CrossCode

CrossCode is a game that I've been keeping an eye on for a while now. Just from looking at it, the game oozed retro charm with its very 16-bit aesthetic and overhead Zelda-inspired perspective. Actually sitting down and spending some time with CrossCode reveals that there's a lot more to it. The game isn't simply a retro throwback meant to tug at our heartstrings through the powers of nostalgia. There are a number of modern day conveniences and design philosophies at work that a lot more depth to the experience.

The basic premise of CrossCode is that players take on the role of a girl named Lea who is trapped in a virtual world that is part of a popular MMORPG. It's all rather reminiscent of anime series such as .Hack and Log Horizon. Complicating things is that Lea has lost her memory, so she doesn't really understand much about the world that she's in. Luckily, she has the help of Sergei Asimov, a human in the real world who is communicating with Lea, trying to help her with her memory. From what I've played so far, he hasn't helped a huge amount and has been mostly helping Lea regain her ability to speak, as she's been affected by a glitch in the game whereby she can't talk. She may not be a brilliant conversationalist but it's a convenient way of pushing forward the silent protagonist.

As one progresses, they experience more of the world and Lea meets other players in the MMO. She has to keep her background a secret, though, as they think she's a normal player just like them, not a person trapped in the game. As she meets all of these people and they get to chatting, we see various nods to the MMO genre. What's nice about this is that dialog doesn't linger on jargon that is commonly associated with the genre. Instead, it's more about player attitudes and behaviors. It's a nice change of pace, as it seems like various shows or games that make reference to MMOs get hung up on language and spend little to no time looking at what makes the genre special in the first place: all of the different people who play the games.

In terms of actually going around and doing stuff, on a base level, CrossCode has a lot in common with classic Zelda games when the series was all about the overhead perspective. This can be seen through the various zones connected together that are teeming with monsters, often with treasure chests in hard to reach places, enticing players to figure out how to get to them.

Getting to said treasure chests, not to mention doors / passages to other zones is where we see the game come into its own, as platform puzzles play a big role in players getting around. There isn't any actual jump button when Lea explores an area, but when she comes to a ledge or a bit of ground that isn't much higher than where she is, Lea will jump automatically. With that, players can explore a given zone and try to figure out which ledges are of the appropriate heights and distances from one another to traverse to hidden or generally hard to reach areas.

Things become even more complicated in dungeons where the platforming becomes even more difficult and the puzzles more complex, incorporating moving pillars, and switches that have to be activated in very specific ways. It's also worth noting that dungeons are extremely large and can take over an hour to get through, usually with a very tough boss at the end.

There's also a fairly decent amount of character customization in CrossCode thanks to the game's talent tree. Branching into four directions, each specializing in different aspects (melee attacks, ranged attacks, health, and defense), the branches give players the option to enhance various base stats as well as unlocking new abilities. On top of this, players slowly learn different elemental abilities which can be treated as stances that Lea can switch between, each of which have corresponding branches on the talent tree that become available when she learns these stances. As such, even more customization is unlocked.

As mentioned earlier, the game's visuals are quite reminiscent of what one would expect to find during the 16-bit era, especially games that were showing up on the SNES at the time. Character and enemy designs are of the cutesy variety, while zones are fairly different from one another ranging from lush forests to snow-swept mountains to high tech facilities. One thing that really stood out while wandering CrossCode's world was how vibrant and colorful the aesthetic is, The colors really do pop off the screen.

Meanwhile, the music has quite a bit of synthy melodies going on that reminded me of Phantasy Star quite a bit. Being a huge fan of the music in that series, this suits me just fine.

At this point, CrossCode has been available on Steam's Early Access for a fair bit of time. There's already a lot to do in the game, so I'm getting the impression that it will be quite long when it's finally completed. As of now, the game is only slated for the PC and Wii U, but who knows, maybe it'll get brought over to other platforms in the future. It's certainly looking promising and will likely gobble up quite a bit of time for people who like Zelda-inspired action RPGs.

Early Thoughts on RWBY: Grimm Eclipse

Not too long ago, a game based on the RWBY series made its way onto Steam's early access doodad and I was kind of curious about it so decided to give the thing a try. The developers say that they're going for something along the lines of Dynasty Warrior and that is very apparent as the game throws tons of enemies at players in big groups to hacked and slashed through. There are only a couple of levels to try out so far, but it's about an hour of content so you're looking at around four hours if you want to get through everything once with each of the four characters.

Everyone does play fairly differently from each other. Ruby has her scythe and tends to swing it around in big arcs, making her more adept at taking down large packs of enemies herself. Weiss uses a rapier and attacks much quicker than the others. Blake has her sword but feels much better at focusing down single targets like bosses. Yang uses her fist weapons to punch everyone and can lock onto targets pretty easily.

Each character also has some sort of integrated gun in their weapon but I've not found much use for these things yet. There was one enemy type in the mines where it made a lot more sense to shoot at them from far away since they radiated a weird green goop and damaged for a lot on death, but other than that all the rest of the baddies needed to be dealt with up close.

The girls each have three special moves that consume bars from a meter at the bottom right of the screen. They're some sort of assortment of single-target and area of affect abilities with the different characters leaning a little bit one way or the other depending on the person. The meter itself most often gets refilled by either leveling up for a full recharge or by landing a certain number of attacks in a row without being hit by enemies for a trickle of recharges. There are a few other instances for this like when being revived by a team mate and from a few of the options in the talent tree, but these don't happen nearly as often.

Combat itself is very fast-paced as one would expect from a musou game. It's fluid with large packs of enemies to fight. There's about 10 different types of baddies so far ranging from weaker fodder that attacks in swarms to stronger ones that have much larger hit point pools, can defend themselves, and have special attacks. The levels themselves are fairly linear corridors so enemy encounters tend to be around certain areas where trouble breaks out and the girls have to fend off the creatures, or there will be an area that they get stuck in for a period of time and have to fight against several waves of enemies. There was also an escort mission trying to get a bomb on a mine cart to fall into a pit, which was surprisingly entertain considering how dull escort missions in games can often be,

This is all done in a straight up multiplayer environment where up to four people can play together. One person will be the host while everyone else hops on board. The game scales its difficulty on the fly as people join and leave the session, usually by adjusting the number of enemies spawning as best as I can tell. You can theoretically be in a situation where you're playing by yourself if you host your own game and no one joins, but I've found quite a few people playing and not run into this myself. It's actually a lot of fun playing with others in RWBY anyway. Also, more than one person can play the same character, as they don't get locked out as someone selects them. So, if you happen to really want to play as Ruby, for example, and someone else has her already, don't sweat it, you can play her as well.

One minor, annoying issue with the multiplayer is that if the host leaves for whatever reason the game will reset to the last checkpoint as it assigns someone else in the group to hosting duties. This results in having to redo some of a level, which is a bit of a drag.

Redoing content is also a thing if your whole group gets incapacitated, making it a must to try and help fallen allies back up by running up to them and holding down E until they're back on their feet. Interestingly, you can still fight while doing this and just need to focus on staying close enough to the person who is down while holding the E, which is nice when compared to other games where you might be forced out of combat to help the downed teammate. Also, there is an ability in the talent tree that significantly speeds up your ability to raise others that is totally worth unlocking.

Speaking of talent trees, there is a very simple one here. Each session, players start at level one on their character and gain experience points by defeating enemies, completing certain objectives, and finding little artifacts hidden throughout the levels. Once the character reaches a new level, they'll get a point that they can spend in the tree, which is divided into four sections, one for each of the girl in question's special moves, and another which is like a general quality of life section for stuff like health regeneration, the size of your special ability meter, defenses, and so forth. It's not much right now, but does give a little bit more customization options to the player, which is nice.

I should note that with the way experience points are awarded, it does seem as though it goes to whoever lands the killing blow on an enemy from what I could see while playing. There were cases where I'd be using a more single-target focused character like Blake and be tearing into a boss, do 60% of the damage but still not get any experience despite doing the lion's share of the work, then on another session I'd be on Ruby, dive into a pack of mobs that the rest of the group were on and gobble up a ton of experience from landing a bunch of killing blows. I'm not absolutely certain this is going on because it can be tough to see the little note that you got some XP, but it certainly seems that way.

So far, the game is looking pretty good. There are only two missions in this build of the game, one in a forest, the other spanning an abandoned city and some mines, but the environments look nice. The characters too look quite good. The show is a sort of CG anime, so it translates quite well to a game. I have noticed that the frame rate is a bit iffy right now and had to make sure my drivers were up to date in order for the game to run smoothly. It is in Early Access, so this doesn't really surprise me.

The voice acting is actually decent as well thus far, but they are just getting the voice actors from the show, so this probably shouldn't come as a surprise. The girls don't actually say very much right now, though, other than some quick comments when they kill monsters, find goodies, or enter new areas. Much of the talking is done by whoever the person overseeing a particular mission happens to be.

With that, this little bit of RWBY that is available thus far in Early Access is pretty fun. The combat is fast, the characters are varied, and the aesthetic is nice, While there isn't a lot of meat on the game's bones just yet, it is making a good first impression. Often times when I grab something on Early Access, I get it, play it for a while, then forget about it. With Grimm Eclipse, I actually find myself looking forward to future updates with more content being released so that I can try it as soon as possible.

Shooting the Ships in Steredenn

Bullet hell shooters and rogue-likes are two genres that I've never really thought of in the same breath. At their core, they've traditionally been very different types of games. In one corner, we have the shmups, where a key part of mastering them is intense memorization, knowing exactly when and where enemies are going to come from, and having intimate knowledge of bosses' bullet patterns. Meanwhile, rogue-likes' main draw is the promise that each outing will be different. No two adventures will be the same. This flies in the face of bullet hell shooters, as it eliminates the need to remember everything since enemies won't necessarily be the same, come from the same places, or use the same bullet patterns.

Nonetheless, some folks have opted to make a game that combines these two very divergent genres with Steredenn. The game is still in development but from what's there so far, this unexpected hybridization works surprisingly well. Instead of making mental notes on each playthrough of the game, keeping track of everything that happens, the player is forced to fly by the seat of their pants and rely on instinct in order to survive.

This isn't to say that every each playthrough will be utterly unique from the next, as there are certain basic patterns that seem to recur from time to time. I've noticed similar ship formations or laser deployments that happen on a somewhat regular basis. Also, the bosses follow a set pattern of scaling power, going from a very simple introductory one to much more decked out ships later on, all the while sticking to the same models. There seems to be a variety of bullet and weapon patterns when fighting these guys that varies on each playthrough, but the vessels themselves stay the same.

Weapon choice is pretty standard stuff with bullet shots, rockets, lasers, and bots. The last of these feels a tad overpowered at the moment, though, as it's easy to deploy a bunch of these and they will auto-target incoming enemies, continuing to fire at them until they're destroyed. Putting out lots of these results in tons of concentrated fire on enemy ships, making quick work of them, and they can also be used to block incoming fire. If you saturate the screen with these things, the game feels a bit easy.

I'm having some mixed feelings about the visuals, however. It's that pixelated psuedo-retro look that has been popular for the last while. At first, it was an art style that was kind of pleasant to look at, but the indie game scene is becoming so saturated by it that it's beginning to wear its welcome. The stuff in Steredenn sort of reminds me of Dungeon of the Endless in terms of art direction. It's not horrible per say, but for those who have played quite a lot of games with this aesthetic of late, things may feel a little bit long in the tooth.

Nonetheless, the game could turn into a decent time waster. A randomized shmup does have its charms and is a nice departure from the legions of fantasy-based games that go the rogue-like route. One can only take so much swords and sorcery before going bonkers.

A Short Walk Through The Long Dark

Growing up, my parents used to drag my sister and I along to go cross country skiing. The whole time, I really did not enjoy it, and it instilled a life-long disdain for the outdoors within me. I think that the problem was that my folks were out of shape, and as such very, very slow. My sister and I would go blasting along, only to have to wait for a good 10-15 minutes as our parents caught up. It was very boring. So much so that I would dream up far fetched survival scenarios if I were ever stuck in the wilderness in order to pass the time.

I think this may have been what got me somewhat interested in survival games years later. How would I forage for food? Where would I sleep? How would I repel the zombies? Well, maybe not the last one, though there have been no lack of games in the genre that have been eager to throw hordes of the undead at players. That's one of the things that really appeals to me while playing The Long Dark. It's just me versus nature. A harsh winter in the mountains. The biting wind. Seldom having quite enough food or fuel to be comfortable. The need to press on in hopes of finding a new shelter because the place you've been staying is fresh out of supplies. All the while, trudging through the snow hoping to find a place you're not even sure exists while jumping at anything that moves for fear a pack of wolves is stalking you. It's compelling stuff made all the better by the corpses I discover kindly staying dead.

Hands-On Preview: Sorcerer King (PC)

For a long time after falling under the thrall of Disciples II: Dark Prophecy (way back in 2002) then shaking it off (finally), I thought I would never fall victim to another turn-based fantasy game. Like chicken pox. You get it once and the resulting immunity means you'll never get it again, right? Sometimes the pox returns but they call it the less-than-appetizing "shingles." Well, that's what Sorcerer King is shaping up to be; shingles. In a good way, honest.

Taking a Peak at Malevolence: The Sword of Ahkranox (PC)

Villagers!

The very first computer RPG that I ever played was Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord. My dad and I would take our party into the maze and map our way around there while fighting all sorts of monsters and hoping we didn't accidentally step onto a teleporter. Good times were had, and the game imbued me at an early age with a taste for role-playing games presented from a first person perspective. From there, I went on to search out other such games like this, eventually absorbing myself in the likes of The Bard's Tale, Might and Magic, and Eye of the Beholder. So, when I found out about Malevolence: The Sword of Ahkranox, an RPG of similar ilk currently in development, I knew that I had to check it out.

Blackguards Early Access Impressions (PC)

Jeff's been fiddling around in turn-based strategy game Blackguards since it hit Steam's Early Access recently, and gives some early impressions of what's planned for the game.

Catching Up with Assault Android Cactus

Over the summer a fun little twin stick shooter called Assault Android Cactus appeared on Steam's Early Access service. It features a team of female androids out to stop hordes of robots from running a muck in various locales, each girl with her own pair of unique primary and secondary weapons. The game isn't really setting out to reinvent the genre in any grand way, but it has some little tweaks to the gameplay and a very nice aesthetic, making it a game to watch out for. I did a video on our YouTube channel discussing the game shortly after it became available, but since that time there have been a few updates to it and I feel it's high time I took a moment to revisit the game.

Legends of Eisenwald Early Access Impressions (PC)

Fans of turn-based strategy games such as Heroes of Might and Magic and King's Bounty may want to keep an eye on Legends of Eisenwald, as it appears to be heavily influenced by these classic series.  In the video below, Jeff gives some preliminary thoughts on the game as it recently entered Steam's Early Access program.

Underrail Early Access Impressions (PC)

Isometric RPGs were a big thing back in the day with games like Fallout, Icewind Dale, and Baldur's Gate leading the charge.  Recently Underrail appeared on Steam's Early Access service, and it looks to be trying to recapture some of the magic from those titles, especially Fallout.  Jeff's spent a bit of time fiddling around in the game and gives some early thoughts on what he's come across so far.

Paranautical Activity Preview (PC)

Like randomly generated environments?  Like old school FPSes?  Then you may want to keep an eye on Paranautical Activity for the PC, as it has a bit of both going on.  Jeff gives his thoughts on the current build of the game below.

Forced Alpha Preview (PC)

With it recently appearing on Steam's Early Access, Jeff takes an early look at Forced, an action arena game with some puzzle elements tossed in.