It’s pretty clear to me that 30XX is gameplay-forward over anything else. This isn’t a bad thing, but setting your expectations as such will prevent you from thinking that you’ll become invested in 30XX’s protagonists, antagonists, and everyone in between. Instead, you should expect a casual yet fun roguelite platformer that can be picked up and returned to at any time without needing to remember your progress, any side missions, and/or any other progression-based mechanics. I’ve quite enjoyed seeing 30XX progress through Early Access; I’ve enjoyed its official release on the Switch, too. I’m quite excited to take 30XX with me when traveling and returning to it when I need a good platforming roguelite fix if I need to wind down after a long day at work. I just hope that someday the Switch version will get the map maker in some capacity.
Over a year ago, I had the pleasure of previewing 30XX’s Abyssal Armory Update. At the time, it had introduced a new boss, its WaterGrav level, character model updates, and so much more. After my preview period, I walked away feeling quite excited about the future of 30XX as it progressed through Early Access and made its way to a public release. Fast forward to September 1, I’m excited to report that 30XX is now officially available on the Nintendo Switch.
If you haven’t read my initial preview of 30XX’s Abyssal Armory update, I recommend you do so just to get an idea of my initial thoughts. Now that it’s officially released on the Nintendo Switch (and Steam, too), the goal of this review is to evaluate 30XX and discuss the experience of playing it on a Nintendo Switch (its official console release). Thankfully, not much has drastically changed on the gameplay front. It’s still quite fun as it was last year. Challenging, too.
30XX looks and feels like a Mega Man X clone at first glance. This isn’t a critique – there are many folks just like me who enjoy how powerful you become as you defeat enemies and acquire their powers. 30XX lets players achieve technological godhood through acquiring power in multiple forms. By blending the dashing, wall jumping, ranged/melee combat, and power acquisition with roguelite mechanics, players get the exhilaration of the X series with old-school arcade-y levels of replayability that come from the roguelite genre. It’s a fresh approach that makes 30XX quite fun to return to even after some time away.
The main protagonists are Nina and Ace, robotic heroes with the power to absorb powers from enemies. Nina feels similar to Mega Man in that you use a N-Buster to charge up shots, but the really cool aspect of Nina is her ability to mix-and-match ability combinations from bosses’ abilities. For instance, combining the Zen Mortar (upwards fireball) with Negation Pulse (a shockwave that clears projectiles), Nina summons a statue from the ceiling and generates a shield once it hits the ground. I loved testing out the ability combinations as I got them, as some were supportive whereas others were purely damage-based. Ace looks and functions similar to Zero in that he uses a saber for melee combat. Ace can acquire techniques from defeating bosses, too, but cannot combine them. Instead, the techniques acquired can be seamlessly chained together into fluid melee combat. At first, I preferred Ace’s melee combat and techniques, but I fell in love with Nina’s ability combinations after I figured out which combinations suited my playstyle.
30XX’s separation from the Mega Man X series exists in the form of its augment system. Nina and Ace can come across augments randomly scattered throughout levels, as well as after defeating a miniboss and/or a challenge sequence. These augments vary wildly, like boosting their speed, increasing their health, to giving them a floating pet who attacks/retaliates if the player takes damage. While some of these augments lack a clear purpose because of oddly terse descriptions in the menu, others’ power becomes visible immediately.
30XX has two modes – Mega Mode and Standard Mode. Mega Mode gives players the standard Mega Man experience – choose a level, fight the boss, rinse and repeat. If you die, you’re taken back to the level select screen without worrying about needing to start everything over from the beginning. It’s a fantastic way to get accustomed to 30XX’s mechanics without the roguelite pressure of starting from scratch looming over your head.
30XX’s Standard Mode is the roguelite and literal standard mode most folks should play. It’s a roguelite first and Mega Man-esque platformer second, and it excels on both of those fronts well. However, in order to get a taste for the creativity, difficulty, and deeper lore of the game, Standard mode is what players should choose on the main menu. This isn’t to say that Mega Mode lacks procedural generation and lacks silly augment combinations – it doesn’t, but if you want the roguelite experience, opt into the Standard Mode.
As a roguelite, 30XX adheres to many gameplay elements I consider to be the gold standard of the genre. First, it ensures that each new “run” is fresh by randomizing the order in which levels are presented to the player, as well as their layouts. At the end of each level, players can select between several rewards as well as decide which level to complete next (once the option has been unlocked). I appreciate having the agency to make a decision to upgrade an existing power, acquire temporary currency, or select the boss-specific power as it lets me determine the strengths of my character and the paths to which I can proceed. I’ll admit, some levels are naturally more difficult than others. If I had the choice to get them out of the way at the start because of unlucky augment rolls, I’ll opt into completing the “harder” levels as early as possible.
Second, 30XX gives players opportunities to grow persistent power despite each level and set of augments being run-specific. Completing a level grants Memoria, a currency that can be spent on upgrades like permanent health increases, the option for buffs at the start, and a backup health pack that gives players a second chance the first time they die in a run. Investing Memoria in these upgrades increased my persistent strength, which was great, but some of them felt more powerful than others.
Be prepared to die and start over again, again, and again – the roguelite classic. To set expectations straight, 30XX is less punishing than other similar roguelite platformers like Have a Nice Death and Rogue Legacy 2. It still can be difficult, mind you, but the ways in which power is acquired through augment combinations and stacking can lead some runs to be inherently easier while others are much more difficult. There are levers to boost the difficulty of Standard Mode if you need them, but the base experience should be more approachable for folks unfamiliar with the roguelite experience while still offering them a challenge.
Despite its middling difficulty, I consider 30XX to lean on the casual side rather than a roguelite that tests players’ resolve and commits them to multiple concurrent runs to fulfill side quests and other optional requirements.
In my initial preview of 30XX, I was concerned about the lack of lore present in the title. Now, there’s more lore, but it’s quite easy to miss. I personally dislike how the game’s lore is obfuscated behind missable pods that require interaction and interrupt a run’s flow. In platformers, especially highly mobile ones like 30XX, it’s important to keep moving until you get to a safe space like a central hub or the room separating the boss from the rest of the level. Gravity Circuit skirts around this misstep by letting players pick up datachips and unlock them in between levels – it would have been nice to use 30XX’s hub for unlocking lore.
Additional lore tidbits emerge in multiple successful runs of the Standard (but not Mega) Mode. In order to reach the true ending, multiple runs with specific conditions met are needed. Locking additional lore behind multiple runs is acceptable, Hades encourages replayability in this fashion quite well. However, 30XX needs a greater level of intrigue and connectivity with the player to encourage replayability at an emotional level rather than simply relying on players feeling engaged by the gameplay.
I remain quite impressed by 30XX’s level designs, especially in the Standard mode. Each run changes the order of levels I play, as well as their difficulty, maintaining a fresh roguelite platforming experience. While the mechanics in each level are unique, the layouts and enemy density shift. Later levels are naturally more difficult, appropriately scaling with the player to ensure that difficulty doesn’t fall off a cliff as augments are acquired. It’s a pleasant experience because of how I’m constantly kept on my toes despite feeling and being powerful.
On the topic of the levels’ mechanics, it’s important to give credit where credit is due: Each level feels and plays unique without treading into a territory that’s full of gimmicky difficulty spikes or into a territory where the platforming feels bland from repetitive segments. In my initial preview, I praised 30XX’s WaterGrav because of how blocks of water can shift with the level and dissolve enemy projectiles. The gravity shifting pads can be avoided for the most part, so if you end up needing to play safe you can do so without much difficulty. I remain pleased with how the platforming mechanics keep the game fun while keeping the game fresh.
One issue I have with roguelites is enemies’ behavior – especially bosses. Some games will treat bosses as bullet sponges and force you to whittle away at their health in a boring fashion. Others will give bosses gimmicks and unpredictable bullet patterns and rely on players to memorize patterns in a “just dodge” fashion. Not here. Like the Mega Man X series and Gravity Circuit, 30XX’s bosses clearly telegraph their attacks and vary their patterns as their health gets low. Standard mode’s bosses of later stages can have more health than the bosses of its earlier stages, sure, but the fact remains that they present a reasonable and fair challenge without resorting to patterns of behavior that players may assume to be unfair.
After I previewed its Abyssal Update, 30XX released a massive overhaul of its map maker. For those of you who’ve always wanted to make their own Mega Man titles, worry not: 30XX has a fully featured and well supported map designer! Thanks to that update in Early Access, it’s helped foster a thriving community of creative individuals who’ve continued to make levels as Batterystaple Games has updated the game towards its release on PC and the Switch. Accessing the community made levels is an easy affair and integrated well into the game’s “hub” where you can switch characters and upgrade your stats. You can also opt into a gauntlet of all community-made levels and filter out “low quality levels” that have been deemed as such by 30XX’s community. One of the issues of UGC-supported games, Mario Maker included, is that the “good” community-made content is often overshadowed by levels of low quality and/or containing questionable designs. Not here – it’s clear that Batterystaple encourages the community to hold each other accountable and lift up those who’re creative and dedicated enough to create something fun for other players to enjoy.
If you’re wanting to create levels in 30XX on the Switch, the Map Maker is not yet available on the platform. It’s a shame, really, since the device’s touch screen could have been utilized to the fullest extent similar to how Mario Maker lets players use a stylus and/or their own finger along with Photoshop-esque shortcuts to expedite the level creation process. I hope Batterystaple integrates it in the future – if not for 30XX, maybe for a new game.
The game runs pretty dang well on my Switch, though. I conducted the entirety of this review using the Switch’s handheld mode to see how the game fared on the smaller screen. At the time of writing, there were some graphical bugs that existed in version 1.0, but they’ve since been fixed in v 1.0.1 that released on Sept. 1. Enemy visibility can be tough on some levels, but when I turned on the enemy and ally outlines, they improved. In online and couch co-op mode, I highly recommend you turn on ally and enemy outlines. It helps quite a bit!
It’s pretty clear to me that 30XX is gameplay-forward over anything else. This isn’t a bad thing, but setting your expectations as such will prevent you from thinking that you’ll become invested in 30XX’s protagonists, antagonists, and everyone in between. Instead, you should expect a casual yet fun roguelite platformer that can be picked up and returned to at any time without needing to remember your progress, any side missions, and/or any other progression-based mechanics. I’ve quite enjoyed seeing 30XX progress through Early Access; I’ve enjoyed its official release on the Switch, too. I’m quite excited to take 30XX with me when traveling and returning to it when I need a good platforming roguelite fix if I need to wind down after a long day at work. I just hope that someday the Switch version will get the map maker in some capacity.
