Super Meat Boy Forever is the long-awaited sequel to 2010’s Super Meat Boy, produced and published by Team Meat for Nintendo Switch and also the Epic Game store on PC. What began its development like a smaller, mobile-only auto-runner has finally found its way to a full-fledged console package. Comparisons towards the original game understandably abound, as well as comparisons to previous concepts for the sequel. But as its very own self-standing title, Super Meat Boy Forever takes the task and wit of the original, spices up some of the mechanics, and offers a unique level-generation system that makes every player’s form of each level unique in one another.
Meat Boy and Bandage Girl possess a baby now, Nugget. But of course, Dr. Fettus is back in internet marketing again, kidnapping Nugget and forcing our protagonists to chase following the baby and also the baddie. Super Meat Boy Forever is an auto-runner with two buttons, someone to jump and one to slip. There's just as much jumping and bouncing off walls while you dodge blades and lasers as ever. But now there's also enemies on the stages to prevent or punch. Each of the game’s several worlds introduces new platforming mechanics and enemy types to traverse all within short but increasingly difficult levels.
Each level is made up of chunks, pre-generated sequences which are randomly assembled together into full levels. Each new game differs, smashing together chunks at random, although you can manually input a seed should you along with a friend want to take part in the same exact levels as you another. During one hand this makes for endless replayability and was created with streaming in mind, additionally, it helps make the game somewhat too easy sometimes. Unlike the original Super Meat Boy, should you die, you only have to retry from the start of the chunk, not the start of the level. As the chunks get more difficult as you traverse the game’s worlds or attempt subsequent New Game +’s, they’re not insurmountable at all. And the ability to immediately restart from five seconds earlier makes it much easier to progress.
However, for all those looking for a true challenge, there's a collectible and a time trial on every level too. You have to master each level in under a scary fast amount of time without dying to be able to receive an S rank on each level, unlock their Dark World counterparts, and accrue all the in-game achievements. Many of these achievements and the collectibles are tied to unlocking alternate characters who, unlike the initial game, seem to not include any powerups and therefore are merely aesthetic.
Speaking of aesthetics, Super Meat Boy Forever is beautiful. Meat Boy and Bandage Girl are searching great because they drip blood and get their slime everywhere. The backgrounds, foregrounds, and animation from the player characters are gorgeous, building on what had been a marvelously hand-drawn environment to provide levels and worlds you want you could stop running and stare at for a bit. There's also a lot of cutscenes in Super Meat Boy Forever that serve as both comedic pastiches of popular classic game titles as well as telling the game’s story. The outlet sequences for new worlds are done in different styles each to reflect the sport they are references while the scenes pre and post boss battles are gorgeously drawn in a style instantly similar to some of the best flash cartoons of the aughts however in full high-definition. The story is wacky, but perfectly told and all sorts of more engrossing for this.
The music in Super Meat Boy Forever is also excellent. It perfectly captures the atmosphere of every world and never feels repetitive while you attempt to pay off the same chunk over and over again. This is crucial, given the period of time one might invest in a single level.
Lastly, in charge fights in Super Meat Boy Forever are also a nice addition. They are all creative and use the game’s simple two-button setup to great effect. They offer unique challenges and possibilities to get creative as you learn their structures. They aren’t long or terribly difficult, but they're definitely creative and that i appreciate getting the game’s structure mixed up by them.
Super Meat Boy Forever was planned to be a lot of different things through the years. The merchandise we've today though is a perfectly worthy successor to Super Meat Boy. The game offers challenges for those who seek it while remaining fair and balanced for those who don’t wish to rage quit before seeing the credits. It may be simple to compare the difficulty towards the original, but to do this would feel disingenuous. Because it stands by itself, Super Meat Boy Forever is a fun and just-challenging-enough platformer with endless replayability and a lot of polish.
Super Meat Boy Forever is available now on Nintendo Switch and the Epic Game Store for PC. It will likely be available elsewhere in 2023.
