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...

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.

Quite possibly one of the best games ever created, one of two games I've ever played where there isn't a single dud amongst all of the main and side characters. Every single character is written with tons of love, care, and quality. The combat is snappy, flashy, and in depth. There's so much more to say but no time to say it. Please, for the love of god, play this game, it's absolutely fantastic.

One of the best games I've played on Steam. Great story, gameplay, audio, and visuals. The art for the characters in dialogue is so expressive. The dungeons and puzzles give me a zelda-ish vibe, but with more difficulty and complexity. The combat has variance, nuance, and difficulty to it as well. For those who enjoy finding secrets and working through multi-layer platforming puzzles, that is an optional form of content for you as well.
The story is well thought out and felt very impactful to experience.
For those who are interested in it, there are accessibility features which help tune the difficulty of the game in case the challenge is not desired.
Overall, one of my top games played in 2024. Do recommend.

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.

An absolutely phenomenal game, I'd put CrossCode on the same level as Hollow Knight, Celeste, Pizza Tower, Gravity Circuit, Rain World, Darkwood, ULTRAKILL, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, Star of Providence, etc. as a must-play indie title.
To go over the things that probably don't need to be elaborated on as much, the game visually looks great. It's not quite the best pixel art you'll ever see, but the game is consistently visually appealing with detailed sprites, tons of animations, and characters that are expressive and have all the portraits they possibly need to show their emotions over the course of the story.
The story is also great, with fun and interesting characters and covering some surprisingly deep and dark themes. Can't say much because I don't want to spoil it, but the story is a great compliment to the excellent gameplay.
The soundtrack is also great, not quite top tier but it's got plenty of great tracks that suit the environments and story beats very nicely and make traversing the world enjoyable. The only thing I think could've been better would be different battle music for different areas as while the battle music is great, it does get a bit repetitive with how long the game's total runtime can be.
Speaking of, the combat is excellent and one of the two pillars of the game. It controls smooth and the enemies are intelligently designed that you have to use different tactics for most of them, whether it's ricocheting ranged attacks into a weakpoint, timing an attack well to interrupt them, using a certain element or perfect blocking to stun them. What really makes the combat great is the elemental system. On top of your standard moves you can switch to 4 different elements you unlock over the course of the game, each of which alters your stats, allows access to a large variety of super-moves and allows you to inflict different status effects. Across all the different elements there are a few dozen of these, and it makes the combat incredibly deep while still being approachable with how it introduces portions of it over time. By the endgame you're utilising all of it in some challenging and incredibly fun, well designed fights.
The elements also are part of the other pillar of the game, puzzles. You get a taste of these in the overworld you'll explore, which is fun to traverse being packed with secrets and chests you'll need to find ways of getting to higher elevation to reach. Once you get into the dungeons the puzzles really shine though, early on they're already a decent challenge but as you progress the elements get used in different ways and start being combined together to make for puzzles more complex than anything you'll find in Zelda. Not liking puzzles is the only thing that might be a reason to not get the game, but if you enjoy them at all this game has them in spades. The final dungeon in the DLC adds one new mechanic that combines with all the others to create some seriously mind-bending puzzles that are incredibly satisfying to figure out.
To top it all off, the game is also jam-packed with content. Despite having almost 100 hours, I still haven't done all of the sidequests and have barely touched the arena with gauntlets of enemies and bosses. Some of the side-quests are your typical fetch quests or "kill X enemies" but the majority are all unique and engaging in their own right. Some involve optional side dungeons and/or new bosses, some have unique set pieces like fighting on top of moving cars, and some change the game entirely being fun mini-games that put a twist on the mechanics or make it a whole other genre like tower defence.
The DLC is also well worth it, because the base game already has more than enough content to justify its price as well as New Game+ with all sorts of ways to modify a playthrough to increase the challenge or put twists on it. The DLC just adds even more, including two areas (one of which is basically a gigantic dungeon), a more satisfying ending and also a new final boss that somehow tops the already insane final boss of the base game.
At the price it's selling for there is no reason not to buy the game if you're remotely interested. You'll thank yourself later. Consider getting the game on GOG as it seems to go on sale more often there and you can get the game and DLC for $10 or less, which is an absolute steal for the quality and quantity of content on offer. It's truly a shame this game didn't get the attention it deserves.

CrossWorlds is easily the best MMORPG I’ve played! My favorite class to play is the Spheromancer class but my best friend is a Pentafist main (she LOVES punching). The Operation Trackwalker storyline was an absolute blast and I’m really excited to see what Instatainment has planned for the rumored sequel. Until then I think I'm going to get all the Platinum medals in the arena!!!