aside I love Lea as a character. I found her interactions with Shizuka especially interesting.

[flashboy284]

Originally posted by Shyguymask:

Combat & puzzles gameplay aside I love Lea as a character. I found her interactions with Shizuka especially interesting.

It really helps the game has great portraits/animations. You can tell what Lea is thinking through her actions and gestures.

[LuckyPants]

I really enjoyed the combat, even though I'm not as young as I used to be and my reflexes aren't that great anymore (which meant I had to turn things down a bit). I also thought the story, overall, was good, and the world they built was interesting. I'm actually kinda sad that it's over now, but endings are a part of life. I'm not gonna start bugging for a sequel, but I am curious as to what they've got planned for their next project.

[Ghaleon]

The way I describe the game to all my friends/forums is pretty much it.
Fast paced challenging combat like the Ys series (with ranged and melee rather than mostly melee). Mixed with Zelda-style puzzle-focused dungeons, in a Phantasy Star type setting.

Note that a personal beef I have with lots of sci-fi games is they are seemingly always post-apocalyptic, or in some kind of dark grungy future. Rarely do they look bright and wonderful like phantasy start, xenosaga, etc. So I love that part too.

That's how I describe the game. Other things I like I don't really mention to other people though are:

1: The jumping mechanics. I can totally see how they can make people mad, or people may th ink it a 'flaw' to the terrain being 2d. But honestly it's so weird and different I mostly enjoy it just for the unique feeling it has. I am NOT a person who likes unique things just for being unique, but if I like something already somewhat, AND it's unique, I generally like it more. There's something about jumping in a game that doesn't actually have a jump button that makes it fun.

2: The music. I like it more than most indie games that has good music. Not as much as a Falcom game, or Castlevania or something, but it's pretty up there.

3: The lightning element. Lots of games have elemental magic, often electricity/lightning/whatever is included. But the lightning attacks in this game just feel more satisfying and powerful. It puts high budget producers like activision blizzard to shame when Lea's lightning skills feel more badass than the sorceresses in diablo or whatever.

4: The dodging mechanics are seemingly perfectly balanced. Very spammable, yet punishes you for doing it just a bit too much at just the right levels IMO.

5: The dialogue. Some games have a silent protagonist, other games don't have a silent protagonist, this game has an entirely new take on an... ALMOST silent protagonist? It's actually a really cool idea that makes for some new and fresh dialogue experiences. Plus I don't get tired of the old dumb npcs acting like you're talking to them even though Lea clearly isn't gag =P.

[R.Heart]

Literally everything.
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Okay fine. More specifically: Engaging combat with legit ways to tune it to your pace and so many options at your disposal, without feeling overwhelming. I like how even the most basic Hedgehag needs 'a little' strategy and you can't just button-mash into a whole mob without being punished. And of course the bosses, but seriously every fight feels rewarding, almost every victory is earned. Unless you use the assists...... Not gonna get into that here. Dungeons that actually bend your little noodle with surprisingly thoughtful puzzles and genius-level mechanics. Seriously Zelda can die in a corner for all I care. I love how the maps are laid out so that there's more than one path, and I like how they set up treasure boxes with intricate obstacle courses, especially when they span multiple mats, or make you circle all the way around, clearing small puzzles along the way. I don't like grinding for loot, but CrossCode struck the right balance here too. The story is at once heartwarming and 'cute' for lack of better term, with a sprinkling of heavy moments between a good helping of otherwise playful banter. Absolutely adore the characters, even the annoying ones, even the villain(s?).

And this last point I want to make, I need to put a disclaimer here so you understand how crazy this is: I don't do the social media, the discords, the interactive stuff. I've seriously never come across a game before CrossCode, that made me want to get involved in the community. Never. I'm over the age of 35 btw, I have quite a long gaming history so. Yeah.

The game is just a masterpiece. Period. I'll go out on a limb and say there's never been anything like it ever, and nothing I can think of that even comes close. If you know of something, I'm all ears but. I just doubt it.

[R.Heart]

Originally posted by Ghaleon:

Plus I don't get tired of the old dumb npcs acting like you're talking to them even though Lea clearly isn't gag =P.

What you refer to I describe simply as, "The Lassie Effect." If you're not familiar, Lassie was a show (REALLY OLD, like black and white TV old) about an intelligent dog who could understand things and events like people do. Literally, the dog could just go "woof" and whoever was listening goes, "what's that, little Timmy is stuck in the town well?" Not because of some psychic gimmickry, that's just how the show was written. And it's seriously comical how this was implemented for CrossCode. I've been waiting to mention this for quite some time.

[Phirestar]

"CrossCode does quite a number of things - combat, puzzles, story, exploration, customization, side quests and challenges - and the consistent quality throughout shows a clear level of thought and time invested into ensuring that no part feels lacking, or left behind from everything else."
- Quote from my review, which kind of is to say everything


More in-depth though, I would pick the characters, theme, and variety of gameplay.

Generally I don't play games for story, and am perfectly content with a developer letting me do my own thing, but the personality of the characters in CrossCode helped, I think, add to the plot, and quite often that drew me into wanting to see the next cutscene more than anything else. I love how much effort has been put into the facial expressions to give everyone distinction; the competitive attitude shines through in Emilie's cat-like smirk, while Hlin's look of determination that comes out when she's hyping the group up for the raid conveys that "mom" nature. And of course I have to mention Lea, whose vast array of emotions is proof that so much can be done without the need for dialogue, making her a star example of how to design character, and my favorite video game protagonist.

This game made a particularly big impact on me during Chapter 8, while exploring Gaia's Garden with Apollo and Joern. With the game taking place within an MMO, it related to me as somebody who grew up playing RuneScape (which was and still is my favorite game of all time). During that session, around the end of the first quest to gain access to the dungeon, I happened to open the Social menu and see Emilie's status set to "Offline". And it was that, combined with the way in which my opinion of Apollo changed while exploring the jungle with him, which I would say had fully immersed me into the game world, and I leaned back in my chair after closing the game to realize that this singleplayer RPG had managed to convince me that I was actually playing an MMO, and the characters around me were real people. That was huge, because it is the first and only time where I felt that the term "immersion" was a perfect way of describing the feeling I had. It will go down as one of the most memorable moments I've experienced in gaming, and it even brought out a desire to go back to that game from my childhood. (And how fitting was it that only a couple of weeks or months later, they announced that Old School RuneScape would be coming to Steam.)

My last point about CrossCode's gameplay ties in here well, because it's a point that I can bring up about both games. I've found that many RPGs feel like they lack engaging gameplay to go with their story, and one major factor to that I believe is how this genre tends to lean on combat as a crutch. When you have games that put the focus of gameplay on fighting enemies, it seems ridiculous that you'd want to then make a shallow or simply uninteresting combat system - Elder Scrolls, The Witcher, JRPGs. (This is also why I often find myself drawn towards games with RPG elements moreso than full-on RPGs, where gameplay often receives more attention. Traditional roguelikes are a great example of games that I arguably find more appealing because they have so much complexity to their combat systems. A game with really deep combat is destine to become one that I very much enjoy.) And while I wouldn't say that CrossCode's or RuneScape's combat systems are the most in-depth ever made - thought they're certainly more interesting than those previously mentioned titles - what I like is how they're complimented with other types of gameplay. In the same way that I also love non-combat activities like fishing, hunting, and doing agility courses in RuneScape, I enjoy dungeons in CrossCode mixing puzzles in with battles, and creating a fake platforming element with its level design that makes exploration feel unique. It's what I like to call "layered gameplay", and I believe that more games ought to take inspiration from it, especially RPGs.

[⋆ Beetroot ⋆]

Originally posted by Phirestar:

"CrossCode does quite a number of things - combat, puzzles, story, exploration, customization, side quests and challenges - and the consistent quality throughout shows a clear level of thought and time invested into ensuring that no part feels lacking, or left behind from everything else."
- Quote from my review, which kind of is to say everything


More in-depth though, I would pick the characters, theme, and variety of gameplay.

Generally I don't play games for story, and am perfectly content with a developer letting me do my own thing, but the personality of the characters in CrossCode helped, I think, add to the plot, and quite often that drew me into wanting to see the next cutscene more than anything else. I love how much effort has been put into the facial expressions to give everyone distinction; the competitive attitude shines through in Emilie's cat-like smirk, while Hlin's look of determination that comes out when she's hyping the group up for the raid conveys that "mom" nature. And of course I have to mention Lea, whose vast array of emotions is proof that so much can be done without the need for dialogue, making her a star example of how to design character, and my favorite video game protagonist.

This game made a particularly big impact on me during Chapter 8, while exploring Gaia's Garden with Apollo and Joern. With the game taking place within an MMO, it related to me as somebody who grew up playing RuneScape (which was and still is my favorite game of all time). During that session, around the end of the first quest to gain access to the dungeon, I happened to open the Social menu and see Emilie's status set to "Offline". And it was that, combined with the way in which my opinion of Apollo changed while exploring the jungle with him, which I would say had fully immersed me into the game world, and I leaned back in my chair after closing the game to realize that this singleplayer RPG had managed to convince me that I was actually playing an MMO, and the characters around me were real people. That was huge, because it is the first and only time where I felt that the term "immersion" was a perfect way of describing the feeling I had. It will go down as one of the most memorable moments I've experienced in gaming, and it even brought out a desire to go back to that game from my childhood. (And how fitting was it that only a couple of weeks or months later, they announced that Old School RuneScape would be coming to Steam.)

My last point about CrossCode's gameplay ties in here well, because it's a point that I can bring up about both games. I've found that many RPGs feel like they lack engaging gameplay to go with their story, and one major factor to that I believe is how this genre tends to lean on combat as a crutch. When you have games that put the focus of gameplay on fighting enemies, it seems ridiculous that you'd want to then make a shallow or simply uninteresting combat system - Elder Scrolls, The Witcher, JRPGs. (This is also why I often find myself drawn towards games with RPG elements moreso than full-on RPGs, where gameplay often receives more attention. Traditional roguelikes are a great example of games that I arguably find more appealing because they have so much complexity to their combat systems. A game with really deep combat is destine to become one that I very much enjoy.) And while I wouldn't say that CrossCode's or RuneScape's combat systems are the most in-depth ever made - thought they're certainly more interesting than those previously mentioned titles - what I like is how they're complimented with other types of gameplay. In the same way that I also love non-combat activities like fishing, hunting, and doing agility courses in RuneScape, I enjoy dungeons in CrossCode mixing puzzles in with battles, and creating a fake platforming element with its level design that makes exploration feel unique. It's what I like to call "layered gameplay", and I believe that more games ought to take inspiration from it, especially RPGs.

This is a very good written idea of how you felt, i can tell that you had to have liked crosscode quite a lot with what you said. More power to you my friend, why not try dragons dogma or lisa and oneshot as they are games that may pull you in like crosscode. Though not in the same way of course, but they each have their own special quirks and rpg elements to them.

[Phirestar]

Originally posted by You really are something:

This is a very good written idea of how you felt, i can tell that you had to have liked crosscode quite a lot with what you said. More power to you my friend, why not try dragons dogma or lisa and oneshot as they are games that may pull you in like crosscode. Though not in the same way of course, but they each have their own special quirks and rpg elements to them.

Thanks.

Dragon’s Dogma is one of the games that’s been on my wishlist for a while, but I haven’t run into a time where I really wanted to play it, just yet. Some other RPGs on my list in addition to that one are Divinity: Original Sin - I own and enjoy Original Sin 2, but it doesn’t run well on my current hardware - Grim Dawn, Kingdoms of Amalur, and a few others.

[⋆ Beetroot ⋆]

Originally posted by Phirestar:

Originally posted by You really are something:

This is a very good written idea of how you felt, i can tell that you had to have liked crosscode quite a lot with what you said. More power to you my friend, why not try dragons dogma or lisa and oneshot as they are games that may pull you in like crosscode. Though not in the same way of course, but they each have their own special quirks and rpg elements to them.

Thanks.

Dragon’s Dogma is one of the games that’s been on my wishlist for a while, but I haven’t run into a time where I really wanted to play it, just yet. Some other RPGs on my list in addition to that one are Divinity: Original Sin - I own and enjoy Original Sin 2, but it doesn’t run well on my current hardware - Grim Dawn, Kingdoms of Amalur, and a couple others probably.

No pressure about dragons dogma, but it's like skyrim and monster hunter world. The music got my pretty hyped in battle and i found it fun to roam around the world.

[E-Wan]

I could make a huge list of all the stuff I loved, but one thing that sticks out is how good of a protagonist Lea is. Not since Link from Wind Waker has a "silent" protagonist had this much charm and personality. She never feels like an empty player avatar while also never getting in the way or hogging attention. Genuinely a great character!

I also loved all the little shout-outs to German culture. Never thought I'd use Spätzle and Maultaschen to heal in a JRPG lol