What’s Good About: Super Meat Boy Forever
(Editor’s Note: I kind of get into the weeds of Super Meat Boy Forever’s Development, Feel free to read this when you can https://kotaku.com/why-super-meat-boy-forever-is-taking-forever-1837990976)
So I guess we are two for two on platformers in 2021, huh? When I decided to do this game, it was mainly because I loved the original Super Meat Boy when it came out *checks notes* 10 years ago. I also managed to get it for $7 Canadian during the Epic Holiday sale and figured that “this should be more Meat Boy, right?” Little did I know I was right, but also got more than I expected because the changes to the gameplay are interesting, to say the least.
So the basic setup is that Met Boy and Bandage Girl have this adorable kid called Nugget (seriously, Nugget is Cute AF), Doctor Fetus, being the bastard he is, attacks both Meat Boy and Bandage Girl with a shovel and kidnaps the little one and now they are both on a journey to get their kid back. And this is accomplished by going through four different themed worlds that are six levels apiece and have their own dark world versions on top of that if you want an extra challenge.
The main differentiators between this and the OG Super Meat Boy are that the levels are mostly procedurally generated off of hundred of pre-designed rooms based on the player’s skill level and that it’s an endless runner in terms of mechanical proceedings. The latter is due to the game originally being conceived as an endless runner for mobile platforms. When development started back up in 2017 after stopping around 2015, its platforms had shifted to PC gaming storefronts and Consoles, but it kept the endless runner style for the most part. But development history aside, for as interesting as it is, how does it pan out?
Honestly? Better than I thought it was going to and better than it has any right to be. When it comes to sequels in games, I’m more or less in favor of developers changing styles of gameplay between games in a series or adding elements that radically change what it’s all about. Super Meat Boy Forever is the latter of these; it makes a fundamental change to the way that the player interacts with the play space and does so in an interesting way. Because the movement and momentum are out of the player's hands, getting through the levels is more about timing your jumps and solving the puzzles of how the levels are designed as opposed to both of those things and manual dexterity on top of it.
I’m not gonna front, even though it’s changed a lot, Super Meat Boy Forever is still Super Meat Boy as Fuck; so expect a lot of dying, restarting, and dying to get through levels. Adding a nice wrinkle to this is the fact that to can now also air dash with a punch and slide low to avoid hazards, which helps make the levels feel a bit different compared to the previous game’s. And then there’s taking all of the hidden challenges, warp zones, collectibles, and hidden characters to unlock into account.
At the end of the day, Super Meat Boy Forever not only manages to be more Super Meat Boy, but it also does it in a new and interesting way that I didn’t expect it to. I’d recommend it if you got the time and need to get ground to a fine meat-like paste.
(All images courtesy of https://www.igdb.com/games/super-meat-boy-forever/presskit)
