CrossCode (NSP, XCI) ROM + v1.0.19 Update + 3 DLCs

CrossCode is a 2018 action role-playing game developed by Radical Fish Games and published by Deck13. Players control Lea, a player in a fictional MMORPG called CrossWorlds wakes up with no memory and is unable to speak.

The gameplay involves the player employing both ranged and melee shots to solve puzzles and defeat enemies, with differing elemental modes granting different powers used in combat and exploring. The game’s development began in 2011 and was later introduced as a crowdfunded project on Indiegogo.

Following a three-year-long early access beta phase, it was released for Linux, macOS, and Windows in September 2018, for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in July 2020, for Xbox Series X/S in November 2020, for Amazon Luna in November 2020, and PlayStation 5 in June 2021.

An expansion, A New Home, was released in February 2021. CrossCode received generally favorable reviews from critics, who praised its story, combat, and art style, but had mixed opinions on its puzzles.

GAMEPLAY

CrossCode is an action role-playing video game in which the player controls the character Lea from a two-dimensional top-down perspective. Players explore an overworld, where they can either engage in combat or solve puzzles, which is sometimes required to progress. During combat and while solving puzzles, the player can instantaneously switch between different “elements”, each granting Lea different puzzle-solving and attack abilities. As the game progresses, the player unlocks more elements by visiting different dungeons, each of which culminates in a boss fight. The game’s options menu allows the player to customize the difficulty of both combat and puzzles.

The combat system involves attacking enemies in real time using either a melee strike or a ranged ball launch. Players can also dodge or block enemy counter-attacks. Attacking earns experience points and circuit points. Experience points increase the player’s statistics, and circuit points can be spent on a “circuit board” that allows the player to choose between different ability bonuses. When fighting, the player has a “rank” which increases until they cease battle, rewarding them for unbroken continuums of combat. Higher ranks let the player gain rare items and heal faster.

Puzzles involve the same ball-launching mechanic used in combat, sometimes requiring the player to hit items in a certain order or time limit. They comprise in-game items, such as switches, boxes, ice pellets, barriers, water bubbles, and fans. Depending on the current element the player has equipped, puzzle elements can react in multiple ways.

Players can also use both in-game money and a bartering system to buy items, which can also be found in hidden chests scattered across the world. Items can either be food that is used to grant temporary buffs to the player’s ability, or clothing that is equipped in their inventory. The player can also complete multiple side quests, such as obtaining items, hunting for treasures, and racing opponents, that grant additional bonuses.

PLOT

The game begins with a young woman called Shizuka Sakai fighting her way to rescue her brother, but once she finds him, he dies in her arms. Sometime later, a girl called Lea awakens inside a cargo ship with no memories of her past and is informed by a man called Sergey Asimov that she must play CrossWorlds to regain her memories.

Shortly after, Lea is assaulted by a mysterious man known as the Blue Avatar and is forced to escape into the gameplay area. Once reaching the game area, she befriends another player called Emilie and the two explore the game together, eventually joining the “First Scholars” guild. During a raid with the First Scholars, Lea is dragged away by the Blue Avatar and trapped in an off-limits area called the Vermillion Wasteland. She is confronted by Shizuka, who reveals that Lea is not human but an artificial intelligence called an “Evotar,” based on the memories of Shizuka.

After escaping back to the cargo ship, she also learns that Sergey used to work on the creation of CrossWorlds in the Instatainment Company along with his friends Gautham Ranganathan, Shizuka, and her brother Satoshi. These friends also took part in the Evotar Project, which was denied by Instatainment, until disappearing years before the events of the game. Once Sergey discovered Lea, he decided to help her recover her memories in an attempt to look for them.

Back in the game area, Lea reunites with her friends and locates Satoshi and Shizuka’s hideout. She learns that they, along with Gautham, were forced by a man called Benedict Sidwell, a black market financer who funded the Evotar Project, to participate in a scheme to create Evotars based on CrossWorlds’ players and extract valuable information for him.

Satoshi had secretly hidden Lea in CrossWorlds’ code for Sergey to find, allowing him to locate his former colleagues. She also learns that the real Satoshi is already dead but left behind an Evotar based on himself. With help from her friends, Lea storms Vermillion Wasteland where the server containing all Evotars is located to stop Sidwell’s operation. The Blue Avatar, revealed to be Gautham’s player avatar, intervenes on both ends to deliver Lea the “ultimate experience”: one final challenge in the form of a dungeon and a final boss duel. After she defeats him, he gives her access to the server, before committing suicide in atonement for cooperating with Sidwell. With his plans foiled, Sidwell accepts defeat and flees.