Dead Cells vs. 20XX, Who Did it Better?

Today marks the release of Dead Cells. The rougelike Metroidvania title has garnered multiple high scores and praise from the gaming community. However, recently another rougelike adventure called 20XX released this year as well. Between Dead Cells and 20XX which rougelike adventure is better?

Graphics

Graphically much of 20XX's style comes from the Mega Man X series. Since the game was developed with Capcom's acclaimed franchise in mine the comparison is hard to escape. It's still a beautiful game with lots of lush colors and fluid animations but because of the heavy comparison to Mega Manx 20XX has a hard time developing its own personality.

Dead Cells doesn't have this issue. Every stage, character, and enemy has an uncommon style that helps complement the world. Each randomly generated stage has an original design that's instantly recognizable, from its layout, background, and enemy design. 20XX may look great but the design of Dead Cells is simply running past 20XX's heavily inspired Mega Man levels.

Winner: Dead Cells

Gameplay

Both 20XX and Dead Cells play radically different. Dead Cells is more focused on melee combat and speed whereas 20XX's gameplay is about predominately about shooting and platforming. Both offer a variety of stages that shift with each run and complement the focused gameplay mechanics.

20XX's random levels are not bad the frequency of having unfair situations is much higher than Dead Cells. In 20XX players must navigate a custom creation of platforming and combat situations that often repeat themselves in a notable way. Dead Cells doesn't have this problem due to the incredible speed that is required of players. Since you're focusing less on what the stage consist of and instead of how to beat the next enemy in front of you that focus is shifted from level design and instead on enemy placement. But that also leads to a problem.

In 20XX enemies can hurt one another, meaning if you have a cluster of foes they can kill one another. This creates a fair situation where enemies are not given a free pass to attack without care. In Dead Cells that don't exist. Enemies can attack without issue and bosses have a period of invulnerability preventing the player from stacking damage against bullet sponges.

20XX gives the player a better opportunity takes to enemies taking damage from one another and Dead Cells in incredible level design. Ultimately the victory has to go to 20XX since this feature is rare and extremely welcomed and boss enemies don't feel like giant bullet sponges.

Winner: 20XX

Soundtrack and Story

It's hard to ignore how incredible both these games sound and how unremarkable the stories are. Neither games provide an engaging story with 20XX providing short mute flash animations and Dead Cells giving short snippets of commentary on the game's world. The focus is the gameplay so a stale story should be expected.

What both games do have an engaging and entertaining soundtrack. 20XX's combination of retro electric music definitely provides a futuristic robot killing world. But again, it reminds many of Mega Man.

Dead Cells creates this sense of urgency and calamity. With musical scores that hurries the player along, forcing them to kill quickly, dash forward, and keep up that speed boost. It complements the gameplay so well the 2 meld together for a mutual experience of slashing and running. When the music creates exciting situations that encourage you to keep playing you now the composer did an excellent job.

Winner: Dead Cells

Winner: Dead Cells

Dead Cells simply offers more unique elements than 20XX. Both are outstanding rougelike titles that will challenge even the more veteran gamers but Dead Cells speedy gameplay and original elements help paint its own identity.

Both Dead Cells and 20XX are now available for Xbox One, PS4, PC, and Nintendo Switch.

Adam Siddiqui, NoobFeed
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