20XX is a rougelite Action Platformer made as a love letter to the Mega Man franchise. In it, we play as one of two protagonists, Ace the short ranged whip slinger, and Nina, the more traditional ranged fighter. Both contain their own unique weapons and are equally viable options that you can choose between before the start of a run. The story of 20XX is simple; two mad scientists have accidentally let robots on the loose and have created our two heroes to destroy them all. That set up also serves to explain why we get more powerful each run, as while we may be destroyed, the Soul Chips we collect throughout helps with research for more useful gadgets.
For purists out there, know that the roguelite elements are mostly there to help out struggling players. It is very possible to beat the game without obtaining any permanent upgrades or being held back too much by other random elements. If you’ve ever played a Mega Man game before, you’ll immediately feel right at home here. You can only shoot horizontally, can charge your attack for a bigger blast, and wall jump like later games in the series. The first level you’ll find yourself in will be random with a boss waiting for you at the end. If you manage to defeat it, then you are given three options of which boss/stage you want to tackle next.
Said bosses are one of the highlights of the game. They are all a blast to fight and pose a far more significant threat the more you hold off on fighting them. Each stage you complete will see the remaining bosses grow more powerful, until they are nearly unrecognizable from what you experience facing them early on. It adds a bit strategy and learning which of them give you the most trouble, as to deal with them in the order most likely to increase your chances of survival. Defeating one will provide you with one of three benefits. First, you can siphon off their special abilities which do things like blasting shards of ice or destroying incoming projectiles if timed right. Secondly, you can pick up whatever random item spawned, and last but not least, take cold hard cash that are called Nuts in this title.
Each boss is weak to a specific ability, though the other options are not too shabby either. It can be equally as helpful to take an item that permanently increases your health or receive ten nuts to buy things from a store later on. You can only equip three abilities at any time, so going into the menu to switch to any of the other five is not all that worthwhile outside of boss fights. Like the bosses, the levels themselves will get considerably more difficult as you progress. There are only a few background themes that will repeat themselves across the eight stages you need to get through. You have your usual lava, ice, and jungle environments alongside a few others. Each contains some unique enemies and hazards.
Having repeated environments before a single run is over may sound like it will get old fast, though two things massively help it. The first is that they are randomly generated, giving you a fresh stage layout each time and preventing memorization. Then you also have the fact that stages get harder as time goes on, giving them a whole new feel with that added intensity. I also do love that it has out of the way areas that are far more dangerous than the regular level, yet contain the promise of goodies if you manage to make it. It lends it a sense of not being so constrained and being just a point A to point B romp through a level. There are also some challenge rooms scattered about that will teleport you elsewhere and task you with a quick but dangerous objective. Considering you only have a single life, it is undoubtedly a risk versus reward type of proposition.
As you make your way through these eight levels, you’ll no doubt be thinking to yourself that this is nowhere near as difficult as Mega Man. Well, that’s precisely when this title pulls off its gloves and smacks you with an additional two stages you need to complete in order to beat the game. Those last two stages will require your full attention and will more often than not, be your doom if you are anything like me. Split second platforming, long stretches without land to walk on, and brutal placements of both enemies, as well as traps, are par for course here.
The controls are tight and responsive. While there are some instances of cheap hazard placement, you’ll always feel that it was down to you when you take any damage. Falling into an endless pit is hardly the end of the world either, it will just take away a single pip of health and put you back to the last stable piece of land you set foot on. What is most likely to get you will be attrition. You never know when an enemy will drop some more health or when a health vending machine may appear. This is the area in where the rougelite aspect is most likely to affect the player, as there are no hand placed healing items to keep one going after a particularly tricky zone. It comes down to luck or simply having enough skill not to take damage in the first place. I wouldn’t call that a negative, though it is something to be aware of.
What I will call a negative is the fact that you need to buy all the items with Soul Chips before they have a chance of spawning. Soul chips are randomly scattered about or received after a boss fight and can be spent after you die. The starting selection of items is far too small and slowly buying new things just to have more options and stop seeing that damage upgrade every time you enter a store seems unnecessary. Other ways you can use your soul chips is to buy permanent upgrades or an item to start your next run with. The permanent upgrades will allow you to increase your max health and NP meter that is used for abilities, as well as other bonuses that will help you survive longer. It does not provide a game-breaking amount of help; you very much still need to improve your skills to beat the title. You also have the option to turn off any permanent upgrades should you no longer want a helping hand.
Before you start a run, you can pick from three difficulty options. Reverent is an easy mode where you will get three lives to make it through. Normal is the intended difficulty and also the one where achievements are now enabled. Finally, you have Defiant, for those people who simply love an insane challenge and being able to pick all matters of modifiers to purposely make things even more difficult. There are also other modes such as daily and weekly challenges, a boss rush mode, as well as both local and online coop. It is an impressive amount of stuff to keep you playing. Content is certainly one thing that 20XX does not lack. As previously stated, both characters have their own attacks and weapons too, adding even more to chew your teeth on.
Weapons are found through chests that are usually guarded by a nasty set of traps. They all change your projectiles in some form like causing you to shoot in trident like bursts or replacing your energy whip with a spear for added range. There are other bits of gear, usually found in stores, to get your hands on like gloves that decrease your mega-buster’s charging time and boots that let you hover around briefly. As you may imagine, those aren’t cheap making saving up Nuts a possibly run winning strategy. Unlike soul chips, nuts do not carry over when you die, so cheaping out on buying health with the hopes that another store will later spawn in can be a deadly gamble. It typically took me a bit over an hour to get across all ten stages, making any risk/reward decisions that much more impactful and possibly heartbreaking. I’m not the best at Mega Man styled games though, and there is an achievement for beating it in just thirty minutes, so play times may vary wildly.
The artwork is decently detailed and colorful. It has a near cartoon-like look to it that gives it a nice added bit of charm. From the giant mecha penguins to the cheeky looking scientists, this title has a humorous tone to it. Its music is just as good and is very identical to, as you may expect, Mega Man. The only glitch I experienced was one caused by having a resolution higher than 1080p. If it surpasses that, the text found in the datalore entries will be smushed together, making it quite difficult to read. Said datalore adds some depth to backstories of the items, bosses, and enemies you encounter. It is not a massive deal, and you can change the resolution in-game, though it is an issue nonetheless.
20XX is the rare type of throwback game that not only matches the quality of its inspiration, but surpasses it in some regards as well. It is a tightly put together Action Platformer that even people that have never played Mega Man are bound to enjoy, as it does not rely on nostalgia alone. The rogue-lite aspect may initially set off some alarm bells as these type of titles do require carefully placed objects and enemies to have a good flow to them. I wouldn’t put the levels here on the same league as carefully handcrafted ones, though they are more than sufficient and have the clear advantage of giving you a new experience every time you boot it up. In addition to the plethora of weapons, abilities, and the boatload of other content there is to see, this is not a game you’ll likely be putting down any time soon. I highly recommend 20XX to any fan of this genre in general.
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