It’s probably safe to say that i’m a complete sucker for the old games of the 16-bit, SNES days. Whenever I see something that looks like an old SNES game, complete with the pixels, and the speed of the game, I get very excited.

Such was the case with Cross Code, a 2D action/RPG on Steam. The first thought I had when looking at the gameplay was, “holy crap, this looks a lot like Secret of Mana,” or “Chrono Cross,” or any one of the amazing games that Square Soft released in the mid -90s. The gameplay showed an overhead view of a pixelated, blue haired heroine, darting back and forth in an industrial looking room, throwing balls at a giant robot, and occasionally smacking the robot with it’s melee weapons. Another screen showed a similar combat screen, of the heroine running in a green, wooden area, smacking around flesh-eating rabbits, angry hedgehogs, and these weird mole things that would dig up to the heroine, jump out the ground, and knock her back.

And, indeed, the game does feel and play like Secret of Mana, and it even has a soundtrack that sounds surprisingly reminiscent of Secret of Mana. The music is so reminiscent of the old school RPGs that you may forget that this game came out just a couple years ago. It feels like a big love letter to the classic RPGs, and the attention to detail really shows.

Cross Code is indeed a love letter to the old school action RPGs, but this game does something slightly different. While the game itself is indeed an action/RPG, the story of the game takes place inside an MMO, and the game is very, very aware of that, and uses that details to do very interesting things with the story of the game, as well as the very structure of MMOs, even if at purely a story standpoint.

The world of Cross Code takes place in a land called Cross Words, that’s effectively an online, digital world, where all the people in the world, from shop owners, and other characters in the game, are real life people who log in to play their avatar, and go on quests together, and fight monsters. Think, Secret of Mana meets World of Warcraft.

CrossCode is not an MMO, it should be noted. It just does a very good job of feeling like it’s an MMO. As soon as the tutorial areas are over, the player is set down in the first town, and they’re left to run around and meet the various people in town. Much like an MMO, quests become available by great numbers. By talking to a few people in town, the player suddenly has a lift of about 20 quests that they have to complete, many of which are simply, “defeat 20 of these bad guys,” or, “collect 30 tree branches,” or flowers, or whatever. And then the player runs out into the wilderness and fights bad guys.

This way of getting quests feels a lot like an MMO. They don’t really fit in the story, they’re just available. Also, while running in the wilderness, or even running through town, there are other NPCs running through the town, or running through the levels, much like they would in an actual MMO, where other players just happen to be playing in the same area. There are times where I had to actively remind myself that the game is not an MMO.

The gameplay itself is that unique blend of fast paced action, where you dash across the screen and attack bad guys, but it also required some strategy to win each battle effectively. It’s one of those games where, if you don’t read the particular fight properly, even the lower level bad guys can really knock you out. Many enemies have a certain trick to defeating, whether it’s attacking them at a certain angle, or even at certain timing – some enemies will burrow underground, and will occasionally pop up out of the ground to attack, giving the player a few second window to attack them. Throughout the game, the player will pick up element specific attacks, and will be required to attack some enemies with that specific element in order to do any sort of damage at all. There is a lot of quick thinking involved, and it’s all very fast paced.

The game has plenty of content to work through. I think I spent about 30, maybe 40 hours in the game. Though, that might be in part due to the way the game is trying to feel like an MMO. That means that there are plenty of quests that seem to be there to simply give the player something to do, but they don’t really add to any progression in the game, other than experience points.  Which is fine, it definitely makes the game last, but it makes me wonder how much shorter the game could be if a player skipped all the extra side quests.

As mentioned earlier, the interesting thing about this game is that it takes place in an MMO, and all the characters are very aware that they are in an MMO. When players meet other players, they are very aware that they are running quests, and they challenge each other to run through dungeons. Every now and then, the characters will decide to call it a night, because they need to get up for work the next day, or go to school, or something, so they will log out. The characters of the game are real people who love their real lives outside the game, and they work, so there is a world outside the world of Cross World. However, there’s also a world going on inside Cross World, with gods, and lore, and monsters, and etcetera. There are basically two stories going on in Cross Code, there’s the story going on outside the game of Cross Worlds, and there’s the story going in inside of Cross Worlds.

The main character, Lea, is playing as part of Cross World, and she has a scientist, programmer dude who monitors her from outside the game, communicates directly to her while she’s in the game, and he has a hand with the software relating to Lea.

The story is interesting because this self-awareness allows Cross Code to be very critical of games, and look at games and MMOS in various ways. Just as an example, there is a moment in the game when the player has to fight a boss that is way, stupidly overpowered, where it is literally impossible to defeat that boss. Your scientist buddy sees how overpowered the boss is, so he gets into the code of the software, and he manipulates the stats of Lea, making her just as stupidly overpowered. It’s interesting because, both the boss and the player become so stupidly overpowered in that moment, that it just turns into a regular boss fight. The only difference is the number that depicts the damage done to the boss. And there are many other ways that Cross Code breaks down various elements of an MMO in that way.

Cross Code is a lot of things. It’s very thoughtful in how it analyzes the very genre that it imitates, it pays close attention to every detail of the game play itself, it plays great homage to the classic RPGs from the SNES days, and above all, it’s a lot of fun to play. It’s fast, it’s strategic, it’s energetic, and every battle it’s just so epic. Earlier this week, I intended to replay the tutorial level of Cross Code, just to get a quick refresher on how it started out. Somehow, I ended up playing the game for about 10 hours, running through two of the big dungeons, and getting up to about level 33. The game is so much fun and engaging, that a quick refresher turned into another play-through of the whole game. And I’m aching to get back into it right now. Why am I still typing this???

I suppose the only real criticism of the game, is that a lot of the puzzles do require some intellectual, lateral thinking in many of the dungeons in order to progress through the game, and at some point, it can get exhausting. However, that is a very soft criticism, since the exhaustion only set in with me towards the end, but I was in the last dungeon, going up against the final boss. (Oh, speaking of exhaustion, that final boss is NUTS!!!)

Cross Code is totally worth it. Check it out.