Obligatory, “Hi! Lea! Bye!”
I love CrossCode. A great mix of combat and puzzles, and the story is pretty good (if a bit cliche at times). I also appreciated the risk-reward of chaining enemies for more experience and loot. If anyone has played the base game but didn’t try the A New Home content, I really recommend going through that too, both for the story closure but also the great final temple/dungeon and the Arena.
I’d say old school. The puzzles and dungeon designs remind me most of A Link To The Past. However, there’s a focus on throwing spheres to ricochet off walls (as that’s the basis of the game’s combat). So instead of having an arsenal of weapons (sword, boomerang, bombs, arrows, etc.), it’s more about tossing balls to manipulate other objects equivalent to those items in each dungeon room.
For example, when you get the Fire element you can imbue your spheres to melt ice blocks, and also to launch bomb orbs further than regular spheres.