CrossCode

CrossCode is a top down action RPG. You play as Lea, a seeker on the alien moon of Shadoon. Run, jump, solve puzzles, and fight your way through the area with your friends while you make your way through the Track, a trail of an ancient civilization with the automated defenses still running. Pick up elemental powers. Throw balls. Try to make it to the end.

Find it on Steam.

Everything I said in that introductory paragraph? That’s just the game within the game. CrossWorld is an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) where you play as a seeker solving ancient puzzles. But you are Lea, a player suffering from amnesia. And playing through the MMORPG is a way to help regain your memories.

Note that this is a single player game. The story just takes place inside a fictional MMORPG.

Gameplay is solid. You have ranged attacks, special skills, evading, guarding, with some more advanced techniques as well. There are lots of enemy varieties to keep things interesting. Bosses are great as well. They are challenging, but you can learn the patterns and attack ranges to help you beat them. I played using a controller. There wasn’t any real button remapping, though, and there were things I wanted to change on the controls. I got used to the control scheme, but it would be better if I could play around with the buttons.

The exploration of the world is great as well. Each zone is full of areas to climb and jump to. You could go through each area decently fast, but fully exploring a place takes some puzzle-solving and traversal skills. There is no manual jumping in the game. When you run off the ledge, you just jump. There is air control as well making jumping between platforms feel pretty solid. With the top-down look, there are times the relative heights of the areas get confusing. You could check before you jump, but I usually went for it.

Then there are the dungeons. They are huge and full of puzzles and challenge rooms. Puzzles rely both on different elements you can acquire and balls. The balls are your ranged attacks. They can trigger switches. Be charged with different elements. And when charged up, they can bounce to hit things from different angles. The puzzles in the game can be pretty devious spanning entire rooms and requiring good timing and good aim.

The story of the game starts out pretty slow. It is mostly you and your friends playing through the MMORPG. Each area completed gets you some vague memories that won’t make much sense. The story really picks up towards the second half of the game, and you’ll realize it when it happens. The characters are fun, though, and they show great emotion through their sprite portraits.

Lea is a fun main character as well. Without memories, the world of the MMORPG is all she knows. But there is an error with her connection to the game, so she can’t really speak. The people helping her are able to give her a few select words, so she mainly relies on facial expressions to convey emotions. It’s cute that she uses her name, “Lea,” as a term for excitement. Just like a Pokemon.

CrossCode is a solid top-down action rpg. The combat is engaging, and the puzzles are challenging. There are options to turn down the difficulty of the game, including the timing of the puzzles if you need it, though. The world looks great with lots of different places to explore and sidequests to do. Journey through the game within the game and try to unlock the secrets hidden in Lea’s memories.

Find it on Steam.