Crosscode is my favorite game of all time. It takes the best elements of retro games and creates an incredible experience from a beautiful combination. I said "eh, why not?" and got it on sale after seeing so many positive reviews and convincing recommendation videos and absolutely lived in it from beginning to end.

Gameplay: The gameplay is clean, the combat is fast and intuitive using both melee and ranged attacks that are extremely responsive, the special moves are insanely cool and I love figuring out the best ones to strengthen and set, I love switching elements on the fly with the push of a button to add things like fire and ice damage and how it all feels like second nature on a controller.

The puzzles get really clever and I was a big fan, mostly because figuring out the puzzles in the dungeons is simultaneously showing you ways to use new powers to manipulate your environment or attack your foes. Incredibly smart way to teach you the versatility of your powers by solving a dungeon puzzle instead of a boring tutorial. I will say that the first dungeon can start to drag, and the later dungeons can get really challenging, but that anytime I felt like I was spending too much time on something I'd just look up the Wyvern (he was one of the backers for the game and has been playing it since early versions) videos on Youtube to see how to solve what I couldn't. No shame in asking for help, keep things fun before they just get frustrating if you're like me, plus I needed to not waste too much time stuck on something because I was addicted to the story and needed to see what happened next! Which brings me to...

Story: The story pulled me in and just floored me. There were points where I had to pause just sobbing in tears, other times I had to pause to run around the room with joy. Go into it blind, it will pull you in!

A Unique Strength: It's crazy how real your companions feel, completely sells the feeling and idea of being in an MMORPG. Part of this is because of how effectively written your friends are, and part of it is the fact that they are capable of acting on their own and in no way require you to control or protect them. In that way it reminded me a lot of Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite where you have a companion that, not only takes care of herself, but actually helps you and improves the gameplay in a way that it feels real lonely when they're not around. I was emotionally invested in these people for sure.

I also like that it's one of the few games these days to have a free playable demo. The demo is the short prologue at the beginning of the game. It's fun but it greatly undersells things as it shows you some of the bare basics of melee combat. Learning the ranged attack system right after the prologue and then progressing into the range of the elemental abilities is where the combat shines. And finding out how big this world actually is adds more to it then a demo has a chance at conveying.

TL;DR 10/10 for Crosscode from me!