Crosscode was great
Crosscode is a 2D action RPG, kinda like Kingdom Hearts or the Of Mana series, but with as much emphasis on puzzle solving as there is on combat. I bought it some years ago after seeing it on a list of lesser-known indie gems.
I found the combat very engaging. There are four basic actions: melee attacks, shooting, dashing, and blocking, All of these also have further “powered up” versions, with up to three levels of charge, which you can unlock on the skill tree as you level up. The game makes the most of all of these mechanics through its enemies. A lot of enemies take reduced damage to start with, but can have their guard broken by different means. Some have to be hit from behind, or by a charged range attack. Some have to hit with a certain element, and for some you have to make use of environmental objects or other enemies first. This gives it variety and prevents things from ever getting too mashy or mindless.
The puzzles are similarly great. There’s a huge number of mechanics which interact with the four different element types you unlock in this game and which you can freely switch between once unlocked. By the second dungeon they’re already as mindbending as almost any puzzle I remember from a Zelda game, and they remain very engaging all the way to the end. Oftentimes I would enter a room and feel overwhelmed by all the moving parts of the puzzle, but taking it one piece at a time let me understand it until the only obstacle left was my execution.
In the overworld, there’s also a good amount of parkour-based exploration puzzles. You’ll see a chest or some other goody on some elevated position and then to get to it you have to see what piece of terrain there is nearby that will let you jump to it, and if that terrain is also out of reach you’ll have to figure out how to get there first, and so on and so forth, with some of these locations having very convoluted routes. These exploration puzzles can be satisfying, but also frustrating on account of the poor depth perception. Since the game is top-down 2D, it’s sometimes hard to say whether a certain platform is at the same level as the one you’re standing on, higher, or lower. There is a way to tell reliably—if you shoot some projectiles at the other platform, those shots will hit its side if it’s higher than you, otherwise they’ll pass over it—but it’s still not great having to stop and test for this stuff.
Other than that, my only big complaint about the game parts of the game is that some of the overworld stuff drags. Each area of the overworld could have been cut down by a third or a quarter and it would have made the pacing much better, imo. Especially the part leading up to the third major story dungeon, which is the biggest area of the overworld and which you additionally have to do some backtracking in before you can access that third dungeon. Arguably the dungeons should also have been shortened, but the only one that felt like a drag to me was the first.
As far as the writing goes, on the one hand, I ended up liking pretty much all the major characters. Your party members’ banter and discussions while exploring the overworld are a nice addition to the game. It helps very nicely to flesh them all out and make them feel like real friend groups. On the other hand, the plot was just okay. I found it a bit too contrived; for instance, there’s this person in the game who helps you through your journey, but every so often your character will ask him, “Hey, why do I have to do/put up with X? Couldn’t you just do Y instead?” and he’ll answer with some handwavey technical stuff that basically amounts to “I can’t because the plot/gameplay demands we do X”. I still liked it, but it’s not a game I’d ever recommend for the story. The ending is a bit underwhelming too; the DLC improves that but not by a lot.
On the whole, a really good experience, and deserves to be more well know. Right after beating the base game I went and bought the DLC, and it's just as good. 4/5 Stars.