Story:
If you have watched even one animated film since the beginning of the second decade of this millennium, there is a good chance that you have come across one where the protagonists of the story find themselves, willy-nilly, propelled into a virtual universe like MMO. It even seems that in Japan this subgenre of fantasy has its own little name: Isekai.
The possibilities offered by this type of scenario are enormous and can happily mix science fiction and fantasy, which must undoubtedly be the forbidden dream of many of us. But I don't think any of these isekai have yet been released with a pitch as Kdickian as this one from Crosscode:
"In a distant future where space travel is a reality, an entertainment company simply called Instatainement has TERRAFORMED A SATELLITE to make it the playground of its future MMO: CrossWorlds. This one rather than confining the players in a virtual universe offers them to play in a very real environment composed of a revolutionary piece of revolutionary material "the moment matter" very light, adaptable to infinity where the players embody themselves in avatars via a simple augmented reality helmet that retransmits with absolute fidelity the neural impulses of our brain ".
And this game works very well. No evil mastermind to lock players inside, just a classic rpg, until Léa, our heroine, mute, amnesiac and above all stuck on the game.
I just took a long time to introduce the context, but if the story is well tied up and pleasant to follow, crosscode will be appreciated especially for its gameplay and atmosphere. The game simply drawing inspiration from the best references to create an engaging game experience for several tens of hours.
GAMEPLAY:
Léa gagne de l’expérience en combattant, et peut s’acheter de nouvelles compétences de combats et des boost de stats grâce à un système de sphérier (comme FFX, vous voyez le genre) qui possède quatre arbres secondaires qui se débloquent à des moments clef de l’aventure.
Au combat vous pouvez utiliser un combo de corps à corps, deux types d’attaques à distance des techniques spéciales et vous avez accès à un dash ainsi qu’une parade. Tout se joue beaucoup autour du timing notamment face aux boss qui sont facilement capables d’enchaîner à mort tout inconscient qui tenterait de les brutaliser sans respecter leurs patterns.
Au combat vous pouvez utiliser un combo de corps à corps, deux types d’attaques à distance des techniques spéciales et vous avez accès à un dash ainsi qu’une parade. Tout se joue beaucoup autour du timing notamment face aux boss qui sont facilement capables d’enchaîner à mort tout inconscient qui tenterait de les brutaliser sans respecter leurs patterns.
DIALOGUE:
Finally I would like to address the fact that the game was written with a lot of humour (it is not available in French though) between the multi-linguistic jokes (mini spoiler : a character is called it truncated, the swordsman is called Schneider) descriptions of objects that make people smile or meta comments of secondary characters, crosscode manages to make his universe alive, if only with random pnj that you can cross everywhere and that run in all directions, like in a real mmo, or the race against the clock against secondary characters in dungeons, that you can win...or lose.
LEVEL DESIGN:
As for exploration, the game looks a lot like a Zelda 2d. The environments are large and full of secrets to discover that are only accessible after obtaining some upgrades in dungeons. The dungeons are real nuggets of inventiveness, with puzzles that will require reflection, timing, adaptability, and of course some fights against hordes of enemies and mini-bosses to let off steam between two puzzles.
GRAPHIC/SOUND:
With a scenario worthy of the name, an adventure rich in surprises, a varied gameplay, exploration, difficult bosses, crosscode gives the impression of being the natural child of a Chrono trigger and a zelda alttp, which if it doesn't invent anything in itself masterfully uses all the ideas of a long line of rpg to arrive at a final product that is really difficult to fail (go if, the music is a little withdrawn, there). And in addition, the devs promised to continue adding content, including a postgame, for those like me who would not have had enough.
