CrossCode

I've spent ~500 hours on a pirated copy and finally decided to support the devs now that I'm not a complete moneyless loser. You guys deserve it for the masterpiece of a game that you've made. I'm obviously replaying it twice again, to get 100% on a NG+ savefile with all the difficulty sliders to the max...

I feel the term "hidden gem" has kinda lost a bit of its meaning over the last couple of years. You see people using the term for games that, sure, are gems, but are certainly not hidden. One of the big offenders of this that comes to mind for me is Celeste. Sure, the game is an extremely well crafted experience, but I would hardly call it "hidden". That being said, I feel CrossCode is an amazing example of a hidden gem.
I discovered this one after I was recommended the demo for this team's upcoming game Alabaster Dawn. After completing the two hours it had in store, I was hooked, and decided to look through the devs previous work. I picked up the game with it's DLC on sale for $8. 118 hours later, I can tell you now, that was probably the best $8 I've ever spent. CrossCode has easily wormed it's way into my top 10 indies.
In CrossCode, you play through an in-universe MMO titled CrossWorlds. Not only do you get the beautifully written lore of the MMO itself, but you also learn more and more about the original dev team and the larger company behind CrossWorlds. The cast of characters on display here are also extremely charming and memorable. My favorite of which would probably be the main protagonist, Lea. Despite her vocabulary being very limited, Lea's interactions with all of the other characters always feel very real. One of my favorite interactions is a bit over halfway into the game between Lea and Emilie, one of the party member that joins you on your journey. Without getting into spoilers, there's a pretty big event that causes a small rift between the two. When the innevitable scene of them making up eventually comes, the emotion comes across beautifully even though Lea mainly says one word repeatedly throughout.
As for gameplay, CrossCode exceeds here too. While I will say, despite there being some sense of progression, none of the abilites you recieve feel like major game changers to me. However, CrossCode's combat and puzzles were able to keep me engaged from beginning to end. When it comes to combat, you have four main abilities: melee, ranged, shield, and dash. All of these can be upgraded as well with special moves to deal more damage. While the combat looks pretty simple on the surface and doesn't ask too much of you early on, it takes a lot to truly master it. The puzzles also, as I got later and later into the game, constantly had me scratching my head, sometimes sitting in the same spot for 5-10 minutes trying to figure out what I was supposed to do. Despite the game not being too demanding, you should still expect to die and struggle a bit along the way.
CrossCode is an extremely well crafted action RPG, and an AMAZING first outting from Radical Fish. I do have my fair share of critiques, mainly with the pacing and certain beats of the story, but they're not enough to detract from the rest of the experience. If you consider picking up the game, I highly recommend picking up the bundle with the A New Home epilogue DLC. It does an amazing job tying up a lot of the loose ends from the base game. Overall, I'm extremely excited to see what this team cooks up with Alabaster Dawn and beyond.

I have never played a game that pulled my heartstrings so much. I'm not much of an emotional guy but the story itself was just, amazing. CrossCode is a hidden gem in a pile of shiny rocks. Lea, Sergey, Emilie, C'Tron, Apollo, every character is full of life. The diagloue feels real and heartfelt along with being just as funny when talking or seeing the dialogue between NPCs.
CrossCode will always have a place in my heart ever since I found the demo when going through one of those "Bored Button" websites.
Radical Fish Games, let me just say, even if you most likely wont see this: Thank you for making this masterpiece of a game.

CrossCode was a grand experience, a gem that almost managed to remain unplayed in my dusty backlog forever. I've been playing videogames for 30 years and I've seen plenty of games made with great care and passion. While CrossCode has not become my favorite game ever it just might have taken the crown of "most polished game I've ever played".
The subquests are probably the most diverse element in the game, almost never banal and always trying to be different from each other, offering a new experience whenever possible, albeit they often include puzzles as a common denominator. Yes, puzzles, probably the only requirement to truly enjoy CrossCode is to also enjoy puzzles to a certain degree. The good news is that these are very good and balanced in difficulty as well, you don't really need any external knowledge to solve them and are very intuitive by design.
The combat is top level for a pixel action rpg, there's no grind involved and you can't really get too overpowered since the experience points you get are adjusted to your level... yes, the developers also thought about that.
A special mention goes to the ingeniously crafted maps of the various areas of the game and especially to the chests hidden in them. Finding these was maybe the most fun I had with the game, the devs hid them so well I'm not exaggerating when I say I spent at least 40 of the 115 hours I played trying to find them all. There are even some character lines that pop up when you finally reach a particularly difficult one! These little things put a big smile on my face throughout the game.
By going over every aspect of the game I can't help but think an enormous amount of work went behind everything, you can really see how the devs had all these ideas for the game and fully committed to them without compromises. And speaking about commitment, if CrossCode has a weak point, then that's probably it, but from the player perspective. The game expects the player to enjoy its many activities and not just rush through it, otherwise the pace and the content balance would inevitably be ruined. My humble advice here is to just take your time and do most or even just a part of the side content before continuing with the main story. This way you'll have a splendidly balanced mix of combat, exploration (get those chests!), weird subquests and puzzles.

Let me gush about this game for the next 10 minutes. The fact that this is just "very positive" had it sitting in my library for too long, and I am SO MAD I didn't play it sooner. Everything I'll praise I'll caveat by saying that the game seems tailor-made to my tastes, and I get it won't be for everyone. Like for example I see comments criticizing the pacing (I don't have any complaints there). But art is always going to be subjective, and different things will appeal to different people.
What isn't subjective is the overwhelming amount of LOVE that is put into every single aspect of this game. This is going to sound cheesy, but while playing I kept getting emotional at the amount of heart and care I felt pouring out from the developers into the game. That is increasingly rare nowadays, and I hope that no matter what the legacy of this game is, the devs can feel proud that they made something that they gave their all to.
Ok, corny sentimentality aside, let's get into what makes this game one of the best I've played in years (and I play a lot of games):
Story
I don't expect a lot from the story of my puzzle-action Zelda-like/Metroidvanias. I'm used to either silent and atmospheric (Hyper Light Drifter, Cocoon), or JRPG-adjacent "get the four crystals" (most Zelda games) schlock. CrossCode is closer to the latter, but only because it's a game-within-a-game - the schlockiness is the story of the game world, and even gets commented on by other characters. The story is a love letter to MMOs at the start, and becomes something much richer and deeper later on. I'd compare it favorably to (and there are spoilers in this comparison) Pantheon, which also happens to be my favorite show of this year.
Spoilers for a particular sequence that absolutely blew me away - and I highly recommend you don't spoiler yourself for this: the sequence break during the raid that sends you to the Vermilion Wasteland blew my mind. Fully one of those "I didn't know a game could do that" moments - my jaw was on the floor. The fact that the devs were willing to tease you with this big boss, and then rip it away and send you on this narrative-heavy sequence outside the main game, showed that they had so much trust in their players to see the story through and not get upset.
Let's talk about the characters: for the most part character work is light and campy, but it makes sense because the stakes are very different for most characters, versus for Lea. And Lea - WOW is she amazing. I have never seen a more expressive and personality-filled silent protagonist, and I have especially never seen a protagonist where their silence is diagetic AND an obstacle AND a plot point AND handled by their friends in such a beautiful way. Lea's story alone is worth the price of admission.
Combat
Probably my most controversial take, but I really really loved the combat - but I am a sucker for top down action. I appreciated that you have the option to specialize into ranged or melee combat, since I suck at aiming with a controller. However, being able to seamlessly blend both grows in importance throughout the game, so I could actually feel myself getting more skilled in real time along with Lea. The best part is the enemy variety, with each enemy having its own attack patterns and ways to stun it that you have to learn. A slight criticism here - playing to enemy weaknesses tends to be more important than playing to your strengths, so I found that my "build" was less important than it could have been. Still, as primarily a puzzle enjoyer, I liked that the combat played out like a series of puzzles rather than a tight test of skills or reflexes. I could see criticizing the difficulty (i.e. it's too easy), but I beat most bosses on my 3rd or 4th try, and that's exactly my sweet spot. Soulslike fans, or even fans of something like Tunic, will probably sweep everything no problem.
Sidenote, but I especially loved how your friends join you in combat. It means you get to see how the other classes in the game-within-a-game work, even though you can't play them yourself, and really immersse you in the feel of partying up in an MMO.
Puzzles
Masterfully done. Each new mechanic tutorializes itself, there are "aha" moments galore, the mechanics never overstay their welcome, but also nothing is one-and-done. The creativity on display here is what I'd expect from a long running series (e.g. Zelda) that's done everything and is digging deep for fresh ideas, not a brand-new indie studio. I personally didn't feel that any dungeon overstayed its welcome, and solving most puzzles creates a little shortcut so you don't have to do it again when revisiting dungeons to pick up missed loot.
On top of typical Zelda-like puzzle box dungeons, I'm also a big fan of the environmental hidden path puzzle. Although admittedly frustrating at times, most of them are obviously optional challenges, so only a true completionist is going to have a bad time. On the other hand, they make the verticality of the maps stand out in a way that can sometimes suffer in this art style, and in my opinion make you really look at the environments instead of just rushing from battle to battle. This is important, because...
Artstyle
The game is beautiful. The character portraits are packed with emotion and personality. The enemies are varied and expressive. The particle effects and special attacks are awesome without cluttering the screen. Bosses are big and badass. And the maps and environments are the icing on the cake. Your typical forest-mountain-desert-jungle RPG quadfecta is here, but that's the wink-wink-nudge-nudge schlock. The cyberpunk city in the middle of the jungle though? The wasteland? The hub town that feels alive with players and cars zooming around? The neon bamboo forest? Wow. Luckily, I think the Steam images do some justice here. Everything is so detailed and varied - I just kept thinking, how much time did the pixel artists spend on this???
UI/Systems
This is where I really felt the care in every detail. Skill trees, crafting system, quest log, inventory management - a lot of indie games would cheap out in some of these areas, if not all of them. But in every aspect where I would expect a small team like this to cut corners, these devs just... don't. Menus are a breeze to navigate, and look great. There is always enough information on screen. There's a bestiary with drop percentages, locations, and little funny quips. There are lore dumps if you want them. There are quest summaries so if you're coming back after a break, you can catch up on the story so far. I know these things sound small, but they add up - I kept encountering things that would make me think "this didn't have to be here, but someone cared enough to make it." Speaking of which, the wiki for this game is unmatched for an indie title like this. I don't know if this is also the devs putting in more work, or just a really dedicated fan community, but to me a good wiki is a mark of a great project.
Conclusion
Look, I can't promise you'll like this game. I see lots of negative reviews that criticize things that, to me, are positives (length, sidequests, pacing, story). But if any of this review resonates with you, I strongly encourage you to pick this up and give it a go. This isn't just a good game under $20 - I'd consider it in my top 5 of the past decade. Lastly, I just want to express my deepest gratitude to the devs for making this thing that feels almost custom-fit for me. I don't usually write reviews, but I feel so strongly about what you've made here that I want to add my thumb up to the pile and hopefully get you that "overwhelmingly positive" someday. And when your next game releases, even if it's only got a fraction of the passion and care this one has (which seems unlikely), I'll be first in line to play it.

I would admit that during my high school days I pirated this game (because it looked cool and I was still broke at the time) and finished it and deemed it one of my favorite games. I don't know if this is an apology but I bought it full price and finished it with 100% achievements and also bought another copy to my friend for him to experience PEAK and as of this time, I still regard this as one of the best games that I have ever played. That is all Thank you and I am excited for the next game in development and yes, I have bought Alabaster Dawn since its release.
EDIT: I have bought the DLC as well and loved every bit of it.

I followed the development of this game since it was first announced. Played the demo, and knew that once the full release would come out it would be one of the best games I ever played.

I played it first to completion before the DLC came out, and finishing it I was catatonic for a week, just amazed at how it delivered on everything I hoped.

Now I played it again, and even knowing the plot points, I was once again brought to tears at some of the reveals. Playing the DLC this time around, I am once again amazed.

The announcement of Alabaster Dawn, and the clear parallels in gameplay are nothing to me if not a promise that the next game is just going to be just as amazing as this game is.

Honestly, that CrossCode does not have the same status as Stardew Valley, Undertale, or Slay the Spire is mind boggling to me.