Savior Gaming

Once again it’s that time for me to say thanks to Focus Home Interactive for hooking me up with a review code to review excellent work.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to drift through space and just dismantle ships for salvage? To use the proper tool for the proper job and just slice through metal and rip off an antenna or power supply and wrangle it through space into the proper spot so it can be repurposed? Yea honestly I never wondered that either, but that is exactly what this game is. And you will have to do all that before you run out of oxygen. ( Unless you use the in-game option to shut that off.

Now hear me out, this does sound boring as hell, but do you know what else does? Farming Simulator, The Sims, and basically any racing game. All of which are pretty fun and this is no exception. Once you get used to the controls and the fact that just because you let go of the controls to move doesn’t mean you will stop moving, because that is how space works. The game is actually almost like a puzzle game, what’s the best way to dismantle everything and the most efficient way to do it? Of course, as your career goes on you will be able to dismantle bigger ships. The 15-minute time limit can be frustrating so you may want to shut it off as I mentioned earlier, but that is also part of the challenge.

The graphics and sound to this game I found to be amazing even on the average laptop that I use for gaming. It is by no means some sort of impressive juggernaut of gaming, as I am mostly a filthy console gamer that dabbles on my laptop mostly for the paradox grand strategy games. It just all fit nicely and actually had one of the best into music I have heard in recent gaming.

Unlike most games I review for a company I won’t give this a permanent score because I don’t want someone to see it in a month and say well damn it only gave it this, it is way better now or I can’t believe he gave that crap such a high score. This game is in early access and will be changing. This does feel like a game getting into early on tho because it could be exciting to see how this one grows, and I can’t stress this, for now, the score, FOR NOW, is 8/10 and we will certainly revisit this in a few months. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

A few things I want to get out of the way before I begin. First as always, a huge thank you to the people over at Deck13 interactive and everyone involved in this game for tossing me this review copy. It was a magnificent throwback to the 16-bit era. And if you are one of those collectors that love the hard copy of things, they have you covered here at https://crosscode.inin.games/ where you can get it on PS4 or Nintendo Switch from a base version all the way up to collectors editions that are individually numbered. ( Also, I do NOT get any sort of kickback for mentioning that, they just asked me to include it and since I enjoyed the game I was happy to oblige) The last thing I wanted to say is that I do apologize for this review being later than they usually are. Like many, COVID has slowed some things up and caused some issues.

Now on to the review itself. Graphically, if you are looking for a AAA title with flashy graphics that will push the bar higher, this game isn’t made for you. They clearly made this game for those people that love the good old days of 16-bit era RPGs like  Secret of Mana or the newer Cosmic Star Heroine, except what many of you won’t know is this game came out a bit before Cosmic Star. About two years in fact. I would put the two games in the same class in terms of quality tho.

The battle system is also pretty standard for the genre. You will walk around, run into enemies, and instead of entering a new scene for a battle you will stay and fight in that field in a fast-paced yet strategic way. You will have attacks from a distance or up close. It doesn’t do anything to reinvent the wheel, but it turns just fine.

The story is pretty unique, that isn’t always a compliment. I don’t have an issue with it, but I wasn’t entirely fond of it. The game starts with what is basically an interactive cut scene but it isn’t much explained until later. You then will play as Lea, a typical mute girl most old RPGs have, tho this game explains why she is mute. That is actually much appreciated. It will be explained that you are actually just more or less an avatar in an MMORPG called CrossWorlds. I won’t go much more into the story than that because I don’t want to spoil anything because while for me I didn’t enjoy I do think that was a personal preference. Others that I have talked to enjoyed it and thought I was insane.

Now the reason you are all here, do I recommend this game? Sure, the price is more than fair, and if you need something to scratch that nostalgia itch this will do more than that. I may even add it to my Nintendo Switch collection so I have an old school RPG in the go. 7/10, would absolutely buy this myself. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.