EDIT: Slight update for the first paragraph of this review: the DLC has now been announced (CrossCode: A New Home) and has a store page on Steam you can search up.


CrossCode is the closest that a game has come to deserving the title of a "perfect experience", at least for me. This game began on a high note, and only ever went up from there the further in that I played. And on top of already offering far more than its asking price, the developers are currently working to put out one final major update that, based on my personal interpretation, will likely add enough new content to push this up to the 100-hour mark for a complete playthrough - a task that was accomplished with virtually zero recycled or repeated content, as well.

On their website the developers talk about their focus on simplicity and detail, and this game displays that philosophy very well. CrossCode does quite a number of things - combat, puzzles, story, exploration, customization, side quests and challenges - and the consistent quality throughout shows a clear level of thought and time invested into ensuring that no part feels lacking, or left behind from everything else. From the layered level design that incorporates a pseudo-platforming mechanic to make traveling the world a wholy different experience to every other top-down game, to the gearing system that allows for some control over the protagonist's playstyle in an otherwise set-in-stone character class that cannot be changed. There is a main story that everyone will follow, but also a section of the menu that saves pieces of lore and characters' backstory that you'll encounter on the journey. And they go so far as to give contextual explanations for all of those "game logic" scenarios(some of which you'll even figure out on your own, if you pay close enough attention), with perhaps the greatest example being a modifier in New Game+ that enables you to one-shot everything resulting in brand new character dialogue interactions where they acknowledge this change.

But my favorite of all were the details that helped build the MMO theme: the world is filled with the avatars of other "players" wandering the world alongside you; a fake Social menu that display online status for your party members, and the way in which they're shown to log out of the game when they're done playing. It left a particular impact on me, as somebody who grew up playing an MMO, to the extent that it changed how I experienced the game. I know that we like to call everything immersive now-a-days, but when I chose to sit there for 5 hours and continue playing until the "session" was over and my party members left the game - not merely due to it being fun to play, but because it seemed like the right thing to do - that was the first time I considered it immersion that I had experienced. It's that kind of atmospheric detail, which made it such a familiar environment for me, that allowed for such an easy connection to the world and characters in a way that made them feel somewhat real.

When I bought CrossCode in 2019 it was approaching 8,000 user reviews, and since then I've come to wonder how that number isn't 80,000. "Hidden gem" is maybe not the appropriate term, but I do feel justified in stating that this game is nowhere near as popular as it should be. Take any of the major indie titles from the last ten years, and I will say with full confidence that CrossCode is on par with them, if not exceeding a few at the same time. There is no reasonable explanation, in my mind, for why this game does not have a huge following behind it, and that is why CrossCode has been placed at the top of my list for games to recommend.