Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Masterpiece"

Super Meat Boy is the kind of game we rarely see. No, not because it's a hard game. There are plenty of games that are hard, whether it's nowadays or games way back from the 8 bit generation. No, what makes Super Meat Boy special is that it's a game that is immensely challenging, yet always fair. People often say games used to be harder back in the 8 bit and 16 bit days. And they're right. Games were harder back then. But truth be told most platformers from that era weren't hard through true difficulty. They were hard through cheap design. For one, if you made mistakes and lost you had to start the game all over again. This forced you to have to repeat massive chunks until you had the level designs memorised. Plus the level designs themselves were often riddled with cheap parts that killed you without warning. Super Meat Boy presents just as much challenge as those games, but it's actually always fair.

The gameplay is pretty simple. You have a run button and a jump button. The goal is to get past the level obstacles and get to bandage girl to complete the level. Most of the levels are really short, meaning when you die you won't be repeating massive chunks of gameplay. It's a good thing too, since just one mistake means death. In this platformer you'll do the usual jumping over gaps and avoiding spikes routine, wall jumping, as well as avoiding saws, lava pits, fire balls, salt (yes salt kills you, you are meat boy after all). As you progress through the game the levels get more complex. You'll encounter rockets being fired at you, fans that blow you places, enemies that chase you and just lots of different things that make for cool and varied level designs. Sometimes you might have to get a key to unlock the path to the exit. In several levels you even use portals in interesting ways. Super Meat Boy has fantastic variety in its level design.

Super Meat Boy does a great job of easing you in to the game. The difficulty curve is spot on. There are 20 levels in each world and I believe only 15 are required to be beaten in a world to unlock the boss for that world. So even if you're struggling with certain levels you can simply skip them and come back later if you want to. Anybody who is decent at platformers shouldn't have too much of a problem getting through the main game.

But that's just the main game. That's just the first six worlds. When you complete the game you also unlock an extra seventh world That's only the light worlds. Every single level in the game has a dark world version. This version changes up the level design and makes it significantly harder. These can be very challenging. If you thought the light world was hard, try beating these levels! It's extremely satisfying to do so. In addition there's hidden warp zones to unlock, which have 3 levels each. Most of these aren't as difficult as the main levels, though there are some exceptions. You unlock characters for beating some of these warp zones, such as the Kid from IWBTG and Commander Video from the Bit Trip series. The Kid's warp zone is extremely difficult and very satisfying to beat. Not to brag, but I personally beat the Kid's warp zone in about 45 minutes on my first try. When I say my first try I mean first sitting. Obviously I die a LOT. On top of this the first six worlds have a minus world level which is extremely hard. There's over 300 levels total, so if you want to challenge yourself with everything you'll be busy for a long time. On top of that new levels for free are regularly added to teh internets. So far that's an extra 80 challenging levels for you to try.

A neat feature of Super Meat Boy is that when you complete a level, you game then shows a replay showing all your deaths at once. You can even save your replays. Personally I only saved my replays that had an insane amount of deaths. This is really cool because in a way it adds to your sense of accomplishment when you succeed because it shows your perseverance. That's the whole joy of this game. You persevere through the pain and frustration, making you feel so good when you succeed. Super Meat Boy does this better than any other game out there.

With an insane amount of content for such a cheap game, it's easy to recommend Super Meat Boy. The controls are perfect. The level design is perfect and the challenges range from easy, to average difficulty, to kinda challenging to quite hard to insanely hard. It's simply the perfect platformer. It offers more than most full retail games do not only in content but in quality as well. The game has a really cool retro charm, awesome music and is genuinely funny at times as well. Some people will complete the game and stop there. Others will try to do a good amount of extra content. Others will try to do every single challenge. I know I did. What's great is that it's got something for every fan of the genre. Different players of different skill levels will have different stopping points.

To sum up, I recommend this to all fans of the genre. It's one of the best platformers ever made. It's wealth of content and regular new levels added will keep you busy for an insanely long time. Super Meat Boy is simply a steal. It would still be a steal if it was the price of a full retail game.