crosscode is pretty fire, gameplay is absolute god tier, combat is cool as hell, lotsa great quests, optional dungeons and bosses, very fun, but the story felt a bit lacking towards the end, maybe i'm just conditioned by jrpgs where at the end shit scales up dramatically and all of the mysteries have the most batshit insane answers.

all things considered, crosscode's story is actually very grounded, none of the stuff that happens in it is legitimately absurd, and i appreciate it for that. after the suspension of disbelief towards what is essentially a digital form of matter, everything is extremely sane and makes a lot of sense, hell, even the "sci-fi" part of it is extremely believable, it genuinely feels like a story that imagines a futuristic place that is not nearly as outlandish as we usually get when it comes to imagining how we'll be in 100 years. i think that aspect of crosscode is actually really cool. but i still can't shake the feeling that the "mysteries" lacked a bit of sauce, like none of the twists are genuinely as jaw dropping as they seem like they'd be.

idk, maybe i'm expecting something the story never seeked to achieve, you know. that's why i can't say it's bad, it's actually really well tied together and really compelling. the characters are really really good, and i especially really really enjoy how lea is technically a protagonist with a disability, which is not only cool representation but also a fun twist on the classic mute protagonist. crosscode opens up my imagination to all kinds of disability representation in fantasies and sci-fi stories.

i'm very curious what the DLC's gonna be all about since, frankly, i would be perfectly satisfied without one. save for c'tron being suspiciously absent from the raid at the end and then being mysterious after the credits, i don't think there would even be any loose ends.

this is one of those cases where a game is REALLY GOOD but it doesn't hit me where it counts. it's hard to put into words but it's the same way i know and agree that chrono trigger is AMAZING but i'd pick soooo many games before it if i went down a list of my favs. i think that's good tho, i mean fuck imagine being compared to chrono trigger, if i ever made a game that some people said "yeah that shit makes me feel the same way chrono trigger does" that in itself would be an achievement. crosscode isn't a bad game, i just don't particularly vibe with it super hard. i vibe with it big time, but like, if my brain was a wine glass, and xenoblade 3 has the ability to quickly shatter it by immediately hitting the right frequency, crosscode makes the wine glass vibrate intensely but doesn't quite reach the point of making it explode.

crosscode goes in my category of games i would instantly recommend to someone, and say "this game is AMAZING", but it's far from one of my favorites.