Super Meat Boy Forever review – a gristly challenge

PC, Nintendo Switch (version tested), Xbox One, smartphone (forthcoming); Team MeatPrecision and playfulness made the original irresistibly difficult, but this vindictive sequel feels more like a punishmentTen years ago, attempting to conquer Super Meat Boy became a weekly ritual for me and my friends. We’d take turns throwing ourselves at the latest torturous arrangement of spinning blades, lava, missiles and near-impossible wall jumps until we couldn’t take it any more, passing the pad around until someone finally made it one level further. Mistime a jump and you’d explode in a splatter of red that stained the level, etching a record of your failures on the architecture. It’s one of the most difficult games I’ve ever played, and yet I remember it so fondly – I can still summon the exact layouts of particularly cruel levels, and the rush I felt on conquering them.Super Meat Boy Forever was conceived as a smartphone-friendly version of the original, but over time it evolved into a sequel. This time, Meat Boy (or Bandage Girl, the damsel elevated to a player character) moves under their own unstoppable momentum, and our job is to jump and dash at the right time. The levels are now randomly generated, with enemies and layouts that remix themselves every time you start a new game. In theory this makes it infinitely replayable, a fount of continual, unpredictable challenge – but it loses so much in the transition that I didn’t feel like returning to it. Continue reading...