Tetris is one of the gaming world’s most ingenious concepts, and my own relationship with the Game Boy version in particular has shaped a lot of me as a player. There are also variants, where the Puyo Puyo games are what this game resembles; two paired symbols drop down from the top of the screen, and when four of the same color connect, they disappear. Dr Fetus’ Mean Meat Machine is a puzzle game developed by Team Meat and is a spinoff of Super Meat Boy and Super Meat Boy Forever. In this game, the big news is that an element of traps has been added to complicate the objective of connecting the odd pieces. The problem is that the traps can remove what you’ve already put in place, and if you touch a trap while putting the pieces together, you have to start over.
However, the game has quite generous checkpoints, so it’s more about getting a pair of “Links”, as it’s called when you manage to connect four of the same color. Since this is a spinoff of the Super Meat Boy series, it is of course also relentlessly difficult at times, and it has a visual style similar to the platform games, with fun characters, catchy music and a setting that is clear and manageable.
The levels end with a boss whose movement pattern you have to watch carefully.
Just like Puyo Puyo, it’s basically very simple. There’s not really much more to explain about how it works, so we’ll move on to the good and the bad instead. I had quite a bit of fun at first, and was glad when I realized there were over a hundred levels to tackle. But after completing about a third of them, I quit. I simply lost interest and wasn’t having much fun.
Although the difficulty level is high, checkpoints have been added, which is a welcome feature, but there is a slight balance issue here, and that is that what you have done in previous levels determines how easy or difficult future levels will be. In other words, if you’ve gotten yourself into a sticky situation before the checkpoint saves, it can be virtually impossible to complete the rest of the level because the traps either get bigger, more numerous, or just ridiculously hard to overcome, so the only solution is to restart the level. I enjoy most of the levels when I start them, the traps often feel brutal, but I have a plan and it’s up to me to make it work. However, as new traps appear, or existing ones get bigger or faster, I often lose interest, especially since it depends so much on what I’ve done before if I’m going to complete the level at all.
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Several lanes are far too narrow in width.
This incredibly high level of difficulty goes both ways. As well as being often frustrating, it is also extremely satisfying when you finally clear a course. This is not unique to this game, there are enough experiences where the difficulty level is extremely high to give you this feeling when you succeed. The biggest problem here, for me, is the lack of any sense of progress. In other games you sort of progress in the story, while here you are “rewarded” with just more and more (and more) levels instead, even though the traps change and become more numerous. This also applies to other similar puzzle games, but there the easier accessibility and a more balanced degree of difficulty is an advantage because the frustration is often absent. It is simply a joy to play in other games in the genre that the level of difficulty cancels out here.
The graphics are clear, crisp and quite fun.
Another thing that often contributes to frustration is that you try to cram too much into too little space. Sometimes we get quite large playing surfaces, and then it is easier to have a plan also for the later stages of the level, but sometimes there are far too few squares in width in relation to the amount of traps that appear, and then the problem I talked about earlier becomes even more obvious; how you’ve played up to a certain checkpoint simply determines whether you even complete the level. While you can of course start over and do a little better, it often becomes difficult when the level doesn’t really invite a different playstyle just because it’s so narrow in width.
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However, it should be added that after the first few levels, when I thought I had given up on the game entirely, I came back to play it again on several occasions. The classic “just a few more levels”, coupled with my determination to finish what I left in frustration, shows that it keeps a hold on the player. All in all, Dr. Fetus’ sadistic antics still feel like a decent take on the Puyo Puyo games, and it’s also pretty fun that they still manage to make their own take on a classic puzzle concept.
2023-07-23 12:00:00
#Fetus #Meat #Machine #Anmeldelse
