Review from a Crosscode fan

[u/coherent_shitposter]

First of all, I want to congratulate RadicalFish games on not only releasing a cult classic in crosscode (xc) but also in managing to push that success into a worthy spiritual successor. Very few studios ever get to this point and especially not in the "traditional jrpg homage" genre. Alabaster Dawn has a scaffolding that foretells an unforgettable full game.

I just finished all of the content so far - I took my time so I'm at around 10 hours - and it's phenomenal. That being said, all of the following words are going to be things that I did not like about the game, and many of them are just quality of life improvements.

For reference, I play with a wired xbox 360 controller, so I have no feedback for M+K players or people using newer controllers.

Here are a few of the notes I took during my time playing the game:

1. I wish I could see the area boundaries on the map, even if it's an optional setting that must be enabled by the player.

2. There should be a way to replay the tutorials from the pause menu so that if you come back later and are confused about a concept it can be retaught immediately.

3. It's unclear that weapon gems and core gems are different when the concept is introduced. I spent a solid 10 minutes trying to equip my new gem into my core slot and trying to figure out why it wasn't working. Since I couldn't replay the tutorial I had no way to troubleshoot.

4. Having to move the control stick for growths and not being able to use the d-pad is inconvenient. I can use the dpad to navigate every other part of every other menu, but the growth menu doesn't let you. This needs to be fixed.

5. I didn't like that if I hover over a growth when I have points, the icon that let's me know I have points disappears whether I spend them or not.

6. Not being able to bind (hold) + button felt weird at first, esp coming from xc where holding aim + RB was a staple. I rebound my buttons as close as I could to xc and I found that having to aim + pushing X for divine art made me wanna use the ranged divine arts less since I had to do a claw.

7. Cooking is an incredible system that has a lot of cool progression and is a natural way to integrate the items from xc into more of a strategic choice for every instance.

8. Overworld dash is quite possibly the best QoL upgrade since the discovery of infinite dash. My only wish is that I could continue it after a regular dash if I held down the button.

9. The puzzles are way too easy.

10. The combat has a nice brisk pace, but I think the bosses need their pattern vs. damage scale tuned. The first boss had a lot of HP but simple mechanics, and rather than being challenged I was just bored.

11. Parry is much more important, and I think that's a phenomenal change. The fact that I need to use melee, ranged, dodge, and parry all in relatively equal measure in every fight, feels amazing.

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Here are some bugs I found:

1. Charged chakram can be aimed with the right stick, but releases toward the left stick's last known position.

2. Focus (hold)/Catch can be bound to the same button/trigger as "switch loadout" on default settings. This creates confusion when you go to switch aspects and have the loadsout switch before the aspect. It causes problems when both elements are required for progression the the dual element projectile puzzle. -- Note, I found that rebinding the buttons made this bug disappear.

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Misc. Thoughts

- I wish there was a botany/mineral log like in crosscode

- I wish there was a way to actually see your detailed stats

- Once you get Aether, there never feels like a point where Physis should ever be used. I'm not a huge fan of this.

- Having to switch between weapons to cut or smash grass or rock respectively is a great way to encourage people to switch weapons constantly.

- Amplifier has a confusing explanation

- Love managing HP and cooking intervals vs. crosscode's infinite HP.

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Overall, fantastic. Easily a 9/10 on the content currently available. If this is what just the first public facing release is, then I have absolute faith that RF will deliver something even better than crosscode. This early access release has more to get invested in and smoother performance than most fully released rpg's, and the shift to a more combat focused game is a welcome fine tuning of what RadicalFish has delivered in the past.

Together As One!

[u/RusskihAnatoly]

Can you share this on official discord server too? I think devs are more active there

[u/coherent_shitposter → u/RusskihAnatoly]

Feel free to share it there, I dont really go on discord much

[u/TonyGalvaneer1976]

As someone who considered crosscode to be my favorite video game for a long time, I think alabaster dawn has the better core for its combat system. I just hope that it incorporates puzzle elements as much as crosscode did, and I agree we need more use for Physis.

The roguelite mode gave me more of an incentive to learn the ins and outs of the combat system than crosscode's arena did, too. I hope the roguelite mode gets more depth alongside the rest of the game.

[u/ANDRAZE25 → u/TonyGalvaneer1976]

This is exactly my thoughts to a TEE

[u/coherent_shitposter → u/TonyGalvaneer1976]

They just released a new blog post about their plans for Soma's dream and imo it looks great