It feels like we’ve, or at least, I’ve been waiting ages for Super Meat Boy 3D to finally materialise. I don’t know, apparently the game was only announced in the summer of last year, developed by Sluggerfly with input from Team Meat, But the idea of the hardcore, “one-more-try” platforming gameplay of the original Super Meat Boy translated into 3D seems like a bit of a slam dunk. It’s shocking it’s taken 15 years to happen, basically, but has it been worth the wait?
If you’re a masochist, absolutely.
This is the pure Super Meat Boy experience translated pretty well into 3D, with all the buzzsaws, one-hit-kill death traps and Dr Fetus flipping the bird you’d expect from the world’s favourite bloody cube. You sprint through a level as fast as possible, you inevitably die a bunch because these levels were seemingly designed by Cenobites to derive pleasure through torture. Eventually, after at least a dozen deaths, you brute force your way to victory after causing your index finger to cramp from holding down sprint on the right trigger for 20 minutes straight. Lather, rinse and repeat until you blast your way through the game’s 75 levels plus five bosses.
As a sentient piece of bloody meat with stubby limbs and a shockingly well toned bottom, Meat Boy’s abilities have had a bit of an upgrade in the transition from square to cube. You’re still sprinting, jumping and wall jumping to make it to the goal, but there’s a couple of extra tricks thrown in to keep the game fresh. Wall running is now a thing, which is just an extension of what Meat Boy could already do, but now you have a ground pound and air dash. The ground pound is great for hitting the floor immediately if you need to dodge something, but it’s situational. The air dash is always useful though, whether you need extra distance or a speed boost. Just be careful you don’t overcorrect trying to land on a small platform.
The controls are good, but if Super Meat Boy 3D could be knocked for anything, it’s the camera and the ground indicator. There’s a lot of moments where you’re trying to make a huge jump onto a small platform, but because Meat Boy is tiny on the screen, it can be hard to tell where he is in relation to everything else on screen. It’s not a dealbreaker in the slightest, and it’s something you can adjust to as you play; it’s just perhaps the sacrifice made to make this game work in 3D while being authentic to the Super Meat Boy brand.
The levels themselves in Super Meat Boy 3D are pretty well designed and paced well. Unlike other hardcore platformers or ragebait games, where the deaths come from taking the player off-guard with tricks and traps, Super Meat Boy 3D’s obstacles are fair, just demanding. It’s a very honest game in that respect; you know what you’re getting into with Super Meat Boy 3D, you just need to overcome its difficulties in order to succeed. Easier said than done, of course, but this game isn’t trying to discourage you from beating it, if that makes sense.
As for the level design, Sluggerfly noted in an interview last year that the idea of Super Meat Boy 3D was inspired by the creation of Super Mario 3D World, and you can tell in the way that Super Meat Boy 3D introduces new obstacles to you. There’s a very Nintendo approach, with one level gently introducing a concept or mechanic before the next one or two levels demand way more from you with that mechanic. Whether it’s glass floors that break away, bounce pad, gravity spheres, flatulent cacodemons that work like Donkey Kong Country barrels or the other things you’ll encounter throughout the game, you’re always finding new issues to solve.
While you can just blast through the 75 levels and five bosses then call it a day, Super Meat Boy 3D is filled with about as many secrets and challenges as the original game, because that’s just the Light World. For starters, each world has its own hidden level, each of which is a loving homage to some game from yesteryear. Every level is also hiding a bandage, hidden in some hard to reach location that then has to be taken to the end of the level, and if you beat a target time, you unlock that level’s Dark World variant. The Dark World is where the real sickos dwell though, as the layout becomes some barely recognisable mess of buzzsaws and mulchers that you need to navigate. For some, just beating the Light World is enough, but if you’re looking to really test your mettle, you’ll be bashing your head against this wall for a long time.
Super Meat Boy 3D could’ve easily been a cheap gimmick or a pale imitation of the original, failing to capture the magic while transitioning to the third dimension. The reality couldn’t be further from it. If you loved the original, you’ll love this, and if you’re looking for a new super difficult platformer to punish you, Super Meat Boy 3D is delightfully demented enough for you.
An Xbox Series key was provided by PR for the purposes of this review
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