I'll say one thing: I love Super Meat Boy. Imo, the first chapter is not a masterpiece, but it is one of the games I am most attached to. It brought Edmund McMillen to the Olympus of my favorite game designers. It was my very first indie game and without it I would never have discovered or developed this deep love for independent productions, probably. And about 5 years after I first played it, the sequel has arrived.
The twist from pure platform to an auto-runner has made almost everyone turn up their noses, and many of them are still reluctant to try Forever because of this new form. I was very skeptical of this project too, fearing that it would completely distort the essence of Meat Boy as I knew it.
Well, I'm really glad I was wrong. I entered it with dubious enthusiasm and came out largely satisfied. Super Meat Boy Forever gives an experience with a new flavor but it remains faithful to its predecessor: precise and responsive controls and levels that put the player's skills to the test. But the focus of the title is based on the diversity of one game from another: each level of a new campaign will be procedurally generated and will have its own specific seed, guaranteeing a high replayability. A particular but apt design choice; though, it happens to get stuck in some levels later in the game that require several attempts just to understand how to overcome certain sections (and not for their actual difficulty), and can lead to a tedious trial and error. Also in my first save file I encountered some bugs that broke the levels, not allowing me to complete them and making 100% impossible to do (the “day one” plague, ugh). Fortunately some of them have already been fixed but I cannot omit them if I want to talk about my experience.
So far I have not mentioned the story because it will seem absurd what I am about to say: the narrative is the best part of the game. The qualitative level of the cutscenes and the twists that the plot takes towards the end reach a point that I could NEVER have imagined.
It has incredible animations and a new style that does not preserve the uniqueness of McMillen's first game, but I still consider it beautiful.
So, has it been worth it to wait all these years for this return? For me, absolutely yes. This is NOT a perfect return, but in line with my expectations, because we are talking about a good product that every fan of the series should try.
Nugget is so precious I love her btw.
The twist from pure platform to an auto-runner has made almost everyone turn up their noses, and many of them are still reluctant to try Forever because of this new form. I was very skeptical of this project too, fearing that it would completely distort the essence of Meat Boy as I knew it.
Well, I'm really glad I was wrong. I entered it with dubious enthusiasm and came out largely satisfied. Super Meat Boy Forever gives an experience with a new flavor but it remains faithful to its predecessor: precise and responsive controls and levels that put the player's skills to the test. But the focus of the title is based on the diversity of one game from another: each level of a new campaign will be procedurally generated and will have its own specific seed, guaranteeing a high replayability. A particular but apt design choice; though, it happens to get stuck in some levels later in the game that require several attempts just to understand how to overcome certain sections (and not for their actual difficulty), and can lead to a tedious trial and error. Also in my first save file I encountered some bugs that broke the levels, not allowing me to complete them and making 100% impossible to do (the “day one” plague, ugh). Fortunately some of them have already been fixed but I cannot omit them if I want to talk about my experience.
So far I have not mentioned the story because it will seem absurd what I am about to say: the narrative is the best part of the game. The qualitative level of the cutscenes and the twists that the plot takes towards the end reach a point that I could NEVER have imagined.
It has incredible animations and a new style that does not preserve the uniqueness of McMillen's first game, but I still consider it beautiful.
So, has it been worth it to wait all these years for this return? For me, absolutely yes. This is NOT a perfect return, but in line with my expectations, because we are talking about a good product that every fan of the series should try.
Nugget is so precious I love her btw.