Super Meat Boy 3D

Super Meat Boy 3D successfully translates the series’ signature precision platforming into a new dimension, delivering slick controls, inventive level design, and strong replay value through its Light and Dark World structure. While it does not quite reach the brutal highs of the original, its accessible difficulty curve and satisfying movement make it an engaging evolution that still captures the core spirit of the franchise.

Super Meat Boy 3D is an excellent game - it does a lot of things right when it comes to its platforming experience, and while there are times when it can feel stifled and a little less comfortable due to the transition to 3D, the vast majority of the time we have a quality platformer here.

Super Meat Boy 3D is a near-perfect 3D adaptation of the original, making it a great platformer for anyone looking for a brutally difficult yet always fair and motivating challenge.

Super Meat Boy 3D is a fairly careful reimagining of a hardcore classic. The concept survived the transition to 3D reasonably well, retaining its punishing difficulty and diverse mechanics.

A hardcore 3D platformer where countless deaths and failures serve as the foundation for a single, perfect run. The transition to a 3D environment brings Z-axis depth and camera issues that occasionally cause unfair falls, leaving some room for improvement. However, the series' signature ultra-responsive controls and exquisite level design miraculously turn the pain of failure into a clear sense of accomplishment, delivering a brilliantly punishing challenge.

Super Meat Boy 3D nails the spirit and soul of the 2010 indie darling, with an identical structure and controls that do a good job of replicating the unique speed and mobility of Meat Boy and his friends in 3D. There is certainly no shortage of high moments when you’re able to enter that sort of flow state and just fly through a level without hesitation, slipping through hazards, bouncing between walls, and making daring leaps across huge gaps on your way to an A+ ranking on the level. But those moments are often bookended by frustrating perspective woes that can take all of the wind out of the sails of an otherwise good run.

Super Meatboy 3D is a game that truly deserves to be the follow-up to the legendary original. With its new 3D approach, it delivers plenty of fresh challenges while retaining the familiar, frustrating difficulty that will keep drawing you back.

Super Meat Boy 3D is equally addicting and infuriating, resulting in me swearing like a sailor but unable to tear myself away as I watched Super Meat Boy sliced, diced, and suffer repeated deaths as I worked tirelessly to finally overcome each level, but the sensory overload it brings with it can be too much at times.

Super Meat Boy 3D is exactly what you'd expect from Super Meat Boy, except in 3D. The controls are mostly identical, the challenge level uncompromising, the levels short and snappy, and every time you reach Bandage Girl, there's Doctor Fetus to kick you in the face. Each level feels distinct from the others, with plenty of creativity in the layout plus new hazards and toys in each new area to keep you on your toes. Do well enough poking around and the rewards start piling up, opening up new bonuses and goodies you can use to do better with on familiar levels or new ones. There's always a way to play a little better in Super Meat Boy 3D, and the game encourages this at every opportunity to drag you as a willing victim into the most vicious challenges it can devise.

Super Meat Boy 3D isn't exactly a massive leap for the franchise when compared to other side-scrollers that have made the jump to a new dimension, but that's okay. What's here is the high-level, fluid, and precise platforming you'd expect, and that fans of the series have come to adore. Yes, you will die thousands of times by the end, but that's also the point. There are small design hiccups here and there in terms of a few levels that don't feel fair, a couple less memorable bosses, and the added depth sometimes playing tricks on your brain. At the end of the day, however, Super Meat Boy 3D is a blast, and I'm looking forward to shaving off tenths of seconds from my record times on each and every level.

Even when Super Meat Boy 3D had me moments away from rage-quitting, occasionally thanks to a death that wasn’t my fault, I couldn’t help but smile as I bashed my head on whatever wall I was struggling to jump off. Meat Boy’s legacy is a very particular one that won’t appeal to everyone but, even with some wobbles, 3D proves itself to be a sequel that’s worthy of standing next to the original masterpiece.

Super Meat Boy 3D is a faithful translation of the indie classic into the third dimension while infusion it with great ideas from other platformers

Super Meat Boy 3D is a successful exercise in reinterpreting the series, transporting the protagonists of this historic 2D saga into a world of major aesthetic and conceptual changes. The former are easy to get used to; the latter require a bit more effort, even if it’s both pleasant and surprising to rediscover the responsiveness and speed of the original game. What truly changes, however, is the mindset with which you approach each level, which now benefits from an unprecedented sense of depth and scale, and requires the player—not only to rely on their usual exceptional reflexes and precision—but also to be able to read the path ahead. Perhaps it is precisely this lack of clarity that stands as the game’s biggest flaw, in what remains a very enjoyable experience (especially if you’re a bit of a masochist) and one that is packed with ideas that never run dry. In fact, quite surprisingly, they increase in the second and final stretch. Is this the new “skin” of the Meat Boy saga? I don’t think so, but it is certainly a successful diversion.

The sequel to the highly challenging adrenaline-pumping third-dimensional platformer will bring you dramatic moments and (again) many deaths. The camera angles that aren't always suitable will make things even more difficult.

The franchise's return to the 3D platformer genre is marred by perspective issues and technical shortcomings.

Super Meat Boy 3D isn’t Shakespeare — it’s main antagonist is named Dr. Fetus, afterall — but I found its platforming puzzles to be largely solid across the board and I was impressed by its adherence to the idea that the game will happily beat you down, but the way back up from that is through perserverence. Perserverence that it’s happy to show you that you posses by watching your level replays.

Although it maintains the spirit of the original Super Meat Boy, Super Meat Boy 3D, as a reimagining, doesn’t quite evolve on its ideas enough to strike a chord. Rather, it reframes them, and it’s these new perspectives and angles on Meat Boy’s frenetic platforming that prove to be the biggest bother of all. It’s still fun enough for the most part; however, I struggle to look beyond the compounded frustration and needless death—in a game about dying, no less.

Despite my issues, there are feelings Super Meat Boy 3D gets right. It’s that same level of hard that begs to be conquered, cultivated in the original. And when I finished a particularly hard level, I got to see a marathon of my little Meat Boys failing all over the level until I finally got one of them through, and that part is as triumphant as it has ever been. Other dedicated people will conquer this game. I suspect some speedrunner will weave wizardry in their mastery of Super Meat Boy 3D and its levels. That said, this feels like a game in which you have to have more patience that ever to put up with the shenanigans that a fast-paced 3D Meat Boy game presents.

Super Meat Boy 3D successfully preserves the fast-paced, challenging gameplay fans expect, offering plenty of content for those who enjoy mastering difficult platforming. However, its shift to 3D reduces precision and introduces camera and control issues. While some will enjoy the added freedom, others may find it frustrating, making it a solid but imperfect evolution.

Super Meat Boy 3D has strong bones, but gets lost in the three-dimensional sauce. You will die 'n retry often, for sure, with a bunch of tight levels and clever secrets to conquer for true old-school masochists, but too many deaths - and so, too many retries - stem from perspective issues which create artificial difficulty. Sluggerfly's game feel shines when the studio actually focuses on delivering a clever 3D experience rather than translating 2D ideas into a game space with depth, which induces an excessive margin of error in every movement. Do try the demo version before buying.

Super Meat Boy 3D isn’t the grandiose translation to 3D as fans were perhaps hoping for. Though there’s competent enough level design and plenty to see and do with its many challenges and unlockable characters, it quickly goes back into old habits, be it with its immature and dated humour or its penchant for the 2D. Featuring generic Unreal Engine 5 3D work and level design that doesn’t quite prop itself up on its own, Super Meat Boy 3D is challenging and quite ugly to look at, but not in the ways I’m sure the developer intended. Not the worst platformer ever made, you could do much worse with Super Meat Boy 3D, but you could also do much better.

As far as transitions from 2D to 3D go, the new Super Meat Boy proves that this is not inherently an improvement. Although there is a decent variety of levels, its serious lack of depth perception results in gameplay where you struggle more with the controls than with the level design itself. The bland visuals don’t help either.

It's not just that it's frustrating to fail but, knowing there's no satisfaction in overcoming that frustration. It says a lot that after stepping away from this game we reinstall the original Super Meat Boy to blow off steam. The real Bob-Omb Battlefield is surely next. [Issue#423, p.112]