Super Meat Boy 3D might seem like an obvious next step for the cuboid meat lad, but arriving a decade later than it probably should have, I was more than a little sceptical. I lovingly suffered through the original, but could this evolution live up to it? The original Super Meat Boy is the Masocore game, and one that expertly walked a tightrope of controller-breaking frustration and pixel-perfect platforming adrenaline.
That’s (literally) a tough formula to replicate, especially when you add a whole new dimension and a change of developer to the mix. Despite those odds, Super Meat Boy 3D manages to not only capture the charm and feeling of muttering “just one more go” through gritted teeth of its predecessor but also push its foundations forward with inventive levels and mechanics that fit Meat Boy like a raw meaty glove.
While many triple-A games try to do a little bit of everything and end up mastering nothing, Super Meat Boy 3D does one thing, tough-as-nails platforming, incredibly well. The transition to 3D isn’t without a few growing pains, but I’m happy to say that everyone’s favourite meaty punching bag is still farmyard fresh.
Meat Boy’s Charm And Feel Have Been Captured Near-Perfectly In 3D
At first glance, Super Meat Boy 3D really does just look like… Super Meat Boy, but in 3D. Edmund McMillen’s twisted and bloody, yet somewhat cute art style, has been perfectly pushed into the third dimension. That also brings with it more background details and life in each stage than ever before. Meat Boy’s sense of humour is also here in full, as the loading screen messages giving you sarcastic encouragement and background characters doing unspeakable things prove.
One of my favourite details is that Meat Boy gets progressively more damaged as you die throughout a stage, eventually leaving him with exposed bones and a dislodged eye.
Most importantly, Super Meat Boy 3D nails how a Meat Boy game feels to play, with fast-paced yet precise movement, a required mastery of wall jumping, and brief but brutal levels with endless saws, traps, and pits that can kill you if you’re just one meaty pixel off the mark. Meat Boy’s specific jump arc and top speed are a little tricky to get used to at first, but it’s not long before they become second nature and incredibly satisfying to pull off.
One of the main ways 3D pushes the series forward is by adding a few new moves. The first, and most important, is the wall run, which lets you slide along walls with ease, as that extra dimension means they’re not always facing each other. The second is an air dash that’s great for clearing gaps and adding a bit of extra speed to your best times. It’s not Super Mario 64 levels of adding to a character’s repertoire, but both are great additions that feel essential to Super Meat Boy’s new dimension of platforming.
There’s also a ground slam, but I didn’t use it once in my entire playthrough.
That leap isn’t without some issues, though. The top-down camera does a mostly solid job of following Meat Boy as he sprints around, but depth perception can be finicky, especially when you’re trying to thread the needle through traps or do a tight wall jump over a saw. It’s no game-breaker, but those deaths feel a little less your fault and add some annoyance to a game that’s already trying to frustrate you.
Yes, Super Meat Boy 3D Is As Hard As You Expect, Especially Since It’s Stuffed With Secrets
Speaking of frustrating, I know what you’re really wondering – how hard is Super Meat Boy 3D? As a 3D platformer veteran, I found it a bit easier than the original game, but it still had me swearing, sweating, and squealing from the moment I finished the deceptively breezy first world. Raised blood pressure aside, Super Meat Boy 3D successfully strikes that delicate balance between frustrating and exhilarating that I mentioned earlier, and even when the challenge gets ridiculous, there’s always a sliver of hope that your next go will be the winner.
Just clearing all of the levels in the game’s five worlds is challenging enough, but 3D is surprisingly, pardon the pun, meaty with how much extra content and secrets it has on offer. There are record times to beat to unlock even harder variants of levels, bandages tucked away in corners of every stage, and hidden characters and worlds that are so obtuse I’m still hunting them all down after 15 hours. There’s a lot of bang for your buck here, and it goes a long way to making Super Meat Boy 3D feel like a worthy sequel to the also secret-stuffed original.
The deliberate difficulty of Super Meat Boy 3D is exacerbated a little by some issues that are relatively minor on their own, but add up after watching the little guy die for hours upon hours. Respawning is just a millisecond or two too long, and the all-important timer that decides whether a level is truly complete starts before you’ve made your own move, which never failed to make me groan as it forced a restart and took even more of my focus.
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.
- Released
-
March 31, 2026
- ESRB
-
Teen / Blood, Violence
- Developer(s)
-
Team Meat
- Publisher(s)
-
Headup Games
- Perfectly captures the vibe of the original
- Nearly perfect precise platforming
- Surprisingly meaty amount of secrets and challenges
- 3D perspective is a little finicky
- Timer and respawn are minor annoyances
Demon Tides Is Exactly How You Do A Sequel
Demon Tides is a phenomenal sequel that not only builds on everything Turf nailed, but also greatly expands its scope and quality.
