Completely irrelevant (but incredibly fun) fact: I watched Indie Game: The Movie, the documentary about the making of this game and FEZ, about a decade before playing SMB itself.
Does Super Meat Boy live up to the hype? I’m inclined to say no. I understand why it’s historically important – it helped ignite the indie boom of the 2010s – but playing it in 2022 I found it was often more frustrating than fun.
Meat Boy is a tad bit slippery, just like Mario, and slides across surfaces like they’re glazed with a thin layer of ice. Seeing as he’s continually drenched in own blood, Meat Boy has a defensible excuse for his slipperiness. But that leads me to wonder: What’s Mario’s deal? Extreme perspiration? Moisturizer addiction? Maybe he’s just a literal grease monkey? The world may never know.
Playing Super Meat Boy to completion reminded me how fickle opinions can be. As I struggled to pass the final levels, I could feel my provisional opinion of the game slowly creep upward. Why? Human brains hate cognitive dissonance, and mine was trying to justify why I was making such a heroic effort to beat this annoying bugger of a game! It was struggling balance deeply considered yet entirely contradictory thoughts such as “This game suckz” and “Must win the game (for great justice)”.
Finish it I did. Return for more punishment in Bandage Girl’s levels and the Dark World I will not. Play it, should you? Sure, you could play it. Or you could instead play a classic like Shovel Knight, or Mega Man X4, or one of the hundreds of other precision platformers that have come out over the last decade. If you dig hard enough, you’re sure to find dozens, if not hundreds, that are more fun and less sadistic than this one.
Does Super Meat Boy live up to the hype? I’m inclined to say no. I understand why it’s historically important – it helped ignite the indie boom of the 2010s – but playing it in 2022 I found it was often more frustrating than fun.
Meat Boy is a tad bit slippery, just like Mario, and slides across surfaces like they’re glazed with a thin layer of ice. Seeing as he’s continually drenched in own blood, Meat Boy has a defensible excuse for his slipperiness. But that leads me to wonder: What’s Mario’s deal? Extreme perspiration? Moisturizer addiction? Maybe he’s just a literal grease monkey? The world may never know.
Playing Super Meat Boy to completion reminded me how fickle opinions can be. As I struggled to pass the final levels, I could feel my provisional opinion of the game slowly creep upward. Why? Human brains hate cognitive dissonance, and mine was trying to justify why I was making such a heroic effort to beat this annoying bugger of a game! It was struggling balance deeply considered yet entirely contradictory thoughts such as “This game suckz” and “Must win the game (for great justice)”.
Finish it I did. Return for more punishment in Bandage Girl’s levels and the Dark World I will not. Play it, should you? Sure, you could play it. Or you could instead play a classic like Shovel Knight, or Mega Man X4, or one of the hundreds of other precision platformers that have come out over the last decade. If you dig hard enough, you’re sure to find dozens, if not hundreds, that are more fun and less sadistic than this one.