The original’s exacting gameplay is much more rewarding and that’s always going to keep people coming back for more. While I was playing it, I couldn’t help but wish I was playing Super Meat Boy instead. In the end, I actually feel like Super Meat Boy Forever has less replay value than its predecessor. The checkpoint system of Super Meat Boy Forever means that each death is less painful but, equally, each victory is less joyous. Getting to the end meant hard work and a great deal of improvement as a player. Completing Super Meat Boy felt like an accomplishment. There was a real joy to executing frame perfect inputs and navigating absurdly complex sequences of traps on muscle memory alone. But that only increased your elation when you beat it a couple of attempts later. Yes, it was painful when you’d made it perfectly through a level after dozens of attempts only to choke at the last second and have to start from the beginning. This approach is a little more casual-friendly but, again, loses something that made the original Super Meat Boy so absorbing. Why Go Out For A Burger When You've Got Steak at Home? The level is split into these chunks in that when you die (which you will do… a lot) you’ll respawn back at the beginning of the segment rather than the beginning of the level. You could definitely argue that this increases the replay value but I wasn’t keen on this feature. This means that, apart from boss fights, the game randomly generates the level by compiling segments of possible gameplay loops. The result is a game that feels more polished but somehow loses the rugged charm and rigorous mechanics of the original.Īnother key change is that levels are procedurally generated. They expanded the visual and narrative aspects of the game but pared back the already minimalist gameplay even further. Their approach with the sequel, Super Meat Boy Forever, is an interesting one. How do you follow such a successful but simple game? Team Meat’s small squad of designers have seemingly spent the last decade working on an answer. He could only run, jump and dash but controlling him was so satisfying that it didn’t matter. Some levels were so fiendishly difficult, requiring frame perfect inputs, that it felt like you almost had to become Meat Boy to succeed, your aching thumbs spiritually entwined with his pulpy, rectangular body. There were no gimmicks to it, just level after level of tightly-constructed, exacting gameplay.
It’s no exaggeration to say that its release was a springboard for the resurgence of legions of similar games over the last decade. Well, Super Meat Boy, alongside other genre hits such as Limbo, Trine, and Rayman Origins, showed the world that there was plenty of life in 2D platforming yet.
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