TL;DR? It's not great by any measure, but a bad Mega Man X game with co-op is still novel. Generous 5/10.

First thing to get out the way; this is a horrible rogue-like. It's too long, repetitive in its RNG generation, and just not very well put together. 30XX attempts to combine the worlds of Mega Man X's tight platforming action with the limitless replayability of a rogue-like, and fails miserably.

LUCKILY, the included "Mega Mode" makes things a lot more tolerable. By offering up a more traditional experience of dying and retrying from the start of the level, you get a much less frustrating, tedious experience at the cost of precious difficulty. I played the whole thing in co-op, which made bosses a cakewalk and platforming sections almost unbearable due to the screen zoom out. If your buddy falls off a platform and goes back to the checkpoint, enjoy being almost impossible to see.

So the two main gimmicks are a crap shoot. It's worse in co-op and has bad level design due to the rogue-like elements. What's left is a bad Mega Man X clone with some high quality sprite work. The unlockable powers do ridiculous damage, you get OP way too quickly, and the 9th stage is an obnoxious difficulty spike. 9/10 failed runs end on the same stage, at least in my experience, because the level design is so much of a cluster fuck.

I still give the game 2 stars for novelty of being a 2 player Mega Man X game that on occasion feels rewarding, due to there being some fun power synergies between the players. It's a frustrating, boring roguelike due to the awful difficulty pacing (easy for 1 hour, hard for 20 minutes, back to easy for the last 15), but Mega Mode makes it approachable couch co-op fun in spite of its massive flaws, which I do really appreciate these days.

This is really fun, just a joy to play through. I like 20XX but there was always something kind of scuffed about it, specifically the art style and the physics. This game has polished up those aspects and added some other improvements too. I particularly like the improved bosses, they feel much more challenging now and can reward things other than glass cannon builds. My one gripe is that there isn't an endless mode yet, but they're adding it in Soon™ so once they add that this game will probably hop onto my list of favorite roguelikes alongside Hades, Slay the Spire, and Risk of Rain 2.

30XX is an excellent action platformer game, and an excellent roguelike that's a straight improvement from the original in every way. Gorgeous pixel art graphics, new and rebalanced mechanics, a bigger set of features that differentiates the two characters, and the gameplay is just as tight and solid as it's always been. The level themes are interesting and fun both visually and mechanically, and the music is just as great. Each boss at the end is beautifully designed and fun to master, and defeating them rewards you with a similarly beautiful new ability. Between dashing, jumping, and shooting, everything plays exactly as you'd want it to, and this all just adds up to some delightful core gameplay that'll satisfy those looking for a real challenge.

While it does have clear MMX inspiration, it may be misleading to correlate the game and its philosophy to Mega Man X. It certainly has the same tight, reliable, controls and buttery smooth jump and shoot action, but even in Mega Mode (a static mode which removes permadeath and random runs in favor of a more traditional stage select and save file system), there's a greater "controlled chaos" that isn't present in its inspiration. In the end, 30XX isn't just about jumping and shooting - you'll be picking up all kinds of gear and upgrades over the course of a run to enhance your stats and get the firepower needed to tear apart bosses. The classic "power chase" of extreme stat-boosting items and crazy abilities that is present in other roguelikes is very much present here and deeply enjoyable, and is also encouraged through some more swamping design in the later half of the game, so if you don't enjoy that sort of thing, then its resemblance to Mega Man X otherwise won't be enough for you. It is arguably a roguelike firstly, and an action platformer secondly.

If you're willing to engage with it on its own terms, however, you'll find an excellent game for fans of action platformers and Mega Man who don't mind a little roguelike flavor in the mix. Though uncompromising in ways, it's satisfying, fluid, genuinely endlessly replayable, and just as well-designed as it gets.

I bought 30XX following the 1.0 release. I've had heard about the game for a long time, and I originally thought it was "simply" a Megaman-inspired game, and wanted something chill to play on the TV. I was actually pleasantly surprised when I saw it was an Action Roguelike. It shows the devs put a lot of effort into this game. The art style is good, the music is great, and a lot of work was put in the animations. Unfortunately though, the fun falls short, and the gameplay in itself is just poor.

The randomly-generated levels feel uninspired and repetitive. The way the chunks are designed and assembled doesn't reward any exploration effort, especially since the Nuts (one of the in-game currency) are so rare.

The hub, where you can buy permanent upgrades and select players/game modes, feels like a glorified menu, and there are multiple tiny things that are just frustrating. Why do I have to walk up to each shop/options? Why can't I just press B to close a buy menu?

While the small fights during the levels don't really feel noticeable, the various bosses look and feel alright. They sometimes have weird patterns that you can't dodge or prevent (a bit of inspiration from the Dark Souls series wouldn't hurt in that regard). But once again the game design makes each battle a chore. Not only can't you shoot up or down, which is understandable since you get pickups that improve your arsenal and abilities, but the hitboxes are inconsistent. Sometimes janky, sometimes too precise, you can't really develop a movement flow, and you're sometimes stuck looking at an enemy dead in the eyes without being able to hit them.

So all in all, despite the fact that its art and music is great, and a lot of love has been put into it, 30XX is not a game I can recommend. It's not a good roguelike, it's not a good platformer, it just falls short of everything and doesn't have that little something that could make it a worthwhile purchase. I had to ask for a refund, for I knew I wouldn't want to bash my head against this title after a few runs.

And I mean let's be honest. For the same price, why play this when you can play Dead Cells or Spelunky? Or if you're willing to spend a little more, get Rogue Legacy 2 or Hades. You'll get much more for your money, whether it be in terms of gameplay, mechanics, items, lore, or plain and simple fun.

A Megaman X roguelite sounds great but none of the mechanics are as well implemented as I'd like. The level variations are a neat idea but you get repeats pretty quick and it doesn't take long for the novelty to wear off. The controls are smooth and responsive but the stages, bosses and abilities aspire to decent at best. Maybe it'd be more fun in co-op but I'd also rather just play an actual Megaman game. I probably would've finished it but it crashed and wiped my save so I guess the game was equally sick of me.

Pros:
+ combining Mega Man with roguelike design is still a great idea
+ builds on its predecessor in plenty of ways
+ art style is more refined and detailed
+ background art has been much improved
+ controls are tight and dash move feels great to use
+ character hit box is lenient
+ CP equipment system is a smart addition and mostly well-implemented
+ core upgrades allow for divers builds
+ difficulty smartly scales over the course of a run
+ challenges and bonuses are no longer timed
+ plenty of optional challenges in each level with managable difficulty
+ meta-upgrades feel empowering and rewarding
+ technical performance on Switch is rock-solid
+ auto-charging can be toggled on and off
+ bosses are diverse and colorful...

Cons:
- ...but have to be beaten in full in each run
- hub area is badly designed and needlessly confusing
- even with procedural generation, areas mostly feel alike
- mini bosses do not have a visible health bar
- no health loss indicator on hit
- successful runs clock in at around 1,5 hours
- only two playable characters from the first game
- refilling health without proper items is very difficult
- Save Laboratory upgrades are as useless as in the first game
- auto charge does not trigger the core updates related to charging
- Scrap Dealer and shop items tend to be too expensive
- final boss gauntlet is basically impossible without the right equipment

Playtime: 22 hours with one complete run with both characters.

Magic Moment: Combining various core upgrades that seem to have nothing in common to find suprising synergies.

Blagic Moment: Dying to the final boss and realizing you just lost over 90 minutes and can only afford two meta-upgrades.

Verdict:
To be honest, it is no apparent to me why 30xx spent so many years in early access. The base design is directly lifted from its predecessor, the two protagonists have the same move set, the level creation algorithm seems to be not overly complex and the story is barebones. That being said, the core gameplay loop and controls are as motivating and tight as ever, and the moment-to-moment action is still satysfying enough to go for that "one more run".

Anyone who liked 20xx will have plenty of fun with this one as well, but anyone craving new impulses and surprises is bound to be a bit disappointed.

This is a game it hurts to rate so low. It delivers very well on the premise, which is Megaman X roguelike. The gameplay is smooth and fun.
The reason I'm not rating it higher is this game also showed me why we should not want a Megaman X roguelike. Since it seems like you have to get through every level to complete a run, and mid-run upgrades didn't seem to make a huge difference to the run, the game felt very repetitive long before I actually reached the end.

There are roguelite progression elements allowing for permanent upgrades to make the game easier on progressive runs, but most of them did not seem very interesting, being mostly numbers tweeks and quite expensive. There were a few with more effects such as a larger item pool, but they were a bit expensive and by the time I reached them I'd already mentally checked out.

It makes me sad to say this because Megaman X1-3 are my childhood, but sadly the joy I felt when first starting this game very quickly evaporated leaving only frustration.

Fun time. Gorgeous pixel art. Amazing boss designs (and names, I will name my children Capital Punishment and Lethal Tempo).

Most underrated OST of the year right here. These tracks are so good that I've been listening to them actively since last year without even playing the game itself. Doomsday and Fires of Industry are my favourites.

I actually can't tell which ones are my bullets half the time. This becomes a real issue in bossfights. Playing as Ace is agonizingly hard and getting the true ending is not really worth it. Also no level editor for switch lowkey stinks. I hope they add it in the future.

this was fun! i thought 20XX was okay but didn't love how it looked and thought the roguelite aspects of it weren't amazing. when i saw the reveal for this game and a more traditional "mega mode" i was pretty excited! to the games credit it visually looks really nice, the soundtrack is alright, and the gameplay is very responsive and snappy. the bosses are pretty solid too! they have some pretty fun designs and patterns, although admittedly i found myself just kinda tanking some damage and spamming them ocassionally with how mega mode worked.

unfortunately the biggest fault of this game is the level design and just how absurdly busy it can get visually. the levels are generally pretty uninteresting, something i was hoping would be fixed in the mega mode. there's a few hints of something cool, namely in interesting level gimmicks and teleporters that throw platforming challenges at you but overall the levels don't feel like they do much interesting with their gimmicks and also are just incredibly short. while the game does look pretty great, sometimes there's just WAY too much going on. it's absurd how many random effects and bullets can be flying across the screen to the point of it just feeling overwhelming. it's not awful, and clearly is designed for the sake of popping in and doing a run or two of the traditional roguelite mode but i was just hoping for a bit more out of the consistent level designs in mega mode.

this is a solid game, i think this concept has a lot of potential where they nail the core game and make a really fun traditional campaign and have the roguelite mode as more of a side mode for replayability sake. this game focuses in more on the roguelite aspect which is fine but still just doesn't quite live up to the potential it could. i see myself picking this game up here and there for a couple runs! still a good time and would reccommend picking it up if you're a fan of mega man but can't help wish for a bit more!