30XX | Early Access PC Review

The year: 30XX. The platforming: tight as can be. The bosses: Waiting to stomp on your face. Yes, it’s that time of year again, when Batterystaple Games returns with their procedurally generated love letter to the Mega Man X series. It’s a thousand years after the events of the first game, and Nina and Ace still can’t catch a break. They still have to run, dash, jump, and kill everything in their path in order to…well, it’s still in early access, so there’s no “in order to” yet.

Like Jumping Back on a Bike

If you didn’t jump into the original title, 20XX was a procedurally generated roguelike that took wholesale from the Mega Man X franchise: you had the shooty lady Nina and the swordboi Ace, an army of enemy bots, bosses, power-ups, and more. You could even play online co-op for twice the fun and bottomless pit shenanigans!

30XX builds on this with a much crisper pixel graphic aesthetic, new gameplay mechanics, and tons of new enemies, stage gimmicks, and bosses. Though the game as it stands right now isn’t complete (there are only six stages and bosses with no final boss), it gives a good idea of their vision for the game going forward.

What’s New and What’s the Same?

Some of the more notable changes from the original 20XX is each stage is now longer, and each has a miniboss that, once defeated, will give you a selection of power-ups and money/life. You now have a limited amount of slots to equip core pieces, which means that even though you can technically collect every single core piece and don’t have to mix and match, it also means you won’t be able to equip every single core piece you get (or even one complete set, until you unlock more core slots)! Each stage also now has a clear theme with its gimmicks and enemies, though there’s still too many bats.

What hasn’t changed is the overall gameplay loop: you start a run, attempt to get past all the enemies, hazards, and bosses, collect loot to improve your stats and give you new abilities, and either reach the end or die trying. The roguelike nature means death is permanent and the stages change each time, though the devs also included a new mode that lets you attempt a stage an unlimited number of times after dying. It’s a nice addition for those who don’t want to deal with the permadeath aspect in their platforming.

More Yet to Come

The current iteration of the game includes unlockable permanent power-ups, difficulty modifiers that can make the game harder in exchange for more resource drops, and two playable characters. In terms of content, it won’t last terribly long as of yet (it took me about six runs and two hours to “beat” the game the first time), but with more content being added regularly, including a stage editor and stage sharing, there will be plenty to look forward to as 30XX gets closer to release. At $20 USD, it’s up to you if you want to follow along with the game as it gets those content updates, but you should absolutely buy it upon official release, especially if you’re looking for that old school Mega Man X experience.

To hear me talk more about 30XX, be sure to listen to Episode 334 of The Gaming Outsider Podcast around the 55:48 time stamp.

This review is based on an Early Access copy of 30XX on Steam provided by Stride PR for coverage purposes. It will also be coming to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.