Super Meat Boy is one of the most sadistic games I’ve ever played, yet I can’t stop. Must be a case of Stockholm syndrome or something, because I’ve died over 11,000 times in just about a month of playing.
For those unfamiliar, Meat Boy is a tough-as-nails pure platformer in the same spirit as N or N+. The game starts out relatively easy, but will eventually ramp up the difficulty to suicidal levels. Luckily, the levels are all pretty short (averages around 25 seconds, tops out at around 90-120 seconds), there’s zero lag time from when you die to when you restart the level, and the music doesn’t stop when you die, all of which means dying is a minor nuisance most of the time. And when you beat the level, you get a simultaneous replay feature of your success + all of your deaths, which leads to a pretty hilarious wall of flying meat montage.
Anyone else playing this? I recently spent 3+ hours unlocking The Kid, and that must have been one of the most satisfying gaming accomplishments I’ve ever had. The levels were kinda boring in presentation and bullshit in what they expected of you, but oddly enough felt perfectly fair in that there were no gimmicks: just you, a double jump, and more spikes than a Buffy fan convention.
I’ve beaten all of the Light World (minus a few warp zones) and am now on the Dark World for Chapter 5 (Rapture), and I think shit just got real. Almost every level is rage-inducing in what it wants from you and how easily it kills you. The margin of error it allows is miniscule, especially with the timed button push levels. But yet, I can’t get enough! The one saving grace is that it’s very hard to beat a Dark Rapture level without getting the Grade A+ time, so at least that little OCD part of me doesn’t feel the need to do it again, unless there’s a bandage…
Do you mean the final level of Cotton Alley? Yeah, it’s a freakin’ marathon, where you basically have to do every type of horizontal corridor trap in the game. It also has one of the hardest A+ times in the game; have no idea how you’re supposed to beat that in 45 seconds.
Right now, I’m convinced that the Skyscraper warp zone (off of 5-1 light world) is the hardest thing in the game. Having only 3 lives in each stage is absolutely brutal, considering how long they are, and that a lot of the hardest jumps are right at the end. I’ve had the warp zone unlocked for more than half the time I’ve been playing, and I can still only get to the second level… At least The Kid gave you infinite lives on each stage…
It may sound crazy, but this is my favorite 2d platformer. No offense to Mario, Yoshi, or Donkey Kong.
My favorite level in the game is the first one in Mahaloth’s link (the 2nd in the link on the other hand…). Other favorites are Bleach, Ghost Tomb, and both final levels of the main game (light and dark versions).
Hardest level… Skyscraper and the last level of Cotton Alley are up there. But even more than them, even more than Dark Cotton Alley, the toughest for me are those enemies that home in on you and explode. So I’d go with getting an A+ in Lock Out as the hardest.
It’s supposed to be reminiscent of “Super Mario Brothers” or “Ghosts’n’Ghouls” where the game starts out relatively easy but can be nigh impossible in later stages. And like those games, there are probably a lot of people who never finished.
It’s still fun. The design philosophy was that player death should also be entertaining. Hence, blood persists on levels after deaths. The music simply continues after you die and re-spawn. And there’s a simultaneous replay of the previous 50 attempts you made when you finally make it.
If it’s a tough level, you get a good feeling of accomplishment.
I think you have to be at least somewhat masochistic for The Kid Level 1 to be your fave, but to each his/her own! I really enjoyed beating it, but the process itself was not terribly fun for me. One level that just does it for me is Omega (6-5, right before the final boss in light world). It’s a long, difficult level with a variety of interesting jumps, and several shortcut paths, especially if you’re willing to use a double-jumper like The Kid. No real dickery in Omega, it’s pretty much just a straight, varied challenge to your platforming skills that you can blaze through at full speed if you’re feeling bold.
Yeah, Lock Out gave me a nice bit of trouble for a while, but I think this is the level that finally taught me how to deal with those scary black hellmouth things. You can never be on the same plane (wall, ground) as them when they explode, but being just slightly off that plane is usually the sweet spot of safety, unless you’re like right next to them. It basically turns into a game of trying to kite them into your wall and jumping slightly at the last second.
I also can not beat Lock Out without getting A+, simply because if I’m hanging around for too long, I usually end up dying! I do shudder to think about what the dark world version will be like, though…
The thing about the game is that it eases you into the insanity. Don’t get me wrong, you’ll still die thousands of times if you want to complete everything, but the early worlds don’t turn super vicious on you (except for an occasional level or warp zone, which you can skip), which gives you ample time to build up your skills (and patience) for the tougher ones.
Yes, the REALLY tough levels will make you homicidal, but they’re also training you really well, even if you don’t know it. It becomes really gratifying going back to earlier levels that I thought were impossible and just doing them in my first try.
And the replay functionality (watching all the failure runs simultaneously with the successful one) makes it so that each death is not even wasted - it’s just creating an even more awesome replay!
It was the first boss fight(where you run away the whole time) that my wife and I stopped, looked at each other, and said, “Dude, this is going to be a hard game.”
We took turns(5 minute intervals) trying it and when I finally beat the level, we both cheered, high-fived, and felt great for awhile.
Very rare to get that sense of achievement from a game. We did this a number of times later on other levels.
The controls are so tight in this game. It’s perfect. The music is great. The animation is so smooth. Definitely the best platformer to ever use the initials SMB. I don’t know why I haven’t played it in like a year.
Awesome that you guys teamed up for it. I can see this a great one to pass the controller back and forth for, a comrade-in-arms against the meat massacre.
I used to think that the controls were way too sensitive, but I guess it’s necessary in order to be able to do the crazy Meat Boy acrobatics. If you ever want to start playing again, feel free to friend me on Steam to compare times.
Steam name: Shooby . Anyone else can also feel free to add me if you want more people on your leaderboard.
I find speed running levels to be half the fun, even over trying new super hard levels I haven’t beaten yet… That’s right, I’m looking at you 5-18x aka Stain! Oh man, I just saw in the comments that there’s a bandage on this level, too… :eek: