We analyze Crosscode for consoles. After its applauded premiere on PC in 2018, it can finally be enjoyed by PS4, Xbox One and Switch users
Crosscode comes to consoles after two years making PC users happy. The game of the Germans Radical Fish was possible at the time after a lot of effort and the help of crowdfunding. Devised in 2012, in 2015 it got the final push from users who supported the project with their money. From there to a premiere in 2018, after several early accesses, which were received with open arms by the public and the specialized press, who agreed to praise the quality of the title. Did you meet the expectations of such a hard journey on your last console stop? Join us in the following Crosscode Reviews to answer any questions.
Crosscode, an action RPG that moves between two centuries
Visually it does not take much to sell Crosscode to the most veteran of the place. Its action RPG look from the golden age of 16 bits enters the eyes from the first moment. Its fantastic and colorful pixelated graphics take us back to the days of Super Nintendo and Megadrive. But there is a second part of sensations that arises beyond the first contact. The characteristics of yesteryear are there, such as its charismatic characters, the villages, the merchants, the leveling up and the gradual increase in skills, the conversations with a multitude of NPCs, the final bosses … but the game feels modern in its rhythm , its narrative and, above all, its focus.
And it is that, although Crosscode is an offline game for a single player, it is exposed to us as if it were a MMORPG. This detail turns everything around. The main city becomes the typical meeting place for online games, many NPCs act as avatars of other players and as such communicate with us, the map is tremendously expansive and gives the impression of a whole coexisted in the line of an Azerot, for example. This means that a young player accustomed to the functioning of the persistent worlds will immediately feel at home, on the contrary, the player of a lifetime, the one who has come to Crosscode with the intention of recalling happy past times, will soon be You will be overwhelmed and confused by the basic idea.
This is important to note. In the long run, the classic player may find accommodation, but he will have to make an effort to do so by understanding what he is facing and changing the chip. The sooner you do it, the sooner you will start enjoying the Radical Fish proposal. So, at first, after a start that gives us a lot of information about the world and its characters, everything slows down suddenly. In the Action RPGs of yesteryear one thing led to another in an epic more or less linear story. Here you can give the impression that, suddenly, nothing is happening, that we are accepting a thousand side missions that do not advance the plot, that we are not going anywhere and that we do not have a clear objective. Accepting that we are facing an MMORPG will give us the keys to enjoyment. Here you have to fight a lot to level up, farm for a thousand and one places to complete orders for other characters. It is not wasting time, it serves to imbue us with the world and its rules. Don’t be afraid to move forward and forward across the map in any direction. Possibly you get to where the developers want, a cave, for example. Then you remember the legend that has been told to you, the elders, the objective to fulfill, and everything fits. You enter the bowels of the mountain prepared for what awaits you, with the level of your character well doped for any enemy that comes your way but … Is your mind equally prepared?
The Crosscode dungeons and puzzles. You better be good at playing pool
The hard core of the game lies in its puzzles. Dungeons are long and damn complex. When we get to them it is a joy to realize that the techniques that we have honed in combat serve much more than to bring down enemies. There are rooms that are a real headache. For example, our ability to bounce an energy ball in a room will be squeezed to the max when we have to touch all the pillars, which we have previously moved in every possible way. Very fine shots, invisible solutions that resist appearing in our minds already on the edge, tests and more tests that tell us no, that is not the way it is, that we continue testing. Crosscode itself is like the games of yesteryear in that sense, when, without the internet in which to look for solutions, we took a puzzle as impossible and obfuscatedly turned off the console. Days later, cooler, we were surprised to find the key that had been all the time under our noses.
The combate itself is direct, like a good Action RPG. We will gradually increase the strength of direct and ranged attacks, as well as additional skills that will help us make our way in dungeons and outdoor scenarios, as well as solve the devilish puzzles. In the medium term it will be a walk to finish off the enemies of the overcome areas, but a successful element has been implemented that encourages us time and again to clean the maximum number of areas. As we finish with bichejos a small bar is filled, from D we go to C, from there to B … Each uninterrupted level increase multiplies the rewards, so it is not strange to knock down enemies simply because they have intervened on our way (they will not react until we mess with them), and see ourselves in a race against time in different areas looking for the unwary to fall under our blows. The higher the level, the more urgent it is to continue fighting. Congratulations to Radical Fish, because it has found an infallible formula that never tires.
The protagonist who did not want to be silent
We are not going to reveal anything about the plot, it is up to the players that pleasure. Suffice it to say as a slight note that we must travel through a huge world called CrossWorlds in search of unraveling our identity. Lea, the protagonist, has forgotten her past and the ability to speak. This detail unites her to the illustrious and old school of the silent protagonist. It is something that Link, the protagonist of Zelda, popularized as a way to identify with a main character who did not emit thoughts alien to us as players. It is a trend that continues to this day, although at this point it is questionable for feeling outdated and forced. As we have seen, the game moves between the past and the present of role-playing games, and this important detail also passes the filter of modernity. Lea wants to express herself, and is frustrated that she can’t. He lets us know expressively continuously. There is a character who works from the shadows so that this changes, so, from time to time, our protagonist adds vocabulary to the vocal possibilities. First a greeting, then his name … In a title in which there are countless lines of text between characters, it is something that gives a lot of play in the writing of the script. It gives a spark to conversations, even a comic point. It also makes us think about the narrative progress of the video games themselves and how our point of view regarding them has changed with the evolution of the medium.
Lea also benefits from current skill development trees. A diagram with dozens of possible paths that we will unlock according to our interests and the way we play. The MMORPG concept is seasoned with an additional possibility. We can tour this huge world alone or ask for help from colleagues we meet along the way. They are required by an online call outside the persistent world, and they will be willing to stop what they are doing ‘in the real world’ to connect and play with us in that quest that resists us.
The MMORPG concept embraces it with all its consequences. This means that we will continually see other ‘avatars’ running around alone or in groups on the huge map. Yes, this is how it happens in an online game, but since this is truly an offline experience, what makes both characters enter and leave the field is to take away emotion from discovery and adventure. There will be those who connect with that philosophy of showing us as one more element in a connected universe full of players, but we are particularly less excited than thinking that we are the first to set foot in those remote lands.
CONCLUSION
Crosscode visually is an Action RPG of the 20th century that is governed in its interior by the codes of the MMORPG of the 21st century. And while it is underpinned by many points in that magical 16-bit pixelated past, its spirit is really in the present. Try and make us feel like one more player in a persistent online world. It is something that can confuse the most veteran player and that will please the young host of users. Putting each other on their side, the former will discover an excellent game with a brilliant and very demanding level of difficulty in their puzzles, the latter may find here the door to the memorable games of the past that honors the game of Radical Fish with its beautiful wrapper. Needless to say, both sides will win.
THE BEST
- Its graphic appearance, which polishes and beautifies that of the 16-bit games it is inspired by
- The hard core of the game. Long dungeons with a multitude of puzzles whose demanding complexity will know how to drive you crazy
- Perfectly conveys the feeling of being in an MMORPG
- Its rich skill tree
- The charisma of its characters
- Intricate outdoor stages that are arranged on multiple levels
- The Switch version, its hybrid character is perfect for this type of games
- Its combat system, direct and that encourages non-stop to increase the reward chain
WORST
- Not worrying, but on the Nintendo console the framerate drops in the large squares crowded with characters
- Maybe, just maybe, too much grinding
- The enemies end up not being a problem
- It is in English, and with two years like this on PC it would be rare at this point a localization to our language
