20XX Is A Mega Man Roguelite, In Early Access Now

I've played a Castlevania Roguelike and I've played a Doom Roguelike, but I never expected to play a a Mega Man Roguelike. 20XX [official site], now in beta and available through Steam Early Access, plays more like the speedy, acrobatic Mega Man X series than vanilla Mega Man, with all of the dashing and wall-jumping you can handle. Built to support local or online two player co-op, it's an action platformer made up of procedurally generated levels, randomly scattered power-ups and weapons, and big ol' boss fights. It looks fantastic.

"20XX is a game built to feel like Mega Man X, but with random levels, random powerups, permanent death, and multiplayer. The game uses a procedural level generation algorithm that pieces together levels from a certain number of mechanics at a time; it switches rapidly between playing like an action game and playing like a platformer, mixing precision jumping with fevered combat.

"Add in permadeath and over 100 powerups to find in between agonizing deaths and you've got hours of nail-biting jumping-and-shooting goodness on your hands."

Playing the Mega Man Legacy Collection helped me to accept the fact that I do not like hard-as-nails platformers with simple control schemes. I feel like I'm walking in concrete shoes if I can't double-jump, wall-jump, flip about the place a bit, and slash baddies into bits with some sort of melee attack. That's not to say I don't appreciate some of the level design in those games but I much prefer the style of Mega Man X. 20XX, then, is a lovely surprise.

I haven't had time to play yet but it's crept onto my ever-growing list of Good Looking Games. Chances are I'll shift it toward the top.