Before explaining in detail what separates Super Meat Boy Forver from Super Meat Boy, let's start by specifying some common points between the two titles, whose affiliation is still very real. Thus, the scenario features again our bloody hero Super Meat Boy, his pink companion Bandage Girl, and the evil Dr. Fetus who does nothing but annoy them! But while the vile embryo in armour/costume systematically kidnapped Bandage Girl in the first installment, this time he found himself a new victim in the person of Nugget, who is none other than the child of Super Meat Boy and Bandage. Girl. As basic and pretext as it is, this story is still told to us through nice little cutscenes, whose frankly cartoonish artistic direction works very well. These sequences are also perfectly matched with the graphics of the game, which offer bright colors and thick outlines, to ensure excellent visibility in all circumstances.
Whatever the obstacles that come our way, we always understand what the game expects of us (after a few unsuccessful attempts of course). Moreover, Super Meat Boy Forever knows how to renew itself and presents us with very varied levels. While the game starts off smooth with only a few buzzsaws to dodge, we soon find ourselves having to deal with fans that divert us from our path, conveyor belts, crumbling walls, expanses of deadly syringes, walls glasses to smash, keys to pick up, locks to unlock, moving hooks to grab, switches to flip and much more besides. The game offers twelve different worlds, reinforced by the presence of secret warp zones, and regularly makes us face very friendly bosses. These are an opportunity to vary the gameplay even more, and it is up to the player to master the attack patterns of these often gigantic enemies in order to overcome them.
IT RUNS, IT RUNS, THE NET…
But then, what could be the break between this episode and the previous one? In truth, Super Meat Boy Forever departs from its predecessor in two key respects, the most important of the two being controls. We are no longer dealing with a classic platform game, where we can direct our cube of meat as we wish, but with an “autorunner”. Understand by this that Meat Boy always goes straight ahead, and that you have absolutely no control over his speed or direction. Moreover, two keys are enough to handle our hero. One is for jumping or hitting enemies while in the air, while the other is for sliding or diving down. The game seems to have been designed for mobile platforms, and this lack of control over the action may put off many regulars. The first steps are extremely confusing, especially when you want to turn around and you realize that this maneuver is totally impossible to perform, unless you find a wall on which to bounce. Which isn't always a good idea either, since reaching the left edge of the screen usually results in an outright game over. However, we invite all refractory to this automatic race who already own the game to persist in their efforts, because you end up getting used to this system all the same.
The other big change brought by Super Meat Boy Forever concerns the architecture of the levels, which are now randomly generated from 7200 different sections. This is obviously good news in terms of replayability, but we still lose all the subtleties and onion balancing of an entirely handmade level design. This also complicates speedruns and the search for solutions, even if a seed system still makes it possible to generate, and therefore compare, identical games.
IS MY MEAT FRESH?
Fans of the license are therefore likely to be quite disturbed by the direction of this new component, which one would almost want to call a spin-off rather than a real sequel. Fortunately, there are still a few benchmarks to hang on to, starting with the die & retry aspect, which is as important as before. The fact of dying in a loop is almost highlighted, since the replay of a game shows all the unsuccessful Meat Boys at once in addition to the one who managed to pass the level. Good prince, the game automatically places save points at the entrance of each of the sections forming an entire level, which helps to pass the pill of the countless deaths. In case of failure, we try again instantly and without having to go back to an already successful step.
For the most relentless, Super Meat Boy Forever offers a scoring system (zero deaths to reach rank S in a level) as well as teats to be collected in certain levels. These objects take over from the bandages of the Super Meat Boy of 2010, and therefore allow you to unlock new characters. Alas, the PC version that we tested also incorporates a very annoying bug, which was never corrected in the previous episode and which therefore may have to be endured ad vitam æternam here too: the impossibility to play with a controller. This obviously does not concern everyone, but we are among the unlucky ones affected by this curse. This regrettable bug is coupled with an additional problem, which this time concerns the keyboard. In the middle of the game, it is impossible to pause the game or leave the level other than through a brutal Alt+F4. Only alternative solution: reach the end of the level to be able to return to the selection screen. Again, not everyone is affected by this problem, but it still reflects an approximate finish.
