Roguelikes are one of the toughest genres around. They demand dedication and patience through a lot of repetition. Some people may fall off of them while others may triumphantly wade through the troubled waters to feel an immense feeling of accomplishment.
Not all roguelikes are created equal as a lot of recent ones have featured assist options or other mechanics to ease beginners in. 30XX has assist features along with different modes of play. Even on the most difficult setting, players can upgrade their character via a system called Memory Index. There are ten upgrades in the game, so let’s rank them out from the least amount of priority to the greatest.
10 Rediscovered Trove
Rediscovered Trove will guarantee that players start with five Nuts and that number will increase with the more ranks one puts into this trait. This is one of the few game currencies in the game and they look like mechanical nuts and not nuts that a squirrel would eat.
Nuts can be used to buy a variety of things like Augments in stores which will grant players special abilities. Bolts can also be used to restore health at certain stations in the levels, so getting a starting sum is a good idea.
9 Choicebooster
Choicebooster will help with the aforementioned stores in levels. Typically, stores found in stages will have about three things players can buy. Choicebooster will increase the inventory thus giving players more options to spend their Bolts on.
Also, this will increase the chances that rarer items may appear due to probability. The rarer the drops, the stronger characters can become quicker which is what players should aim for in a roguelike.
8 Environment Configurator
There are three modes that players can choose to start in. Standard is randomized and will be the true roguelike experience. Mega Mode is a mode that will give players more leeway in their experience, allowing them to choose stages and keep their enhancements after death.
Community is a way for players to create and share levels like in Super Mario Maker. Environment Configurator is an upgrade that will only benefit players for Standard. It will give them a higher chance to get the stages they want faster, and higher ranks can even guarantee stage lockdowns.
7 Honest Research
The aforementioned Augment items often come with a price. For example, Juggernaut looks like a giant burger in the game which could rival the Big Bang Burger in Persona 5.
This Augment will increase HP by sixty, but it will decrease Attack and Power by two. Now, Honest Research is an upgrade that will create Prototype Augments which players can find in 30XX. The benefit of these Augments is that they will not have any negative effects, which is huge.
6 Dally’s Blessings
Nina and Ace are the two main playable characters, but they will be joined by NPCs on their journey to stop an evil robot uprising. Dally is one of these NPCs and there is an upgrade tied to them. Dally’s Blessings will have Dally randomly appear at the start of a stage.
They will then bestow players with a gift, which will often be an Augment. It’s a good way to start a run with a little boost, which is important in a roguelike.
5 Timeless Core
Another boosting item that players can obtain is called Cores. These items are rarer, but their benefits are often greater. For example, one of the best ones in the game is called Seeker Beam which will add a homing ability to Nina’s blasts.
There is a cost to equipping Cores, unlike Augments, via CP, or Core Points. Timeless Core is an upgrade that will give players more CP to play around with at the start of their next run.
4 Salvager Circuit
Salvager Circuit is a must-have upgrade that should be purchased as fast as possible. Not every Augment or Core will be enticing upon finding it in 30XX. The aforementioned negative effects of Augments can be dissuasive.
Players may feel obligated to pick them up though because they don’t want to waste the opportunity. Well, Salvager Circuit will allow players to sell Augments and other dropped items for Nuts. This can eliminate that sense of waste that can come attached to roguelike experiences like this.
3 Parallelized Fate
Parallelized Fate is an upgrade that is almost at a tie with Salvager Circuit because it occupies a similar space. This upgrade will allow players to re-roll what Augments they get.
For example, the aforementioned Juggernaut comes with stat debuffs for a health upgrade but an Augment like Heart Container is just a straight-up way to increase HP by twenty. Players can dump ranks into Parallelized Fate to re-roll multiple times.
2 Forgotten Energy
There are a lot of things that 30XX shares with the Mega Man franchise. For example, bosses can give players powers like Aiming Gear which is obtained from Lethal Tempo. It will cost Energy to use these powers and the amount players get at the start is low.
Forgotten Energy is just a simple upgrade that will increase the amount of energy for a character. Players are going to want a lot of Energy too, because these powers can make all the difference.
1 Ancient Durability
Finally, the absolute must-have upgrade that players will want in any roguelike is a way to increase HP. That is exactly what Ancient Durability does in 30XX and more ranks will max out the health stat.
This is the easiest way to increase HP and it is the most secure way because like all of these upgrades, Ancient Durability is permanent. However, it should be obvious by now that there are other ways to increase health such as the Juggernaut and Health Container Augments.
30XX is available on PC and Nintendo Switch.