Over the past few days, I’ve been watching a Twitch streamer I follow begin to marathon their way through the Mega Man X games. Things started out fine for the first two games, but then we got to Mega Man X3, the divisive entry that was handled by the team behind the Mega Man games for the Game Boy. Areas were more cramped, the emphasis on ride armor did little beyond having a new way to uncover secrets, enemies repeated themselves and felt more plentiful, and the more massive enemies and bosses that the previous games were known for were absent. As I watched these flaws become more apparent as the streamer eventually had a breakdown (and if that gave them a breakdown, I can’t wait to see how they handle X6), it made me realize the importance of good level design in action-platformers such as this.
And brings us to developer Batterystaple Games' Mega Man X/Mega Man Zero spiritual successor, 30XX, whose latest major update, Abyssal Armory, adds its eighth level, WaterGrav. We’ve checked in on this sequel to 20XXover the lasttwo years now,and while the core gameplay is still as impressive and fun as before, my first experience with WaterGrav compared to the other levels felt underwhelming at first. It turns out that the curse of the roguelike was initially in effect, even though I had selected the non-roguelike Mega Mode in order to go straight to the new stage ASAP. The version of WaterGrav generated for this first run, while still fun, felt lacking at first, though.
WaterGrav’s main gimmick is essentially two gimmicks combined together, as its name suggests: Water and gravity. An aquatic-themed stage that not only has background portions that can flip your own gravity back and forth (as well as that of any enemy who touches them), but also levers that you can pull that cause pools of water to rise from the floor to the ceiling and vice versa. And the water notably causes enemies to behave differently, as fish will either lunge right at you or flop about, enemy attacks can create poison blobs, mines rise up and down, certain platforms appear, etc. It’s all satisfying, especially as it extended to a challenging mini-boss that required you to switch gravity at the right times to evade attacks.
After playing the other levels made in my first run at Mega Mode, though, WaterGrav started to feel underwhelming. It wasn’t as open as the other levels, which featured a lot more semi-branching paths, and featured a lot more secrets and health/item drops along the way. It felt taxing after a while, even after I had stocked up on upgrades after completing some of the other well-designed levels. That said, I decided to slip out of Mega Mode and try the regular roguelike mode, where I luckily came across WaterGrav for my second level. This time around, the version of it that was generated hit all of the sweet spots, working with its space and gimmicks better than before, feeling a lot more like a classic X or Zero level. Of course, then the level’s boss, Guardian 9, handed me my keister on a silver platter, but it was still an exciting romp.
There was one other major addition to 30XX’s latest update that was missing this time around, though (aside from new Resonant Armor guarded by certain mini-bosses and a “Spicy” difficulty), and that would be terminals that provided bits of lore for each level, filling in the bits between games, which is certainly a welcome touch. There was one in my initial version of WaterGrav in Mega Mode that provided a new entry each time, but I couldn’t find any in the other levels. They popped up when going the roguelike route, though, and it feels like they were meant more for that instead of Mega Mode, where each run offers the possibility to chip away another section of the background story bit by bit until you have everything. In Mega Mode, it’s seemingly random if you’ll get terminals or not, leaving some levels to provide a whole story while replaying them where the others get nothing.
This all might sound a bit negative, but rest assured, 30XX is still shaping up to be an epic blast that does Capcom’s finest proud. The pixel art is jaw-dropping, the action is great and hits the perfect level of difficulty whether you play as the X-like Nina or Zero-like Ace, the controls are tight, the roguelike approach to things still works surprisingly well, and the possibility for more lore is always welcome. This latest update is just a reminder that 30XX is still an Early Access game, and as such, still requires proper feedback to figure out how to properly balance things. So with a little more fine-tuning when it comes to generating levels for WaterGrav and better integration of the lore terminals into Mega Mode, Batterystaple gets one step closer to creating a full version of 30XX that easily provides a brilliant spin on a winning franchise’s formula. Feel free to give it a spin right now and find out for yourself.
