Super Meat Boy Forever - Review
The Xbox Live Arcade was a haven for some wonderful indie games, with Super Meat Boy being up there with the best, it was equal parts glory and frustration, but was a pure skill driven platformer. Now, many years later, the sequel has come out, the question is, is this a sequel worthy of the name, or does it suffer the same fate as another long-delayed game with Forever in the title.
The story of Super Meat Boy Forever is pretty basic, Meat Boy and Bandage Girl are having a nice picnic with their baby, Nugget sitting in the middle. Then the bad guy, I was going to say nefarious, but he isn’t really, Dr Fetus, comes along and kidnaps baby Nugget. Then it is a mad dash to run through the levels and try to save Nugget, honestly, like I said it is pretty basic. I really would have liked to have seen something else, given that the idea is almost identical to that from the first game, granted the series does not need anything special, but there could have been easily a dozen different options to use instead of this.
Of course, Super Meat Boy is all about that running and jumping gameplay and Forever is very different in that regard, sure there is plenty of jumping for you to do, but the running, that is another story. Let’s stick with jumping Meat Boy, Bandage Girl, or whomever you play as, can run, slide and punch, which is more than you could do in the first and when you combine them, you can have a lot of fun with the game. Jumping is dependent on how long you hold down the jump button, a little press results in a little jump, a longer press, well you get the idea. If your jump is not going to have you land, then you can press the jump button again, which causes a giant fist to emerge, letting you gain a little extra distance. The punch can also help you knock enemies out of your way, bash through glass walls and such, so it is multifaceted, just don’t expect to be using it while you run. Instead you can slide on the ground, the catch is, for the first few moments of your slide, you will be able to punch, then no more punch, so if your goal is to take out enemies, you need to be aware of that little catch.
As I said before, the other side of the game is running, you do a lot of it, the first game was just the same, however this time there is one massive change and honestly, not for better, you can’t control the running. The game is almost moving, start and level and you are off, die and once you are respawned, you are off, there is no time on waiting to see where blades or hazards might be, the game is always pushing you forward. This is a problem, because now, your reactions are not based on where you learn enemies or hazards might be, but instead, learning when to jump or duck. When you enter little spaces that require a bit of tricky timing, you can easily spend a dozen deaths, just learning the right sequence that opens up that room, then you have to keep passing it, then work out the next and then repeat for any extra. I am not opposed to running in games, but when the core of this game is platforming, being forced to keep moving, when I would love to learn a pattern or get a few moments to rest before I had to move on, would have been perfect.
Endless running has never been an issue in any game before, because most games are built with that in mind, sadly this one feels like it was added inside of the existing Super Meat Boy and I never clicked with it. The other issue it presents is that as you push forward, the game locks off the spaces you have cleared in that level, so if you do get turned around, which happens a lot and there is nothing to stop you, you will run right into the left side of the screen and die. While you won’t die from going left in the games boss battles, there is a lot of issue with them, mostly due to the constant movement, the first boss has you fighting against a giant tree cutting machine, which would be hard at the best of times. The problem is that with endless running, once you jump, you are committed to it and as you can’t do anything to change direction, more often than not, you get squished. The second boss fight fares a little better, but it is still hampered by the fact you have to always be running; however it does let you go left a lot. All this comes together in levels that are randomly created, when you start a new save file, which is a welcome touch, as it means there is no limit to the number of combinations you can experience, but there are also some challenges with that.
Randomisation is a wonderful thing, the game manages to keep it together very well, the only downside is that if your world seed, which is pre-filled for you, skews to the more challenging, then even the opening levels can be a real pain. The best example I have of this is that in my first save, the world seed was left to whatever it offered up, in the first world, I died over 400 times across the various stages, which is a lot. On a new save file, I modified the seed and got a world that provided some cleaner levels, and my death count didn’t break 150, which is a considerable difference. Even though the layout of the levels are random, there are pieces that you will see in multiple saves, but even seeing some of them again didn’t impact the flow of the level, as the parts before and after were different. It would be nicer if they had someway of being able to tell you, apart from the icons, what would allow for easier levels, because if people keep getting harder ones, I can see them not giving the game a proper chance.
On the presentation side of things, there is honestly not a lot of difference from the first game to this one, though everything is much cleaner to be sure. That is not a bad thing, because the games unique look was one of the selling points and as I said, everything is much cleaner here, but more than that, there is little more depth to things. The games levels, at least in a background sense, have a little more visual accommodations going on than the first game did, that is not to say you will pay a lot of attention to them, I honestly only did when the game was replaying my countless deaths, but when you do, you will notice a fair amount. For example in the third world, there is a massive sun in the sky, not to unusual, but it has a face and is glaring down at your character as they run across the world.
Speaking of the worlds, the themes are pretty much the same as they were in the first game, a forest, followed by an abandoned hospital/needle factory and so on. There is nothing wrong with that of course, there was no need to create a dozen new locales to run through, just for the sake of being new, thankfully the new level elements and bosses help make it feel fresh. Speaking of fresh, Meat Boy himself looks very nice, again cleaner than before, but still manages to leave behind all that meaty juice on the ground when he runs or dies in a horrible blade related death. The downside too all of this though, is that you can’t really take any of it in, given that you are always, and I mean always in motion. One aspect I did like, were the very unique bonus games that you can discover, those look a treat.
On the audio side, things sound good, the music has a significant impact, but never pushes itself to the front of the action, likewise, whenever you are watching a cutscene, it helps set the tone quite well, which is a nice touch.
Super Meat Boy Forever might not be the game that diehard fans were hoping for, but there is enough meat on these bones for them to enjoy for years to come. Sadly, the endless running aspect is either going to delight you or infuriate you and there will be very little common ground between the two, which is a shame, because if there was a way to stop that, things might have been better. But with the need for precision controls at all times, not being able to control your movement, seems like a massive oversight.
The Score
7.5
Review code provided by Team Meat
The Pros
+Randomly created levels are fun, though can be quite the challenge
+The inclusion of the punch does provide a lot of options
The Cons
-Endless running removes a lot of freedom of movement, which is a core part of the series
-Random levels are just that random and you can easily be granted some very challenging ones
