LogFAQs > #933306302

If tiers are a thing you care about, then this is the last tier of games. Every game from here on out is something that I regard as a top-of-the-top masterpiece and was something that I seriously considered ranking as my #1 game of the decade. I feel confident about the order I chose to rank these games in but these are my absolute favorites and they're kind of the reason I wanted to make a list. Everything else up to this point was great but this is the Real Shit.

#6





Years of release: 2018 (PC)
Beaten?: Yes, pending epilogue content coming in 2020

Holy shit, guys, we really fucked up on this one. Well, okay, I didn't. But you guys have really screwed the pooch on this one by allowing CrossCode to be my hidden gem of the decade - my unequivocal top candidate for the most overlooked game in quite a long time. I don't want to overhype this game too much, but, well, given how much praise I've given to games ranked lower than this I guess the ship has already sailed on that, so let me tell you about CrossCode, my 2018 Game of the Year.

Whereas Mega Man 10 envisions a world in which we never stopped making Mega Man games, CrossCode imagines a world in which we never stopped making SNES RPGs. Except, instead of going back to that time and recreating it as it was back then, this feels like a natural evolution; a game with 1995 sensibilities that could only have ever been made in the 2010's, with all the game dev tools and game design knowledge that we have today. This game takes Secret of Mana's gameplay and Phantasy Star's aesthetics and refines both to a sharp point, and the level of polish and the size of the game are really on another level. I can't believe I only ranked this game #6.

The game takes place in the virtual MMORPG world of CrossWorlds, where people log into physical avatars that they play as in a physical game world, and you play as Lea, a main character who is both mute AND an amnesiac, and yet bucks every single cliche you'd expect on both fronts and is probably my favorite protagonist in an RPG to date for reasons I care not to spoil. Events unfold as you play through the game of CrossWorlds, making new online friends and looking for answers to Lea's mysterious past. The story starts out pretty simple and unobtrusive but suddenly kicks into high gear in the game's second half, and I found it pretty gripping and demanding to be seen to the end. The writing quality's a notch above most of its peers; jokes land, emotional beats are felt, and the cast of characters is one of the most deeply likeable I can think of in an RPG this side of, well, Bug Fables.

The gameplay is like Secret of Mana meets a twin-stick shooter and while I've heard some people find it a bit overbearing, I found it to be absolutely perfect. Combat in this game is butter-smooth; Lea's melee and ranged attacks, as well as her dashes and guards, all feel perfectly intuitive and effective. Combat is fast and hits hard. The game fortunately has pretty forgiving difficulty sliders that you can turn down, which is good, because I think first time RPG players would find this game pretty tough. For me, it was just right - this game demanded exactly the right amount of timing, reflexes, and strategy that I want out of an action RPG. It also offers exactly the amount of character building and customization that I wanted - CrossCode has a very sphere grid-like system of upgrades with the ability to swap between several different layouts on the fly, and nearly all of Lea's special arts are useful and turn the tide of battle in a different way, allowing for a lot of different ways to approach combat. Tons of options here, none of which felt especially inferior to any other. Combat never got old for me in this game; both random encounters and boss fights demanded my attention, and one plot-relevant boss fight near the game's climax was so exhilirating and demanding my mastery of every single aspect of the game's combat that I think it might be my favorite boss fight in a video game ever? I'd have to really meditate on that but yeah I think it might be true. Again, I really hate to overhype this thing, but there's no getting around the fact that this game has my favorite RPG combat *ever.* I can't believe I only ranked this game #6.

Even the visuals and the music are good! This game really has Nintendo levels of polish in every facet of its design that I just don't see in indie games very often. Sprites are colorful and lovingly animated, everything's easy on the eyes and pops off the screen in bright, beautiful hues, and enemy and boss designs are universally inspired and creative. The music takes a lot of cues from Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, and Phantasy Star Online, and while I wouldn't call it quite as good as any of those three, it still have a really good sense of personality and panache that this style of game demands.

I do have to warn you ahead of time that CROSSCODE IS ALSO SECRETLY A PUZZLE GAME. These aren't RPG puzzles for babies like you'd get out of Golden Sun or something - CrossCode has dungeons that are more like a Zelda game in their complexity, but I'd put the level of difficulty in their puzzles on something more like the level of Braid, or another medium-difficulty puzzler like that. Some puzzles in dungeons took me a good 15-30 minutes to figure out, which is good enough for me to call them serious headscratchers, and I think some people have gotten turned off this aspect of the game. I loved it though - the mix of combat and puzzles in this game is probably better realized than any other RPG I've played to date. I can't believe I only ranked this game #6.

I do have a COUPLE of problems with this game. First of all, exploring areas can be a little too difficult for its own good sometimes, and it almost feels like a running joke that the devs had fun making areas increasingly complicated and annoying, with multiple layers of platforms that are very difficult to read as you're jumping across them, and item boxes in high places that you have no idea how to reach are common. This game also leans a little too hard into it's MMORPG premise at times with how much money and items you need to craft current-grade armor and weapons; a lot of the times I would find myself badly needing an armor upgrade, only to level myself out of needing it by the time I found all the necessary materials to make it. Armor upgrades can be a bit frustrating too as you end up losing combat modifiers that you really liked in order to get a stat increase. These are both minor complaints, but frustrating enough that I do suddenly remember why I ranked this game #6.

I enjoyed this game so much, and was so ho