The '00s 'minimal' layout

Title of entry

even though it’s literally just a highly glorified newgrounds game, i actually like Super Meat Boy a hell of a lot and here’s why

this is nearly 1500 words i hope you’re ready

let’s get the negative out of they way first. the whole ‘’popular newgrounds flash’’ aesthetic has NEVER looked good, and playing this near 2016, it’s just...aged very awkwardly. it’s 2015 and i’m seeing a forever alone face in my game and racing a literal pile of shit. come on man. [though i do have to confess i’ve always loved dr. fetus’ design/concept because i think it’s really creative. which is funny, because within the game’s own aesthetic context, it’s really not original at all.] i do at least gotta give credit for the levels themselves, they have a fairly nice atmosphere and the lighting is cool sometimes.

now then, the good.
first and most prominently, THE FUCKING SOUNDTRACK HOLY SHIT
when i first learned of this game in 2012, i looked up  the OST and it instantly became one of my favorite ones of all time. still is, honestly. like goddamn every single track is fucking flawless, and it’s insane how perfectly they translate back and forth from orchestral to 8-bit in the different zones[except arguably It Ends, whose 8-bit arrangement  is a little bland]. i’ve actually HAD the most of the track in this game since mid 2012 despite never having touched it, and even after all that time and listening, they’ve never lost that invigoration they had when i first found them. it’s kind of an incredible feeling; being nostalgic for the tracks playing in the levels, knowing that’s where they were from all along, while being completely new to everything else about the game.

ANYWAY. the gameplay.
at first i was a little surprised how much fun i was having, because i am absolutely NOT a speedrunner by nature...
however, when presented with a game with flowing level design and smooth physics/controls that has stuff to get for time trials (read: Rayman Origins), i do get a bit obsessive about having as flawless a run as possible.  problem is, i am not an incredibly consistent player. so with the inevitable fuckups [even small one], i’d keep dying and/or restarting, in the case of some games getting unnecessary game overs, and it generally gets too frustrating to be worth a perfect run.

then i realized why i was loving this so much.
SMB is the perfect vent for that kind of gameplay. the game’s notorious for being hard as balls, and even though i’ve been dying a shitton in some of the later levels, it’s never actually felt difficult [save for a few specific levels] for me, because there is zero frustration or feeling like i need to come back to something after i get better.--a minor tangent here, the difficulty creep in this game is one of the most graceful i’ve ever seen--it’s barely a feeling of “damn this level is hard” and more one of “okay all i gotta do is pull this off”, and the layout is so efficient that it’s never a hassle to try and do that time after time.
see the problem i get with trying to do extremely precise runs in most games, is that the levels can be very long. even something that’s around 2min on a good run is incredibly strenuous, and when you fuck up, there’s much more of a *groan* factor when you gotta do it ALL OVER AGAIN.  SMB’s levels are all very short [i don’t think there’s been a single Grade A+ time over a minute so far? as of writing this, i’m 3/4 the way through The Rapture but haven’t touched dark world levels aside from in The Forest yet.], most of them are <30 seconds for a good run.

the physics in the game are definitely built for this kind of thing too. geez. they’re almost TOO exact, and i do still wrestle with them in tighter areas regularly, but again, it’s never felt like the game has been unfair about my movements-only that i need to calm the fuck down and stop jittering and ease off the run button for once. oh yes, running. god damn meat boy is fast. there’s something really satisfying about just how damn MOBILE you are in this game. if you are asking yourself “can i make that jump?” the answer is already yes. like seriously the lateral distance you can cover in a single wall-kick is completely absurd. the game’s fully aware of what you can do, and it WILL make you ricochet around like mad and use/abuse all those crazy physics.

ANOTHER thing is that despite all its preciseness, there’s hardly ever only “one way” to beat a level. there’s actually quite a bit of room for fucking up and awkwardly scrambling to get back to where you were. there’s also often more than one path to the end, which i really really love a lot. sometimes you can just stand and look around a level and think “huh i bet i can use that to get there”, sometimes it’ll be “alright i do NOT want to deal with this, where can i go besides through here”, and sometimes, you’ll find alternate/better paths simply by fucking up. i’d like to think this was intentional design, and that a lot of players have missed their jump, but kept going and found a whole different way to play the level. here is a map of what i’m talking about. if your positioning is good, you can often just flat-out ignore a bunch of platforms that you’d otherwise think are necessary if you’re being cautious. lots of red herrings here, but often these can still be used in alt paths, or simply to recover back to whatever path you were on.

while there are some i could definitely do without [COUGH SALT FACTORY MISSILES COUGH], the unique hazards in each world make for fresh level dynamics the whole way through; the eye lasers in Hell make for ridiculous mad dashes where you can’t look back, the levels built around the repelling orbs in The Rapture are distinctly polarized between being wide open or claustrophobic as fuck, etc. it’s incredible to be able to play a game with like 250 levels, and not have any of them feel stale.
the warp zones are a decent twist since you only have 3 tries at once, and the character-unlock ones do an awesome job of teaching you about their gimmick without annoying tutorial hand-holding. haven’t much messed with the dark worlds yet [been trying to get all A+ at once in the above world first so i can play straight through. got ‘em all in the first two worlds currently], but they’re a good look at how diabolical the team COULD have been throughout the entire game. having hazards cranked up to 11 at all times is an awesome side-gimmick, but ONLY as a side gimmick, which is what SMB does very right. the necessary levels are pretty sensible and retain a great difficulty balance.
i welcome the replayability offered by the bandages and Grade A+ times [i’ve always been a completionist; can’t give myself much reason to replay a game unless there’s still something to do, so i do everything], and they’re just more subtle ways of amping up the difficulty for anyone who wants it.
i’m definitely going for all bandages/warps/characters/A+ times...though not so much the dark worlds because i don’t think it does anything extra there.

if anything, i’m a tiny bit disappointed in the bosses. they’re scarce, which makes you think they’d be a big deal, but they’re not long enough to be very difficult. plus, some [i’m looking at you, Meat Golem, you’re an asshole] are kinda just trial an error and i’m not about that. but they’re still good overall.

idk, i’d like to talk about all the other unlockable characters, but?? i don’t use them hardly ever. i’ve taken it upon myself to beat every normal level with meat boy first, then just use the other characters to have fun and get better times and bandages, but...i’ve become so used to meat boy’s physics that i just die incessantly with everyone else. i really only switch out of necessity if a maneuver is clearly going to be easier with their gimmick. i only have a few right now, but it’s definitely a cool thing that they’re there. love commander video.

so yeah, Super Meat Boy is actually pretty fantastic in a lot of ways.