CrossCode's Downloadable Content

Today’s gonna be a nice, quick, short rant, which is a real thing that can actually happen, because we’re going to be looking at the DLC for the minor hit Indie RPG, CrossCode!



A New Home: And the reason it’s gonna be a short rant today is because, predictably, CrossCode’s downloadable content package is a good, solid piece of work.  More Lea, more words for Lea to say, more story to the Crossworlds experience as the game-within-the-game is finally completed, more actual plot with Lea as Evotars are eased into a new existence, more exploration and involvement of major characters like Shizuna, the Evotar Schneider, and C’Tron, more dungeon-racing with Emilie, more expertly-crafted puzzles that I respect and hate, more dueling with Apollo, and, of course, more Lea-hugs.  A New Home is very much what a fan wants from an RPG, a true-to-form continuation of the world, characters, and adventures that they liked in the first game.  At a price of $9, A New Home fairly charges for the amount of play-time you’ll get out of it, and it’s a good time overall.  Recommended!

...

Yup, that’s it.  That’s all I got.  Short rant today; I told you as much just a couple paragraphs ago.  Go on, now.

...

...

Well
I mean
I guess I sort of have a minor gripe I could talk about.

Okay, A New Home is good and all, right?  Just want to make sure that’s clear.  It’s good and I like it and it’s a good deal if you like CrossCode, which most people do.

Buuuuut, it does kind of feel like maybe the developer shortchanged the main game a little bit with the intention of selling that content later in this DLC.

I mean...a ton of A New Home is basically just completing the unfinished business and tying up the loose threads of the main story of CrossCode, most of which didn’t need to be delayed.  I mean, sure, the in-game developers’ completion of the Crossworlds adventure conveniently and elegantly fits into the after-game timeframe, but it could have fit just fine into the main story of CrossCode, with the Crossworlds adventure just being complete from the start, or even having its final parts released during the main game’s course.  Likewise, C’tron’s secret could have been revealed and worked through in the game proper without over-stuffing the main narrative (particularly with the extra time potentially provided by adding the final parts of Crossworlds).

Or, well, he could’ve just been on the level, a dorky player who was a good friend to Lea and Emilie.  Certainly nothing about C’tron’s plot twist feels like it’s necessary, nor does it develop the villain it involves to any meaningful degree.  So little would really have been lost had the entire secret nature of C’tron been cut, that, when I think about it, it starts feeling like a hasty addition created specifically as a tease to entice players to purchase the DLC, rather than a strong story beat genuinely intended to be a part of the plot’s course.  Hell, I feel like the type of human drama that C’tron’s story invokes is close enough to that of Evotar Lukas’s that all the DLC really needed would’ve been a better exploration of the latter,* and Evotar Lukas’s story actually did have in-story reason to be delayed until a post-game adventure.

Most significantly, it kinda feels like the developer decided to hold the ending of CrossCode ransom with the DLC.  Sure, CrossCode HAS an ending, but that ending’s basically just a placeholder--the villain’s been stopped, the adventure’s done, but the consequences of the adventure are left up in the air, as Lea’s put to sleep and her friends prepare to bring the existence and question of Evotars to the executives in charge of Crossworlds.  If you didn’t follow through on the right sidequests, then you can see the bad ending no problem, but if you did everything you should have, then the only way to see the fate of Lea and her kind is to buy the DLC.  Otherwise, what happens with Lea and the Evotars, the most important character and arguably the biggest issue in the game, is left up in the air.

I mean, I’m not crazy that this is a problem, right?  Surely it can’t just be me.  Like, if a major game publisher tried this--oh what am I saying, when major game publishers have tried this--you can expect a sizable public outcry, with customers and prominent Youtube gaming journalist personalities pointing out that this isn’t fair to the consumer who paid full price for an incomplete product, justly decrying the act as paywalling the ending of the game behind microtransactions.  But CrossCode is an Indie RPG, and very likable, and the DLC is enjoyable and satisfying, so...what, we’re just okay with it, then?  Not going to point out the fault in something we’d be crying for blood over had the crime been committed by the usual suspects?  I am, and long have been, inclined to treat Indie RPGs with kiddie gloves, but that’s far away from just giving it a free pass when a game pulls something that you’d expect from Activision-Blizzard or Ubisoft.

So I’m just gonna say it.  I think this DLC is scummy.  I think that the developer for CrossCode made a scummy, greedy decision that took advantage of its customers when it paywalled an adequate ending to the game.  A New World is satisfying, engaging, on-brand fun at a reasonable price, and it’s scummy.  CrossCode is pretty universally loved, so that’s probably quite a hot take, but it won’t exactly be my first, and this is how I see it.  Good work on the great DLC, Radical Fish Games, and in the same breath, shame on you.














* I feel like Evotar Schneider’s existential quandary is fixed weirdly quickly in A New Home, and it’s even weirder how all his friends seem to prioritize the fun of finishing the raid over helping him deal with it.  Like, yeah, Luke, could you put a pin in that whole thing of grappling with the horror of existing as a computer program when all your memories are that of a physical being until we’re done with our Leroy Jenkins reenactment?  You’re bringing the mood down!  So inconsiderate.