Difficulty:

Very Hard

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Masterpiece"

Mario has dominated platformers for ages, now, but he now has some serious competition. This game has so many advantages of Super Mario Galaxy 2 that it's not even funny.

As usual, the best place to start is at the beginning. Let's talk about the first thing you see when you start up the game: The backstory. Dr. Fetus, the villain, is jealous of Meat Boy, the hero, so he beats the hero up and kidnaps his girlfriend, so Meat Boy runs to save her. It's probably the most cliche of all video game storylines, but it's kinda like using steel chairs as weapons in wrestling: It's used so often because it WORKS!

Now, let's start from the bottom, and work out way up. Let's start with the least important part of any game: The sound. Honestly, sound serves as nothing more than a mere enhancer of the experience. You can easily play the game muted, if you want to or have to (e.g. if you're deaf, or have someone sleeping nearby). The Atari 2600 wasn't even capable of background music. So, sound is easily the least important part of any game, but that doesn't mean that the sound should be half-assed.

Fortunately, the sound in Super Meat Boy is awesome. Each world has its own them to it. Each theme is awesome, and really gets the adrenaline pumping.

In most other games (*cough* Mario *cough*), when you die, the music stops, and you have to listen to a special piece of music that is custom made for death scenes. Not in Super Meat Boy. When you die (and you will die often), the music doesn't even so much as skip, let alone stop. If it did, the sheer number of times it happens would become annoying beyond words. Go and play Deadly Towers on the NES, where the music restarts every time you enter another room, and you'll see what I mean.

Fortunately, the music doesn't hitch up whenever you die. It's one of the many things that makes death, and by proxy, the insane difficulty, somewhat tolerable.

The second least important aspect of any game - the graphics - were given just as much time and effort as the sound. The levels are nice and colorful, and the animations are fluent. Also, the screen moves back and forth really fluently.

As the commercial put it, the controls are "hella tight." Only a few times will I try to do a running jump, only to actually fall off the cliff to my doom. Of course, that can probably be attributed to the fact that I'm using an old controller. Maybe if I buy a newer controller (wish I could afford to), the controls would be responsive 100% of the time.

And now, the most important aspect: The gameplay. This is where Super Meat Boy truly starts to outshine Mario. You can only take one hit, there's no power ups, you have infinite lives, and no way to attack enemies. However, most enemies just move around in fixed patterns, so you may just think of the enemies as moving obstacles. Even the boss fights are more about escaping than they are actually fighting the boss.

This sounds like a step backwards from all the progress that has been made since the days of Donkey Kong, but at the same time, it sheds all the mechanical baggage that has accompanied this so-called "progress." You don't have to worry about finding power-ups, you don't have to worry about finding 1-ups, and you don't have to worry about replenishing you're health. Every level has one goal, and one goal only: Get to the end of the level without dying. Instead of worrying about fire flowers or invincibility stars, all you have is your own wit and your own skill. This is the kind of "simple, but addictive" gameplay that put video games in general on the map, to begin with!

However, as simple as the gameplay is, the game is still insanely difficult. The level designer is a certified sadist. By the time I beat the fourth world boss, I had accumulated over three thousand deaths (and yes, the game actually keeps count of how many times you've died, just to rub it in your face). However, because you have infinite lives, the music doesn't miss a beat after you die, and you only have literally one second after you die before you respawn (oh, did I forget to mention that?), then it didn't FEEL like thee thousand deaths!

There are over three hundred levels in the game, but although you'll die about every two seconds, there are no checkpoints. Whenever you die, you're sent back to the beginning of the entire level! Sounds frustrating? It isn't. Most of the levels are short enough that you don't have to worry about it.

Honestly, I've tried really hard, but I can't find even the simplest thing to complain about. It's simply unbelievable, and I'd recommend it to anyone who has even a passing interest in platformers.