LogFAQs > #966386806

#36: 30XX

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/7/0/AAA-H0AADbCS.jpg

20XX is a Mega Man X-style roguelike that came out a few years ago, and it did make my game of the decade list at #76. Let's pull up a quote and see what I had to say about it...

"A lot of UI things are kind of messy, some of the visuals don't really 'pop' all that great, the music and sound are average, some of the level design generation is ill-conceived at best, there's bugs, and it overall just sort of lacks a sheen of polish that I'm used to seeing in games; you can really feel how 'indie' this one is, to put it bluntly."

Glowing review! Of course, it goes on to say that in spite of all of this, the game is fun as hell, which it is. It's fun to dash and blast your way through enemies and wall jump off platforms and find cool abilities that let you shoot giant charged shots and double jump and stuff like that. The lack of polish is a little bit of a damper upon the whole formula, but there's always the possibility of a sequel. What if 20XX, but polished? A thousand years in the future (I guess), but only about four years in real time, 30XX enters early access.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/7/1/AAA-H0AADbCT.jpg

The first thing that immediately stands out is, holy hell, the visual style has gotten a complete makeover and it is gorgeous. The glow-up that this game has gotten is possibly unlike any sequel I've ever seen in gaming before, at least not since the 90's. The hand-drawn flash-game-like graphics of 20XX have been overhauled into an ironically more 'retro' pixel-art style that pops off the screen, and it's like going from a 4/10 to a 9/10. The difference is stark. The environments and backgrounds in this game are stunning, the animation is fluid, the character designs look great. I know I just said RITE had some of the most pleasing pixel art graphics I'd seen in a while but 30XX tops it. The soundtrack of this game, also, has really grown on me - I made a reference to Echocave's theme, which is in vgmc, but the whole thing stands out to me as an improvement on 20XX's competent but more forgettable soundtrack. Everything in this game is a bop.

As for the gameplay, everything has gotten a fine layer of polish. The level design has notably seen a huge uptick in quality. 20XX had a sort of problem where levels just felt like a weird mishmash of platforming sections cobbled together in a way that didn't always feel coherent, but 30XX seems to have solved this - even though levels are randomly generated, they are usually generated in a way that feels a lot tighter and more deliberate. Some weird open spaces pacing issues still occasionally exist, but for the most part every level's gimmick gets used in cool ways that somehow still seem different every time - the Penumbra level and its red, blue, and green platforms that swap every time you jump off of them is especially cool. Maybe because I just haven't seen all of the level building blocks enough to get tired of them yet, but nontheless I'm impressed with the level generation.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/7/2/AAA-H0AADbCU.jpg

There are still some issues I have with the game - the boss designs aren't always the most compelling or easy to understand at times, and I feel like powerups have been tamped down a bit; I feel like there's a lot of powerups that just feel like sidegrades or niche bonuses that feel beside the point. And while the controls are solid, I do feel like the dash is a bit slow - I really want the dash to propel me, but it doesn't feel like it gets much speed in this game compared to the MMX series or to 20XX. Also, I feel like this game, like its predecessor, continues to have a problem with sloppy UI and menus, as well as the weird presentation in its lobby area. It's hard to explain, but it just feels more slapdash than it should in a game that is otherwise presented beautifully. Maybe these issues are why I haven't gotten as hooked on this game as I want to be - it's also possible that some of this is just early access jankiness and things will be polished a bit more in the future, I don't know.

I have to admit that in spite of my complaints, this game is a really excellent sequel, and this is the first time on my list that I feel like I might be making a huge mistake ranking this too low. I look at how good this game looks and sounds and how fun it is to play and I go "#36? Really?" But then I look at the 35 games below it and I go, yeah, it really has been that kind of two years. Everything on the rest of this list fucks. 30XX is still in early access, so maybe I'll have a chance to revisit it in the future and get properly hooked on it and write about how I should have ranked it in my top 10 before. We'll see! Hopefully we'll still be in the year 20XX by the time it's all finished.

Next up: This game was the reason I bought the Ukraine bundle.