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Posted October 14, 2017 by Zeth in EGX
 
 

Super Meat Boy Forever – Hands on Preview

Super Meat Boy Forever Header Image
Super Meat Boy Forever Header Image

When the original Super Meatboy was released it was like Team Meat had birthed the mother of all frustrating and super satisfying platformers. Ridiculous precision, insanely addictive and weirdly cute the whole thing just spoke to me, making it one of my top games of last generation.

So it was with much excitement I got my sweaty paws on this early preview build of the sequel, Super Meatboy Forever. HJere Meat Boy and Bandage Girl have had a little baby, Nugget. Dastardly Dr. Fetus has kidnapped young Nugget and our heroes will need to use all their skill to get Nugget back.

So it’s a super loud convention floor, the heat is up a notch or three and I wait patiently in line for my turn.. Watching the guy before me fail over and over on a real simple little jump. He hangs his head, shrugs at me after visibly stressing at the game and hands me the controller and walks away…. Let’s show them how it’s done!

SMB Forever image 1

Well, 5 minutes later, with someone twitching and almost guffawing behind me impatiently I was trying to make another stupid jump. Jump the ravine, jump the blades, slide under the saw, bounce off the walls, jump the first blades and then fist dive diagonally through a narrow channel of rotating bladey death….. Balls! OK… try again… and again… So after getting caught up on trying to redo this section I hang my head, shrug and hand the next person the controller whilst meeting their smug self righteous gaze… I stuck around to watch them try over and over again to make the initial few jumps… then they looked at me sideways with a nod of respect… now you know my friend… now you know.

So unlike the original game Meatboy is constantly moving. You have no control over anything other than jumping and dashing. This makes things a little different this time out with Super Meatboy Forever feeling like a mixture of constant runner and hardcore platformer – think Mario Run with blades and blood!

Initial controls felt good, but a small amount of softness seems to be evident – likely due to the game still be a significant distance from done. Also level design seemed far more punishing than the first game – a game already renowned for it’s difficult, yet fair, levels. Here things feel a little less fair and this could be down to the lack of control offered to the player… you can’t course correct for an overzealous jump for instance. Team Meat are adamant that the game will have just as precise controls as the first, despite only requiring the use of two buttons.

SMB Forever image 2

Whilst we’re looking at areas of improvement it’s worth noting that the game seems to “hitch” a lot as you play, with the screen juddering more often than not. This doesn’t aid your cycle of constant retries.

The game will be coming to mobile platforms as well as consoles/PC and I do wonder how much of the design was influenced by what’s hot in the mobile space. Runners are a solid bet on those platforms, especially one with an already avid fan-base. Having played on Xbox One X it’ll be interesting to see what the game controls like on a touchscreen device.

The constant movement does manage to alter what on the surface looks like a very similar game to the first outing for Meat Boy and Bandage Girl. As a total SMB fan I’m somewhat optimistic that this will scratch the platforming scab left by the original Super Meatboy game. There are a couple of things to iron out but we’ve got a few months yet before the game is released.

Super Meatboy Forever image 3

Super Meatboy Forever will be out sometime in 2018, with Team Meat’s website stating they hope to have something in gamers hands around Summer 2018.  Currently announced platforms are PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, Android and iOS.


Zeth

 
Zeth is our EU ninja and Editor in Chief. He's been writing about video games since 2008 when he started on BrutalGamer. He's pretty old and has been a gamer since he played Space Invaders as a young boy in the 80's. His genre tastes lean towards platformers, point-and-click adventure, action-adventure and shooters but he'll turn his hand to anything.