30XX is back with another major update! Patch 0.42 introduces us to the Rivalry update where it brings a brand-new… well… Rival! That’s not all, though, as two more game modes have been added to increase your fun and ups the replayability factor!
This impression will only focus on the Rivalry update and features. To check out my other impressions of 30XX’s Early Access, head to the following links:
Initial Alpha Early Access Impressions: https://www.theouterhaven.net/2021/02/30xx-early-access-impressions/
Abyssal Armory Impressions: https://www.theouterhaven.net/2022/02/30xx-early-access-impressions-watergrav-update/
Gameplay Videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7EkVi-cEpFIY0QhY_6JG10_urD8XAqON
A NEW RIVAL
As if gunslinging or sword swinging your way through eight roguelite stages didn’t whet your appetite, then the Rival update introduces Delta!
Delta will appear throughout any stage and will offer you a choice. The choice is another kiss/curse type system where you will incur a penalty; however, unlike the Prototype Augments, this effect only lasts for the rest of the stage. If you beat the stage with the penalty, you will acquire the award stated in the dialogue box.
This provides another risk vs reward system and something optional for you to do to spice up your gameplay! In addition, there are times where Delta will want to get his hands dirty and challenge you to one-on-one combat! Choosing to do so will net you some rewards and some satisfaction in the process!
NEW MODES
Two new modes have appeared in this update: Rush Job and Seed Racer!
Rush Job is pretty straightforward… it’s a boss rush! If you love fighting bosses and don’t want to go through the trouble of traversing the stages, then hop in and start wrecking some face! Of course, this is a roguelite so there is still the random customization aspect. You’re presented with a chest and a shop before every boss door along with powers and optional abilities/nuts to choose from once a boss is defeated. It’s the 30XX experience without the long stages!
Seed Racer is pretty neat. It’s another way to run through the game. You set the RNG seed and start playing. You can then share that seed with other players! As you can see in the screenshot below, you can spice things up by adding entropy conditions to your seed!
Killing enemies adds to your efficiency total and if you’re good enough, you will acquire a bonus once you kill that stage’s boss. There’s also a time limit bonus that you can acquire as well!
Your points are shown in the lower right and killing an enemy will show you in purple how many points are added. As you can see, I received 2 points (and a health drop!)
Killing Zen Primus netted me 150 points plus an additional 70!
IT HAS A STORY?
The last new feature in this update is that there are story endings for you to achieve and some of them are hidden! You must meet certain conditions in order to unlock some of these endings but, even though I was given ways to unlock them, I’m not going to share those secrets with you! I’m going to make you work for them! The rewards will be that much sweeter, I promise!
OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
With it being Early Access and still in beta, there’s bound to be a few issues. For example, no matter how hard I tried, I could never seem to get a time bonus at the end of the stage. Maybe I’m doing it wrong or maybe it’s a bug? I’m not sure but Seed Racer is a pretty cool concept. Being able to share that with other players is pretty huge and adds to the near-endless content if you count the chunk editor.
Boss Rush is pretty much everything it says it is. After playing through a couple of them, I found myself having quite the fun time with it. Customization seems pretty nice and balanced and you do get rewarded with Memoria if you beat all 8 bosses but nothing Memoria-wise beforehand. The amount of nuts you receive before each boss is enough to get you 1-2 upgrades, keeping you from getting insanely overpowered.
Delta, I think, still needs some interesting choices. A few times I received the “take damage and lose an aug” only to get a “heal to full when you kill a boss” as a reward. The one I received above to gain three rerolls also felt a bit underwhelming. Some of the curse effects seem to be limited as I also received “damage taken locks your weapons for 3 seconds” a few times as well. I also received the Glass Cannon aug that I usually skip since… well… I’m a bit on the reckless side when playing the game, haha. I really think some variety and better rewards could be offered here as I found myself skipping Delta’s challenges more than accepting them.
I also see that nothing has been done about Legacy’s health pool. If you opt to kill his satellites and nerf his second phase, the combined health of them plus Legacy is astronomical. When he’s just floating around in the second phase, he feels like a bullet sponge that you’re mindlessly shooting for minutes on end which isn’t very fun at all. This could easily be rememdied by having him take double or triple damage as a reward for killing off his satellites. Just anything to speed up the process of killing him. Or, just reduce the health of the satellites themselves. He just feels completely overtuned health-wise and it only gets worse the later in the run that you encounter him.
There were a couple of bugs with Delta, such as talking to him but the choice not appearing immediately, as well as a weird and rare pause glitch where you character continues moving even when paused. It happened to me in Highvault as I was mid dash, paused, and continued dashing thus falling into a pit. Thankfully, the pit had a harmless floor! I only encountered that issue once, though as pause worked as intended all other times.
Outside of this, the Rival patch is a pretty solid update. It adds more ways to enjoy the game and in an era where content is king, 30XX continues to do an amazing job with giving us more and more of it!
30XX is in Early Access right now on Steam! Jump and Shoot (and Dash and Slash) your way over there and grab it!
