Video Game / 30XX

Rise. Fight. Fall. Adapt.

30XX is the sequel to Batterystaple Games' 20XX. Like its predecessor, it's a platforming-style rogue-lite heavily inspired by Mega Man X.

After escaping and shutting down Professors Brighton Sharp and Arlan Flat's nefarious experiments, Nina and Ace awaken a thousand years later to a world completely remade and ruled over by the Synthetic Mind. Somewhere along the way, humanity lost their freedom, hopes, and dreams. The contractors must now jump and shoot their way through this new reality, on the chance that they may save what remains.

Unlike its predecessor, the game offers two main modes of play:

• Standard: The normal roguelike, Final Death Mode, where the main levels are played in a random order, with the player losing all upgrades and progress upon death, though the player can buy permanent upgrades with 'Memoria' currency back at the HQ.
• Mega Mode: A mode that removes all roguelike and Final Death Mode elements, with three save file slots available. All main stages can be played in any order, with increasing difficulty based on 'Normal', 'Bold', and 'Defiant' tiers. Levels are still randomly generated, but are based on a seed that is generated upon a new save file that then stays the same for that particular file. Like with Standard mode, there are permanent upgrades that can be bought with 'Memoria' currency that affects all and future Mega Mode save files.

The game was released on Steam in Early Access on February 17, 2021, and received a full release on August 9, 2023.

---

30XX provides examples of:

• Ability Mixing:
  • Nina's Power Fusion ability lets her augment one power with another to get one that has properties of both. For example, augmenting the Rending Whirl (creates a tornado where Nina stands) with the Negating Pulse (erases projectiles in a small area) results in a lasting barrier that absorbs projectiles.
  • The changes to how Core Augments work allows one to mix and match them to stack their effects. For instance, you can equip Oxjack's Blitz and Dracopent's Bound at the same time to enable air dashing and Double Jumping.
• Aggressive Play Incentive: Ace's Style mechanic encourages his players to keep seeking out enemies to attack, as his energy regeneration stays high as he lands hits.
• A.I. Breaker: In earlier versions of the game, Legacy's weakness was an example of this trope being intentional game design. In his base pattern, Legacy took "turns" moving with its Shapes; they moved into their new positions, and then Legacy moved. Freezing the shapes with Crystal Wave prevented them from moving on their "turn", which also froze Legacy. Augment Crystal Wave with Rending Whirl, and Legacy would be stuck just sitting there while Nina pounded away on him with her Buster.
• All the Worlds Are a Stage: The final two stages take elements from the first eight stages and combine them together, while adding some new gimmicks into the mix. The various puzzle levels that you access on the path to the true ending also take elements from various stages.
• All Your Powers Combined: Eleanor exhibits the abilities of all the main bossfights in the game. Midgard Core/Devotion's End also uses all the special weapons of the 20XX versions of Nina/Ace.
• Antepiece:
  • Each stage starts with a section in which you can check out its gimmicks without much danger.
  • Each stage has at least one common enemy or hazard similar to an attack the boss will use. In Highvault, for example, one of the most common obstacles is a box-like enemy that fires tornados. The enemy telegraphs and fires using the same timing as Hoot Omega's Rending Whirl.
• Amplifier Artifact: The Resonant Armor pieces enhance the effects of Core Augs of the same type.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Energy has been overhauled for the sequel; instead of a separate energy pickup, characters now restore energy by destroying enemies and collecting health pickups. Therefore, there's less of a chance of being full on health but utterly dry on energy, or brimming with energy but limping along with just a sliver of health.
  • New to this game is the ability to reroll gear you find for a chance at something better. Now you don't need to totally abandon something that you don't want. If you have rerolls to spare, you can roll the dice to see if you can get something better.
  • A new item lets you use 20 nuts in place of tokens for slot machines. Handy for if you have a ton of nuts but tokens are scarce.
  • If you pick up a Resonator but do not have any of the relevant Cores (for example, getting a Resonant Helmet but having no Head Cores), a random Core for the part in question will be given to you immediately. This ensures that your efforts in getting the Resonator are not wasted, especially as you usually need to fight an Optional Boss in order to obtain them.
  • A run is considered won once you defeat the final boss, so you don't have to fret if you die during the subsequent Escape Sequence.
• Apocalypse How: The scope of the danger changes through the course of the game. While at first you find yourself trying to avert the destruction of the world, you later find that the world has already been wiped clean of humanity due to junk-storms caused by poorly-understood use of gravity technology, leaving just the machines. However, later story developments reveal that any world you fail to save experiences total universal obliteration at the hands of Midgard, in service of preventing a total multiversal collapse due to the existence of too many multiverses.
• Asteroids Monster: One of gauntlet bosses splits into two when damaged enough.
• Astral Finale: Stages 9 and 10 both take place in space.
• Balance Buff: Core Augments have their own inventory now, where you can turn them on and off whenever you like. Under this new system, armor set cores are no longer mutually exclusive with one another. You can collect the same part from two or more armors and activate them together to stack and combine their effects.
• Band Land: Echocave is a mix of a musical level and Crystal Landscape, as both crystals, gigantic speakers, and gigantic crystal tuning forks are strewn throughout.
• Battle in the Rain: The weather storms rainy during the battle against Hoot Omega.
• Bonus Stage:
  • Glory Zones return from 20XX, though they're now more platforming-focused challenges, and give you a selection of rewards based on either time or damage taken.
  • Gauntlets have you fighting through a corridor packed with enemies, and a special miniboss fight at the end. Clearing the gauntlet rewards you with a Resonant Armor piece.
  • Contemplation Shrines task you with clearing several waves of enemies in enclosed rooms. Like Glory Zones, the rewards you can get depend on how many times you get hit or how quickly you complete the challenge.
• Boss-Altering Consequence:
  • The order in which you do the bosses will impact the order in which Eleanor will use the abilities of all the bosses.
  • If you bring the items for the Imbued Chronovane to Highvault, the level will change so that there is a constant meteor shower in what is heavily implied to be the past. Instead of fighting you, Hoot Omega gains a new Boss Subtitle, "Protector of Elements", and protects you from the meteors as you progress through what would have been the boss arena in a normal run.
  • If you wear the full Vagrant Core set to the Deepverse or otherwise have the set bonus, the level will become corrupted, with swarms of corrupted bits regularly appearing. When you get to the end, Legacy lacks any Boss Subtitles as he becomes a Zero-Effort Boss, doing nothing and dying in one hit.
• Boss-Arena Idiocy: The boss of Dustria is surrounded by a trio of floating fists that serve as both his main means of attack and a shield against your attacks. They're invulnerable to most of your weapons. However, there's a pair of exploding box spawners in the floor, which exist for the sole purpose of letting you launch the boxes into the fists, which also hurts the boss. Depending on how your build is progressing, this might be the only safe way to deal damage to him.
• Boss Remix: Each level theme has a variation that plays during their miniboss segments, as well as a complete re-arrangement that plays during the boss proper. The 30XX title theme itself also gets remixed for the final boss theme.
• Boss Subtitles: Each boss has their own intro splash screen and accompanying title.
  • Lethal Tempo, Doomsday Reckoner
  • Capital Punishment, Laissez Fist
  • Absolution, Redeemer's Grace
  • Experiment 9, Subjective Gravity
  • Hoot Omega, Scion of Storms//Protector of Elements, should you be on an Imbued Chronovane run
  • Echobeast, Slumbering Sentry
  • Legacy, Graceful Host
  • Zen Primus, Peaceful Postulant
  • Devotion's End, Architect's Opus
  • Averted with Eleanor. While she gets a splash screen, her full title as a boss fight is "Eleanor, the Architect", with no subtitle.
• Cast from Hit Points: Picking up Remnant of Sorrow allows the player to cast powers using hit points, when energy gets too low.
• Catching Some Z's: Sleeping characters, like Echobeast let out Z letters when sleeping.
• Challenge Run:
  • The Entropy Cluster lets you add additional stipulations to a run, like increased environmental damage or time limits.
  • Delta can appear at the start of a level and challenge you to complete it under certain conditions, like being unable to use powers or augs or with reduced attack damage, for rewards. When actually playing as Delta, these challenges are also issued to him, and he can pick up to three of them, but he has to pick at least one challenge to continue the level.
• Cherry Blossoms: Cherry blossom petals fall once you defeat Zen Primus at Burning Temple, affirming your victory.
• Creepy Cathedral: Penumbra takes place in a church with gigantic stained windows. Its boss, Absolution, looks like a demented preacher.
• Clockworks Area: Clockzone is a, well, clock-tower-themed area filled with perpetually moving gears.
• Coin-on-a-String Trick: One of the augments is called Nutsaving Stringwire that gives 50% chance to use some machines for free.
• Conspicuous Electric Obstacle:
  • Deepverse has electric beams connecting electric nodes. It also has electric beam emitters that travel across the surfaces.
  • Dustria has electrified sections of rails. Moving platforms become very visibly electrified when they move along those rails.
• Crosshair Aware: Many enemy attacks, particularly those from bosses, are often telegraphed with circled ! sign.
• Cyberspace: Deepverse takes place in a location inspired by video games.
• Divergent Character Evolution: Nina and Ace are now much more distinct characters. In 20XX, their only differences were the main weapons they could equip. Now, they gain different powers and have unique mechanics, like Nina's power fusion.
• Double Jump:
  • Some core augments will give extra jumps.
  • Wing symbols in Highvault give a temporary mid-air jump.
• Dual Boss: Both Echocave miniboss and Prenumbra miniboss appear in pairs.
• Escape Sequence: Like 20XX, you have to flee to an escape pod after you defeat the final boss, but this time with an invincible enemy chasing you.
• Eternal Engine:
  • Dustria is a gigantic factory filled with industrial equipment and robotic workers all looking to take you out.
  • Clockzone to a certain extent with perpetually moving machinery.
• Evil Counterpart: The mid boss of the final level is an evil version of Alexia, presumably one from an alternate dimension that went along with Eleanor's plans instead of fighting against her.
• Fighting Across Time and Space: The final stage warps through locations you've encountered previously as you battle your way through it. It's also the background for the final boss fight.
• Flame Spewer Obstacle: Burning temple is filled with flame emitters.
• Floating Platforms: Many platforms hang mid-air, sometimes using jets.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: All the runs you've been going on? They're each in a different universe. The ones where you fail are eventually destroyed.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: Hoot Omega flies away when damaged enough, forcing you to race through the stage to get back to them.
• Gravity Screw: One of Watergrav's features are panels that flip you and enemies upside-down and back. It also has switches that change the gravity of the water in the stage, which can affect enemies and platforms.
• The Great Serpent: Midgard, who also serves as the game's final level.
• Goomba Stomp: With remnant of Determination, the player can jump on enemies to deal damage.
• Gusty Glade: Highvault has some sections where winds blow above, slowing down player's fall.
• Humongous-Headed Hammer: Ace can wield Lara: A two-sided weapon with its head bigger than than the player.
• Inexplicable Treasure Chests: Treasure chests are scattered throughout the levels, containing various pick-ups and augments.
• Inconveniently-Placed Conveyor Belt: Conveyor belts appear in Dustria as a common stage hazard. Conveyor belts also appear in Fire Temple.
• Indy Escape: The first half of the Burning Temple miniboss involves you being chased by a giant flaming spike wheel down a narrow corridor full of enemies and obstacles, until you eventually run into a larger room and fight it there properly.
• Kaizo Trap: The first time you defeat Aspera's miniboss, it falls apart. After a moment, the parts spring back up, begin acting on their own, and you have to take them down once more.
• Last Chance Hit Point: The auto tank grants you some health when you take fatal damage. However, you need to fill it with health pickups first, and it has a limited amount of uses per run.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Elanor's final datalore entry is addressed to the person reading it, which in context could be referring to Nina and Ace but can just as easily be addressing the player directly. Especially as it regards to her plan to use them as the deciding factor to make the culling of worlds random, as every time the player fails, that world will end.
• Lethal Joke Item:
  • The Toy Beam weakens Nina's normal attack and adds angle variance to her shots. However, it also essentially costs -5 Core Points to equip, giving you room to equip other Core Augs.
  • Useless Garbage is an Aug that has no effects. However, the Smuggler will take it for five Scrapbits, the most she gives for a single Aug. Those Scrapbits can be traded for more useful Augs.
• Level Editor: There's a level editor, the same one the developers use, which lets players create their own 30XX levels and share them around the world.
• Luck Manipulation Mechanic:
  • The Parallelized Fate upgrade provides rerolls that let players change a dropped Aug to a different one.
  • Scrap trades can also be rerolled with the cost of scrap.
• Magikarp Power: The Vagrant Core set. Wearing any one of the Core Augs enables the Corruption meter, which builds as you deal damage with your attacks and increases your abilities in the process, until the meter maxes out, disabling attacks, powers, and dashes until it cools down. Each individual Core Aug gives you a supercharged ability that works only during the Corruption overload, but if you have only one of the Augs, you need to adjust on the fly to having most of your buttons turn off at inconvenient times. On the other hand, if you have collected all four pieces, you can enjoy invulnerability, charged shot spam, Energy-free powers, and lightning-speed dashes with impunity.
• Metal Slime: Loot Omega looks like a gold-colored Hoot Omega and has the same evasive properties. Hitting them makes them drop special nuts that explode when they hit the ground, and if you destroy them in time you get an aug as a reward.
• Mirror Boss: Delta is this, both matching your weapon and using the same special abilities as you.
• More Dakka:
  • Nina's Buster upgrades are treated as Core Augments, and thus can also be activated together to combine their effects. Most of those upgrades add to the total number of Buster shots that appear on the screen every time Nina fires. Forkalator and Scatterblast upgrades add more shots fired at once in a larger arc. Retrobeam adds a single shot that fires backward. Vertibeam adds single shots firing up and down. Star Beam fires in all four cardinal directions. Getting lucky with Buster upgrades on a Standard run or Mega Mode file can result in Nina filling the space around her with yellow Buster spam.
  • The Verity Beam is a more literal version of this, turning Nina's buster into a machine gun while removing her charge shot. Gets even better when combined with Retrofork, Vertibeam, Retrobeam, Forkalator...
• Nerf:
  • Main weapon stat ups are much rarer than in the previous game, making the old strategy of dumping special weapons and energy to focus purely on buffing the main weapons much harder to pull off.
  • Unlike 20XX, there is only one Aug that changes your jump stat, and it's a Leg Core. Therefore, it's harder to break the platforming sections.
  • The Patchwork Connector (only need three Core Augs of a set to get the Set Bonus) does not return from 20XX, with its functionality appearing on the Prototype Augs Patchwork Integrator(reduces damage the more Core Augs you equip) and Patchwork Overloader(increases CP cost of Core Augs).
• Orbiting Particle Shield:
  • Legacy has orbiting orbs as one of his moves.
  • The Orbital Barrier repro orbits around your character and blocks projectiles.
• Power at a Price:
  • Prototype Augments return from 20XX, which grant you a significant advantage in exchange for a severe drawback. Prototype Resonator will give you more power at the same drawback while System Restore will usually remove it.
  • The Vagrant Core Augs grant powerful benefits, but add a corruption meter that increases as you attack. Once it's filled, you overheat and are unable to attack or dash until it's empty again.
  • Fatal Fury increases attack and power strength by one and can be taken up to five times, but each pickup costs 10 maximum HP, multiplied by the number of Fatal Fury Augs you currently hold.
• Promoted to Playable: The 1.2 update adds Delta, an npc who issues the player challenges, as a free playable character.
• Regenerating Mana: Ace has a unique Style mechanic, which he gains stacks of as he hits enemies with melee weapons and techniques. Ace's energy regenerates more quickly the more stacks of Style he has, thus letting Ace use his moves more often as long as he's aggressive.
• Retraux: The game has a new pixel art style that is closer to that of the Playstation Mega Man X games, owing to its retro inspiration.
• Rocket Punch: Capital Punishment has three jet-powered fists that can be used offensively or orbiting as a shield.
• Rolling Attack: Many enemies roll to attack. Echobeast, for an examples, rolls to attack.
• Segmented Serpent: Laser Snake and Big Snek are made of multiple segments.
• Set Bonus: Collecting all 4 equipment of the set gives a significant bonus. For an example, Armatort set bonus makes you immune to all the hazards and Oxjack set bonus gives two additional airdashes per jump.
• Shop Fodder: Useless Garbage item, when picked up, does nothing. However, Scrap Dealer takes it in exchange for 5 scrapbits that can be used to buy core slots or various augments.
• Shout-Out: Laser Snake and Big Snek are references to Snake video game. They even die instantly when touching their own tail.
• Smashing Hallway Traps of Doom: Dustria has plenty of crushers moving up and down. Some even have spikes on their sides.
• Solid Clouds: Highvault features dispensers that produce temporary puffs of clouds you can stand on.
• Spike Balls of Doom: Pink and purple metallic spiky balls act as a common stage hazard. Clockzone features orange and green spikeballs, former attached to rotating platforms and the latter swinging around.
• Spikes of Doom: Acts as a hazard in some of the stages.
• Spread Shot: Several primary weapons make Nina shoot out spread shots. For an example, The Forkalator and Scatterblast.
• Springs, Springs Everywhere: Springboards are commonly found in Dustria.
• Stalactite Spite: Ceiling crystals in Echocave start to fall when the player is below them.
• Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: Right before you fight the final boss in a Standard run, you're given access to the shop, a slot machine, two Contemplation Shrines, and two Glory Zones, for one last chance to power yourself up before the big battle.
• Temporary Platform: There are various platforms and blocks that either disappear when stood on, switch on/off on time or switch on or off during jump.
• Toggling Setpiece Puzzle: Penumbra features switches which, when shot, alter which blocks are active. They're used as light puzzle elements.
• Training Dummy: After defeating a boss, there is a dummy the players can use to test their powers on.
• Uncommon Time: Battle against Burning Temple boss has 7/4 time signature.
• Utility Weapon: Like 20XX, some powers and techniques can help you navigate a stage more easily or give you an advantage in battle. There is also a prototype augment Utilifier MAX that reduces energy cost of powers in exchange of reducing their damage to minimum.
  • Aiming Gear and Aim fusions instantly destroy the tornado machines in Highvault, and rotate Boltpairs in Deepverse.
  • Crushing Void absorbs the gears in Clockzone, growing in size and power, and forces the moles in Echocave to surface.
  • Crystal Wave and Freeze fusions can permanently disable the fireball shooters in Burning Temple, and temporarily freeze Deepverse's disappearing platforms and Hoot Omega.
  • Jagged Bolt can stop Clockzone's miniboss from attacking for a bit, and destroys the moving laser emitters in Deepverse.
  • Negation Pulse, in addition to neutralizing projectiles, temporarily disables the wall laser shooters in Penumbra, and destroys Echobeast's electric projectiles.
  • Rending Whirl can permanently destroy Megavoids in Penumbra, whereas other hits can only temporarily disable them. It also destroys the voids Absolution throws, and temporarily stops the downwards moving platforms in Clockzone.
  • Zen Mortar destroys the Void Spawners in Penumbra.
  • Echo Shell can reflect enemy gears in Clockzone.
  • Leviathan destroys the Void Spawners in Penumbra. It also provides unique effects if some of Ace's other techniques are used on it.
  • Osafune destroys Megavoids and Absolution's voids in Penumbra, and Echobeast's electric projectiles.
  • Raijin Call stuns the Clockzone miniboss and destroys the moving lasers in Deepverse, and if it hits an exploding barrel in Dustria, causes projectiles to shoot in eight directions.
  • Ryuusei instantly destroys the stained glass in Absolution's boss fight and the totems in Zen Primus' boss fight. It can also temporarily stop the conveyer belts in Dustria and pop out the moles in Echocave.
  • Zen Ascent ignites tornadoes in Highvault. It also gets a height increase if used after passing a Cloud Aura.
  • Dolomite Link latches onto walls as well as enemies, so it's useful for gaining extra horizontal distance.
• Variable Mix:
  • The stage themes transition to a more intense version while you're fighting the miniboss.
  • The Penumbra stage and boss fight segues between different parts of its theme depending on where you are.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: It eventually turns out that Eleanor wants to destroy the universe because she knows that The Multiverse is starting to buckle under the weight of countless universes, and that if the universes aren't pruned, then reality itself will collapse.
• Wingding Eyes: Hoot Omega's eyes turn into X symbols when defeated.
• Wolfpack Boss:
  • Lethal Tempo is composed of four parts working together. As you defeat each enemy, the remaining ones become fiercer with their attacks.
  • The second phase of Aspera's miniboss is fought as a group of three.
• Wrench Whack: Worker enemies throw wrenches at the player.
• Wutai: The Burning Temple stage is themed around Japanese architecture, complete with shrine gates and pagodas in the background.
• Zero-Effort Boss:
  • In Deepverse, the alternate version, Legacy, does not put up a fight and goes down in one hit.
  • If you get the Symbol of Submission or the Symbol of Peace, every boss from then on lets you pass without a fight.

---