I have reviews for all of these individual games- I'll shamelessly link them at the bottom (Overall the collection is a bit of a mixed bag so a 6/10 seems fair enough in my eyes)- so I really want to take this space to gush about Edmund McMillen, easily one of my favourite devs of all time.
Not only is he a fucking machine (Spewer, Meat Boy, Time Fcuk and Grey Matter were all made with just 3 months of dev time each), but his work is consistently of a high quality and it's always bursting with style and clever writing.
When he wants to be funny he's hilarious- Super Meat Boy, A.V.G.M and especially The Binding of Isaac have all made me laugh out loud multiple times- and when he wants to ditch his signature crass humour he's still a very good writer. The end of Time Fcuk really got under my skin and I'll be thinking about it for a long while.
The games in The Basement Collection are all little ones he made in a matter of months, but when he went back to double down on one of the stronger ones he shows a real mastery of the medium- Super Meat Boy controls like butter and, having the Ultimate Edition and being able to read his design philosophy on it, every little thing has an incredible attention to detail. A lot of SMB's biggest strengths are taken over to one of my favourite games of all time, Celeste! Though not made by McMillen in any capacity, a lot of Celeste's biggest strengths echo SMB's. The weight and speed of your character is very satisfying and the emphasis on "mini-levels" with as little dead air as possible to ensure you're less likely to rage quit is really clever.
But it's not just platformers McMillen is able to really show his skills on- The Binding of Isaac is indisputably his magnum opus. A sprawling, genre-defining roguelike that sets a gold standard, McMillen shows that if he's given enough time to make a game it's one of the best ever made.
Edmund McMillen is a genuine visionary. He's a phenomenal developer with a creative streak a mile wide and even his weakest games are about as far from boring as can possibly be.
INDIVIDUAL REVIEWS FROM THE COLLECTION:
Meat Boy | Coil | A.V.G.M | Aether | Spewer | Time Fcuk | Grey Matter | Triachnid
Not only is he a fucking machine (Spewer, Meat Boy, Time Fcuk and Grey Matter were all made with just 3 months of dev time each), but his work is consistently of a high quality and it's always bursting with style and clever writing.
When he wants to be funny he's hilarious- Super Meat Boy, A.V.G.M and especially The Binding of Isaac have all made me laugh out loud multiple times- and when he wants to ditch his signature crass humour he's still a very good writer. The end of Time Fcuk really got under my skin and I'll be thinking about it for a long while.
The games in The Basement Collection are all little ones he made in a matter of months, but when he went back to double down on one of the stronger ones he shows a real mastery of the medium- Super Meat Boy controls like butter and, having the Ultimate Edition and being able to read his design philosophy on it, every little thing has an incredible attention to detail. A lot of SMB's biggest strengths are taken over to one of my favourite games of all time, Celeste! Though not made by McMillen in any capacity, a lot of Celeste's biggest strengths echo SMB's. The weight and speed of your character is very satisfying and the emphasis on "mini-levels" with as little dead air as possible to ensure you're less likely to rage quit is really clever.
But it's not just platformers McMillen is able to really show his skills on- The Binding of Isaac is indisputably his magnum opus. A sprawling, genre-defining roguelike that sets a gold standard, McMillen shows that if he's given enough time to make a game it's one of the best ever made.
Edmund McMillen is a genuine visionary. He's a phenomenal developer with a creative streak a mile wide and even his weakest games are about as far from boring as can possibly be.
INDIVIDUAL REVIEWS FROM THE COLLECTION:
Meat Boy | Coil | A.V.G.M | Aether | Spewer | Time Fcuk | Grey Matter | Triachnid