PLATFORM: PC, SWITCH (REVIEWED) | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
It’s been ten years since the original Super Meat Boy debuted on Xbox Live Arcade. Along with Braid and Limbo, it’s widely considered as one the pioneers of modern indie gaming. But indie games have come a long way since then, so can the sequel live up to the hype?
Like its predecessor, Super Meat Boy Forever is a tough as nails platformer that expects you to die over and over again – but it does deviate a bit from the formula. It’s now an auto-runner rather than a traditional platformer, requiring you to only press two buttons: jump and duck. It’s also made up of procedurally generated levels, meaning that multiple playthroughs should always be different. Having only two buttons isn’t without its problems – performing a dash when you were expecting to do a jump can be punishing, especially if you’re going for a perfect run.
Visually the game looks much better than the original, with crisp 2D graphics looking like a high-end mobile game. Unfortunately there seem to be multiple game-breaking bugs… Whether you experience these will be down to the luck of the draw, but getting to the last world only to have to start the entire game over is rather infuriating.
The procedural generation is a double-edged sword. On one hand it means that the game has a lot of replayability and doesn’t feel random at all, but on the other hand it means you can’t discuss with friends how they got past a certain bit and any completion will always leave you wondering if you just got an easy ride. The boss fights, however, are excellent. It’s just a shame that the rest of the levels aren’t quite so memorable.
While it’s unfortunately let down by a strange decision to use procedural generation and the problems it brings, Super Meat Boy Forever is still a charming and fun platformer, even if it might not quite be the game that fans of the original were hoping for.
