CrossCode: Perfect Top-Down Combat

[@temmssmdisnas]

The one complaint I have with this video is one of the most ingenious implementations of risk vs reward wasn't even mentioned. Combat rank determines what enemies drop, and reset when the player ends combat (either by choice or when too much time passes between enemies), but S-rank does way more. The loot value and drop rate massively increase, enemies respawn much faster and new adrenaline-pumping music plays for the rest of the time spent in combat. Risk is dialed up as combat disables passive regeneration and dying removes all of the loot gained in the current room, but the better drops and banger music makes a S-rank killing spree very satisfying to pull off. This mechanic manages to make grinding fun while also making sure that the player has to be skilled enough to even trigger it through multiple chained battles.

[@azur372]

S-rank was such a rush at times, people underestimate how crucial it is to the combat system as a whole imo. The first time I managed to survive in this field of red Hedgehags in West of Autumn's Rise with their high respawn rate... from there I knew this would be one of my favourite games :D

[@cullenlatham2366]

its so good there is even several in game achievements including the marathon to stay in a chain for a full 15 minutes. easiest in the first area in the early game, but endgame grind has better rewards for doing it.

[@MegaChaosGelee]

And the puzzle mechanics! I love how they implemented those elements into combat, too. Especially for the mid bosses and big boss fights. Many enemies in the game are quite intelligent, even some regular ones.

[@mhswoocer]

Totally agree. I could make an hour long video just talking about all the fantastic ideas on display in this game. They just got so much right.

[@longpigpie3584]

Yes! I loved the starfish slime thing!

[@davidgonzales2412]

@@mhswoocermake the 4 hour review

[@illusion5739]

My favourite was during the snail boss in vermillion wasteland. Sergey hax is OP asf 😂. Time to show the power of exponential growth -Sergey

[@cmcguire7901]

This video is criminally under viewed for how good the analysis is

[@mhswoocer]

Thank you so much, that really means a lot!

[@nicholasdocter4975]

I wish this game would represent mainstream video gaming. Instead, it's considered a niche game that would never be called by any review outlet, "a system seller." For me, this is that game. Every aspect of it seems like a complete passion project. I can even forgive the grinding for XP because it's just so much fun. Graphics, story, combat, puzzles, etc: all top notch with a very lengthy story.

[@maynardburger]

If this game had released in the SNES era, it'd be regularly talked about as one of the best games ever made today.

[@GordonGordon]

My goodness. Loved this game. Everything just clicked sooooo hard. You described what made the combat so compelling too. Great video!

[@mhswoocer]

Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it! And yeah I love this game's combat so I just had to make a video on it

[@GordonGordon]

@@mhswoocer i love when this game shows up randomly on Linus tech tips videos, too.

[@mhswoocer]

@@GordonGordon Yeah I'm not sure where the overlap is, maybe youtube thinks cross worlds is a real vr game and they just link that with Linus tech lol

[@GordonGordon]

@@mhswoocer hahaha. Totally. Btw. Have you finished the epilogue chapter?

[@mhswoocer]

@@GordonGordon Actually I was playing it back in August, but that's around the time I started my channel, so I ran out of free time and had to stop. But I'll finish it soon, I was thinking of making another CrossCode video (or maybe something on Project Terra?) so I'll finish it soon!

[@paulvictor7489]

I used to play an Mmo called vindictus, it's really bad now but back then the combat truly shined. The idea of risk is the biggest part of it. The games combat was pretty barebones to the individual player but what really made it fun was that progress revolved around around the speed you did something and combat had a lot of ways to squeeze in a little more dps at higher risk. For the melee Dps character it was a buff that gives you a big att buff but cuts your health by 10%, combined with the fact that everytime he hit a critical he could follow it up with a big slash attack. So you wanted to constantly be at low health, right up in the bosses face, and constantly had to time it in your head if you had time to follow up the crit or not. I remember when I went from a 9min kill to a 4min kill on a boss became I found out I had just enough time during one attack to do 2 follow ups. Lann, the prior character mentioned was my most played so i know the most, but from the bit I played other characters it was also a very similar premise. For the tank character is was all in the heavy vs light blocks. Light blocks gave you a much shorter Iframe but came with 0 latancy at the end so you could continue slashing away. For the ranger it was all about knowing exactly how many hits to get in before repositioning. (Kiting) For the mage, a very interesting one, it was essentially all about positioning as the bosses moved a lot and the strongest spells took so long to ready, but if you were really versed at the bosses mechanics you could essentially prep huge attacks for wherever the monster was about to be. Nowadays it's devolved into a much more hack and slash dps check sadly and lost what made it great imo, but when I watch this I'm reminded of how much the idea of risk * reward really improves the fun of a real time combat system.

[@busta7974]

great game, great video, and of course, youre great. good job with the vid swoocer

[@mhswoocer]

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[@theverymehst3234]

Thank you! As a SCH and AST healer, I'd be really interested to see how you set up your hotbars with those jobs while applying the same logic. Especially AST! Great video.

[@What_In_This_World]

Such a good game. Combat, story, Easter eggs, art style, platforming, puzzles, it’s just good at everything it does. Nothing is perfect, nothing is best in class, but nothing is bad, which is really hard for most games, indie, AA, AAA and none of these so called AAAA games have even come close 🙄🙄

[@Mboi7]

I must thank you alot! This game, this "Experience" has been wonderful! This definitely checks out, for my favourite game of this year! ^U^

[@mhswoocer]

I'm really glad you enjoyed it! You could say it was the Ultimate "Experience"

[@fastfiddler1625]

This is why I'm so bad at finishing games. I play this, watch videos, and I'm thinking, I need to play Chrono Trigger, RIGHT NOW.

[@amirulhafeez6282]

this is great design dissection. cool..

[@nercu743]

Best action/rpg i've ever played, just before the witcher 3 🎮🤘

[@thesickdancer]

Damn man you have some incredible videos. Subscribed.

[@mhswoocer]

Thank you so much, I really appreciate that! I'll do my best to keep improving from here!

[@ezergilechimekazikura6855]

What is truly lacking for this game is true coop or pvp and an option to expirience classes other than spheromancer. But maybe someday when devs will go bonkers we will see CrossWorlds realised as a full fleshed out mmorpg to enjoy and seasonally raid with friends.

[@luckylaniang5574]

Check out the mods，right now there's a fully polished triblader mod and a hexacast mod being worked on

[@ezergilechimekazikura6855]

@@luckylaniang5574 thanks, I will definitely give it a look!

[@jscs9960]

idk why but this reminds me kind of LoL with mana being the limiter, the elements being the types of damage a character can do (with the fact that you cant switch between elements)

[@eddyalvaross2195]

CrossCode is the most perfect 2D topdown Action RPG in the world

[@ChimericWhite]

The limits to combat in Monster Hunter rely on whether you have openings to attack the monster in the first place. If you have an opening, you then need to make the decision on whether you have a big enough opening to go for the huge hits or if you can only go for a draw attack. If you can, maybe you can sneak in a little bit of the basic combo. But ultimately, it all relies on your ability to properly determine what you can pull off each time you decide to attack. Charge attacks on GS give you nice numbers, but have the caveat of requiring time. Time to charge, time for the move to actually travel to where you want it to be, in order to hit the monster, it requires proper timing if you are trying to pre-emptively gash n' bash the monster's face in, which especially is true in old-school monster hunter, where you don't get all the QOL and combat changes introduced in World. Monster Hunter's combat limitations are about priority of healing, attacking, or setting traps. If you're low on health and have to heal, monster is toppled, or hungry, it's best to use that time to consume a potion. If the monster is throughly beating you, then you might need to run away to set a trap in the vicinity and lure the monster into it. You can't fight if you can't hit the monster, let alone don't have the health to take another hit.

[@anzhel3268]

good video

[@poderosogauvao1514]

Man I'm happy that you liked crosscode like I did and your analysis had some repetetive moments. It felt like you talked about the elements of the game 3 times in 3 different segments. Hope you continue to do more videos and get better😁

[@mhswoocer]

I loved crosscode! But yeah this is not one of my favorite videos lol, but as always my goal is always to improve so I appreciate the feedback!

[@aki_qh]

god I love gambling

[@mhswoocer]

Me too Aki... me too

[@TheStellarJay]

7:31 yeah looks cool but to do that don't you just hold down the attack button to charge it then release? Its a glorified cutscene

[@sora5982]

The first wave that goes out and back in pulls enemies in if they are in range. if they are close enough after, they get lifted, otherwise some enemies dont take all the damage. enemies can also come in during the skill to take the last hit. its not a cutscene.

[@joekenwood4956]

Among 92 combat arts, I dont think you would want more complexity like manually executing combos

[@glorbojibbins2485]

Dope game

[@maynardburger]

You didn't even go into how another risk/reward aspect of combat is the ability to chain encounters together to get rarer loot(sometimes being the only reasonable way to get certain loot for trading), with the downside being that you dont get healed in between fights like normal. Reminds me a bit of The World Ends With You in this regard, where you can choose to fight multiple fights in a row that increase difficulty, but gives better rewards if you can do it. Probably could have also talked about how each element has its own unique set of Guard, Melee, Throw and Dash arts, and each of these often has multiple branch options to choose from, too. Or how there's equipment modifiers that can go beyond just stat boosts. So much to talk about! lol

[@dachaetzutwice9905]

Cool

[@usaskjock]

They didn’t do a good job demonstrating the perfect parry windows. And they definitely should’ve allowed choice of class

[@mhswoocer]

Being able to chose classes would have been really cool, hopefully they'll implement something like that in Project Terra!

[@MegaChaosGelee]

@Stewart M The option to choose classes would have increased, or rather skyrocketed, the necessary development effort, time and cost. May be an obvious wish of a number of players, just saying it's much easier said than done especially for such a small studio. CrossCode already took more than six years to make. That team thought their design choices through, and not making the other classes playable was a part of it from pretty early on.

[@crazy338866]

Someone recently made a mod that lets you play as the tri-blade class, and even added in entirely new skills to match the amount that sphereomancer has.

[@usaskjock]

@@crazy338866 really? that's awesome, do you know where I can find it?

[@trots4940]

@@usaskjock Choice of class would break the Lore and create some inconsistencies/plot holes *Spoilers about mid-game/late-game:* . . . We know that Lea is a literal Clone of Shizuka's Avatar. Because of that, not only her appearance and memories are related, but their classes too. This way, if we could select other classes, they would have to change the lore a lot, otherwise it would create a plothole. And for Evotars, the classes are basically part of their nature, they can't simply change their own classes. Besides the fact that it would take much more time and money to implement 4 other different combat mechanics, skill trees, sprites, animations, etc. That would be really bad, specially for such a small team, in their first game

[@OnePolishMoFo]

I'm about 13 hours in and I like this game alot but I do not feel good at it. A barely get by most combat encounters that are level appropriate. Compared to your footage I might as well be sitting still spamming balls at everything.

[@mhswoocer]

Don't beat yourself up about it, It took me a while to finally feel like I was decent at the combat. Plus this game isn't easy lol. There's a lot that goes into it and there's a lot to learn, but with practice you'll get there! I practiced my combos a lot at the training area in the starting harbor. (first building on your right as soon as you enter) there's a dummy downstairs that you can beat up with infinite CP to practice what kind of combos you wanna use. But at the end of the day, practice makes perfect and I'm sure with time you'll figure it out!

[@PaperRabbits_]

​@@mhswoocer That's exactly it! Practice! Most games just give you an 'easy' way to the dopamine rush. But Crosscode managed to make me think about and practice combo's I wanted to try out, which made me insanely better at the game (Especially PVP combat, I loved the fights with apollo). All of that by choice!

[@zach_zach5453]

this is just lost ark

[@aprilmg7072]

When does it get good? Im 15 hours in and I find it boring

[@dart_]

It won't... I loved the beginning of the game, but it's so repetitive after all, I ended up uninstall it

[@aprilmg7072]

@@dart_ that's too bad. I love pixel art top down style games, but this one is so bland and cliché

[@maynardburger]

No game is for everybody man. Not a single game in existence is genuinely universally loved. Calling this game 'bland and cliche' is not really what I'd call valid criticism, though. It's like saying that you dont like Dark Souls games cuz they're too easy.

[@aprilmg7072]

@@maynardburger as if you get to decide what is valid criticism or not 🤣

[@WolfXrd]

Man, this game is pure disappointment... I really wanted to like it but it's so boring

[@indi919]

first

[@bloodywindmill8583]

second

[@leonardodelimaferreira8509]

The video's not bad, but you need a lot of work in your script Huge parts of the video are not connected in a organic way, some parts that you go offtopic to what I assume was a joke didn't landed and etc, but the video isn't bad, just need more polish in your script

[@mhswoocer]

I totally agree that this could use a ton of work, but, with all do respect I actually disagree with one thing. I think this video is terrible, I released it over a year ago and I think it was maybe the 5th video I made? LMAO Regardless I appreciate the advice!

[@WolfXrd]

Nah, this game sucks actually... 😢 Too bad *sigh*

[@sion7651]

sadly it has the worst "level system" ever. you only can get a few levels higher than the enemies. they could have just made it an action rpg wihtout that weird "get 1 exp per enemie once you are 3 levels higher and need 12435 to level up" CrossCode is not the only RPG that has this system! Tales of arise, YS and suikoden have it too....

[@anab0lic]

can understand why they would implement such a system, otherwise you can just over level and stomp all the enemies with no skill required... which just leads to boring gameplay.

[@sion7651]

@@anab0lic well yeah that is what i want! the choice to compensate if i am not good enough. at this point a level system is utterly useless! it feels like a lie. since when do people not like that? and besides if you get a fixed amount of exp there will be a point where you do not get enough anymore and you move on. the CC level system is a cheap way to maintain balance there are better ways to achieve that!

[@anab0lic]

@@sion7651 actually a lot of people HATE what you are describing and wanting... because it basically means you can mindlessly grind to an overpowered state and then steamroll everything in your path... Most people prefer to keep trying at whatever obstacle they are struggling with and then overtime, as a result of failure/learn/adapt, you will level up your skill level to where you are good enough as a player to beat the challenge you now face. Which is way more satisfying, you actually changed internally as a human to achieve that... vs stat numbers on a screen increasing via low level repetitive effort... Also, if you don't level up your skill set, you are likely just gonna need to grind again when the next challenge occurs, which will most likely be even more difficult than the last you faced. Grinding for XP in video games is about as fun as grinding for money at dull low pay 9-5 job, its just not mentally engaging enough to stimulate and excite the human brain...nor cause any kind of beneficial adaptation and growth. Think about maxing out your INT stat IRL, Video games that sufficiently challenge the mind actually help achieve that.

[@maynardburger]

@@sion7651 If you're not good enough, the game gives you the option to reduce both enemy damage and enemy attack rates. And for puzzles, the option to increase timers. This is actually much preferable to any typical difficulty options as you can customize the game's difficulty to your liking without needing to do any grinding or anything.

[@sion7651]

@@maynardburger ok.i agree with your take about the difficulty system but what does that have to do with leveling?