The game consists of five main chapters, 20 levels each. At each level you need to bring the hero to the kidnapped girl. The player must complete at least 17 levels in order to gain access to the chapter boss. With ideal speed completion of a regular level ( Light World) opens access to an identical, but more complex level ( Dark World).
After completing the main chapters, the short sixth chapter “The End” opens, where the final boss is located - Dr. Fetus. After defeating him, the game is considered completed. Also, after this, access to the additional seventh chapter “The Cotton Alley” opens, where you can simply test your abilities in passing unrealistically difficult levels.

Control

All control of the main character consists of four buttons:
left, right, jump (space), acceleration (shift).
There are several subtle features in the behavior of Mitboy:
– when pushing off the walls, he jumps much further than when pushing off from the floor;
– jumping onto the wall at the beginning of the jump (that is, it has flown up and has not yet begun to fall down), the mitboy slides up a little, sticking to the wall;
– the height of the jump depends on the time you hold down the jump button at the beginning.

Gaming terms

(plaster) – a special thing found at levels. There are a total of 100 patches in the game. All of them are located in hard-to-reach places of varying degrees of difficulty. To collect the patch you need not only to touch it, but also to successfully complete the level after that. For every 10 patches, more and more game characters are unlocked.
(In this description, the word “Bandage” is replaced by an image: )

Light Worlds(light worlds) – standard levels with normal difficulty. Completing all standard levels unlocks the game's normal ending, "The END".

Dark Worlds(dark worlds) – more complex (hardcore) versions of standard levels. They open only after speed-passing the corresponding regular level (you need to get an “A+” rating, and to do this you need to complete it within the time indicated in the upper right corner of the screen). After returning to the map, a perfectly completed level will shine. Switching to the dark world is done on the level map by pressing the “shift” key. Completing all hardcore levels unlocks the seventh world and the path to an alternative ending.

Glitch Levels– levels stylized as games from old damaged cartridges. You can get to the Glitch level for the first time by finishing one of the levels at the moment when Bandage Girl begins to “glitch” (there was no more suitable word). After which the damaged level is constantly available on the map (yellow square before the very first normal level). In such levels, only the loading screen is “buggy”, everything else looks normal. The difficulty is off the charts - Glitch levels are much more difficult than most levels in the dark world.

– portals leading to other games. Each such zone consists of three separate levels, while everything around is stylized as old 8-bit games. In Super Meat Boy, the passage of the Warp Zone is complicated by the fact that only three lives are given to complete each of the three levels. Which is unusual after using endless attempts in the main game.
(In this description, the phrase “Warp Zone” is replaced by the image: )
In order to get into the WarpZone, you need to touch small colored swirls at standard levels. Only the very first WarpZones are in simple places, all subsequent ones are either in hard-to-reach places, or hidden and almost unnoticeable, or quickly disappear after the start of the level.
Zones are divided into 3 types based on color.

– zones with an 8-bit retro design, where we play with a standard hero. In every bright world there are two such zones hidden. You are given only three attempts to complete each level of the zone. There are always two bandages in the Blue Warp Zone.
– zones where you need to play as one of the “guest” characters. They also consist of three levels, but the number of attempts at each level is infinite. After completion, the character becomes available for play at regular levels. One such zone is hidden in every bright world.
Black Warp Zone– zones found only in the dark world. They have an even more simplified design, called by the authors “4-bit style”. Otherwise everything is the same as in Blue Warp Zone.

The main characters of the game Super Meat Boy

“Guest” characters from popular indie games

Characters in Warp Zones

Characters only available in the Xbox 360 version of the game

Characters available only in the PC version of the game

Simplified list of guest characters

Below is very important information for 100% completion - the location of secret patches (or) and portals (or) by level.

Chapter 1: Forest (CH1: The Forest)

Street Fighter II: The World Warrior” (1991).
Obstacles in the levels: circular saws, abysses, collapsing platforms and fire.

Chapter 2: Hospital (CH2: The Hospital)

The initial video screensaver is a reference to the game “ Castlevania” (1987).
New obstacles appear at the levels: powerful fans; doors that can only be opened with keys; shapeless mountains of thorns; slow-moving but deadly slugs.

Chapter 3: The Salt Factory (CH3: The Salt Factory)

The initial video screensaver is a reference to the game “ The Adventures of Lolo” (1989).
At levels, obstacles are added: salt mountains and streams; moving platforms; guns with homing missiles.

Chapter 4: Hell (CH4: The Hell)

The initial video screensaver is a reference to the game “ Ninja Gaiden” (1988).
New obstacles appear at the levels: rivers of lava; laser guns in the form of eyes; black hellhounds flying in eight directions when they die; laser installations; portals; fireballs.

Chapter 5: Rapture (CH5: The Rapture)

The initial video screensaver is a reference to the game “ Mega Man 2” (1988).
New obstacles appear at the levels: gravitational repelling balls; meat zombies; alternating temporarily appearing platforms.

Chapter 6: The End (CH6: The End)

The goal is always the same - to get to the protagonist's girlfriend, who is always being taken away right from under her nose. And this, damn it, is not easy - one touch of a saw, a spike or a monster’s fangs will tear our protagonist into many bloody pixels (which will stain the walls around and remain a sad reminder of your mistake), and there are more than enough such dangerous things here: the creators of the game turned on their imagination to the fullest and created many levels, each of which is different from the other.

To jump, pushing off walls dozens of times and accurately calculating your path, you need really good character control. The developers understood this perfectly: like , it is very pleasant to the touch. Even a novice player will quickly feel the “weight” of the protagonist and will be able to control him quite tolerably, even before reaching the levels that require it.

Following the traditions of “those” platformers, this is an incredibly difficult game. The slightest mistake, and you will have to repeat the level from the very beginning, there are no checkpoints in sight. You can easily die over a hundred times before you get to the kidnapped girl again (to watch her get whistled again, of course). The game, as if mocking, keeps the number of your deaths in statistics.
On the other hand, the number of attempts is not limited (although it would definitely be worth adding such a game mode, then without hesitation it would be possible to call it the most difficult game in history), and most repetitions last no more than a minute if you already roughly know what to do. Well, it’s definitely worth completing the level, if only to see dozens of meat cubes merrily flying into pieces under the teeth of the saws. So, by the way, you can notice what exactly caused you the most problems.
In addition, the difficulty increases from level to level very smoothly (of course, if you do not immediately try to complete the secret stages with maximum points. The dark world should also be left alone until you finish the entire light one), so it is unlikely that you will really for a long time you'll get stuck somewhere.

There is no multiplayer, but it can be played (and is very fun!) with friends: just give way to the next player after the next death. It is unlikely that someone will not have time to play enough.

For the first time, you'll probably be more concerned with just beating the damn game, and not with any secrets. There are plenty of secrets here that are worth hunting for a second time - for example, portals leading to hidden warp zones. After passing the next test there, you may well find a new game character: Commander Video from Bit.Trip, a guy from, even a headcrab - they are all here, and they all have special chips that can be a great help in difficult places (all levels are passable with a standard cube meat, however). In addition to portals, there are many hidden patches that can be used to unlock even more characters. Yes, you are not alone in this... World.

It's obvious what the developers were inspired by - just look at the cutscenes, filled with references to everything from Ninja Gaiden to Adventures of Lolo and Mega Man 2. The level "inspired by Donkey Kong" is called "Weibe" (Steve Wiebe is a two-time world champion in this game). Just an awesome chiptune soundtrack - the best thing I've heard since Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game. Warp zones become grainier and more pixelated, reminiscent of the Game Boy or Atari 2600. It celebrates classic platformers while taking its place alongside the best of them.

The cutscenes I mentioned are a lot of fun, but aren't nearly as polished as everything else in the game. These are the scenes where you can tell it was made by just two guys.
Their sense of humor, by the way, although a little strange, is generally not bad. I mean, we have a main character made of raw meat who's in love with a girl made of Band-Aids who's been kidnapped by a fetus in a tuxedo (how, how did a fetus even get a PhD?!).
If that's not enough to make you smile, I don't know if you smile at all.

Conclusion

Definitely one of the best modern platformers. It's annoying, challenging, and likely to make you want to throw your controller at a wall, but it's also delightful, addictive, and just downright fun. Old games were much simpler than modern ones in terms of graphics, physics and other tinsel, but at the same time much more complex and exciting in terms of gameplay - a quality that is wonderfully conveyed here.

Finally, a good track dedicated to an evil fetus

I would like to introduce to your attention everyone Super Meat Boy characters.
In total in the game, as I already wrote in, 15 characters, and so I opened them all and present them to your attention.

So, characters are unlocked by collecting a certain number of patches, and some after passing special warp zones. We are given the opportunity to go through such a zone with exactly the character that we will eventually open.
Each character is good in its own way and each has its own “trick”.

Meat boy

Our main character is a meat kid who leaves a trail of blood when he runs. Skill - fast running.

Commander video

To open this character, you need to go through the warp zone in the first chapter (chapter1), light world, level 12. This character is quite slow; when he jumps, he floats (flies horizontally) in the air, leaving a trail of rainbows behind him.

Headcrab

To unlock this character, you need to collect 10 patches. The character is taken from the game Half-Life.
Headcrab is very slow, jumps close, but can move (after jumping) along the ceiling, and is also capable of sticking to walls.

Jill

The character is unlocked after passing the warp zone in the second chapter (chapter2), light world, level 8.
The character is taken from the game "Mighty Jill Off". Jill runs fast and is inferior to the meat boy in jumping, but not by much. His special ability is when he jumps; when he presses the “jump” button often, he practically hangs in the air. A very useful character who will come in handy in the future.

Josef

The character is unlocked after collecting 30 patches. It was taken from the game "Machinarium". Runs slowly, does not jump high. A special skill is that when jumping, by rotating your arms, you gain a little more height. If jumping from a hard surface, it can perform a mid-air jump.

8 bit Meat boy

Unlocks when you have 40 patches. The same meat boy, only 8 bit picture. Why he does it is not clear.

Ogmo

To open it, you need to go through the warp zone in the third chapter (chapter3), light world, level 16.
This character, again, looks like a meat kid, jumps low and also slowly, but can do a double jump (somersault), due to which the length of the jump increases. Also, when falling, it can do a somersault, thereby moving sideways in the air.

Naija

The character is unlocked after collecting 50 patches. It is taken from the game "Jumper".
A very interesting character. It runs quite fast, leaving behind a trail of water, and jumps low. When you press the skill button while jumping, the naija slows down its fall, and when released, it flies forward very quickly.

Flywrench

To open it, you need to go through the warp zone in the fourth chapter (chapter4), the light world, level 18. The character is taken from the game "Flywrench". Able to climb (slide) along a vertical surface. Can do a triple jump.

4 bit Meat boy

Unlocks when you have 60 patches. The same meat boy, only 4 bit picture. Why he does it is also not clear.

Runman

To unlock a character, you need to collect 70 patches. Taken from the game "Runman".
He runs fast, jumps high, but not far to the side (from the wall). He was given a skill - acceleration. It can be used both when running and jumping, thereby increasing the length and speed of the horizontal jump.

2 bit Meat boy

Unlocks when you have 80 patches. The same meat boy, only a 2 bit picture, and his color has changed to gray. The trail he leaves behind has also turned grey. Why he does it is again not clear.

Captain Viridian

To open it, you need to collect 90 patches. The character runs and jumps slowly, but he has an interesting ability - to change gravity. I didn’t use it for passing, but it’s fun to play around with.

The Kid

To unlock this character, you need to go through warp zone level 7 in the light world, chapter 5. A very difficult zone, I’ll tell you about it separately. The character's ability is a double jump, up.

Steve

To open, you need to collect 100 patches, i.e. all patches in the game. Taken from the game - Minecraft. When I saw his ability, I was surprised. He can remove and build pieces of walls and floors. It's a shame that he appears almost at the end of the game; I think it would be easier to go through some levels with him.

MeatNinja

It turned out that there were 16 characters, suddenly after beating the game a meat ninja opened up. He looks like an ordinary red meat boy, but with a black mask on his face. He runs and jumps very quickly, like an ordinary meat kid with his ability turned on. And when activating the ninja’s ability in front of an obstacle, he teleports behind it, although it does not carry him through several saws.

Almost everyone Super Meat Boy characters their interesting abilities (some are stupid).
For whom to pass this or that level - for whom it is more convenient.

And then this day came, I finally completed this unusual game 100%, took all the patches and opened all the characters. Completing Super Meat Boy took approximately one month. During this time, over 9000 kilotons of my nerve cells were killed, a wagonload of cigarettes was smoked, 4 keyboard buttons were stained and clanked to death, especially the space bar.

Super Meat Boy - statistics

When I looked at the statistics, I was surprised, because it says 106% completed, although the light world and the dark world are 100% complete. Most likely this is a glitch, because the game was stolen and translated by enthusiasts.

Of course there are a lot of deaths. This is not strange, because there is no “start again” button, and when you needed to start again you had to die. This would especially not hurt when collecting plasters, and of course there were a lot of real deaths at that moment. I remember when I went into the statistics after completing Chapter 3, there were a little more than 2 thousand deaths, but then the levels became more difficult, and patches were placed everywhere.

I consider the most difficult level to be Chapter 5. Abduction. (chapter 5. The Rapture.) Warp zone of the 7th level, the light world, which must be completed to open the character. Since this is a warp zone, there are actually 3 levels and all of them are very heavy. I killed about 4 hours of time on them and added about 2 thousand deaths. I described this warp zone in more detail in.

Chapters

In total, there are 7 chapters in the Super Meat Boy game - 5 main ones, and 2 something like bonus ones, they are marked not with squares, like the first 5, but with circles.

When passing through, I thought that there were only 8 levels, because there was another circle drawn in front of the first main one. After completing all 7 chapters, this level still did not open. I looked through all the chapters again, everything was completed, what's the matter? Having searched the Internet, I still haven’t found anything about this chapter. Everywhere it is written that there are only 7 chapters. Perhaps, again, the problem is in the pirated version, perhaps this level is only for consoles, and perhaps some kind of addition will be released soon. The main thing is that the game is 100% completed and all characters are unlocked.

From the first to the third chapters, the levels are quite easy, but again, this seems to be after beating the game. When I first started playing, it was, of course, also a difficult test. The heaviest chapters 4 and 5 of the dark world. In general, the dark world is everywhere more complex than the light one.

Characters

There are 16 characters in the game, the last one is revealed only after completing the entire game. You can look at them. I played through the game, mainly as the main character – meat boy. Only in some levels, when I couldn’t complete it for a long time, I tried to do it for other characters. For a meat kid, it’s still better, since you get used to him, to his controls and physics, and he jumps and runs higher and faster than anyone else. In addition, the levels are made in such a way that when playing as a meat boy, you can complete all levels at “A”, but at the same time you need to play without the slightest delay and without errors, which is not easy, especially in very difficult levels.

You can follow the path of my playthrough of the game and see reviews of all chapters in previous articles. The screenshots there are old, and not all the patches were taken from them, and not all warp zones were completed, but I passed the usual levels all at once with “A”. But not all patches and warp zones were given at once, but there were a few of them; when I reached the 4th chapter, I decided that I needed to go through everything that I hadn’t passed, and I did! And then, I immediately went through everything and took all the patches.

Conclusion

The game is great! I advise everyone, but get ready to kill your nerves. The understanding that the game is wonderful only comes when you beat it, because during the game, when something didn’t work out, I cursed everything I could, the developers, the game, and...

Despite the fact that this is a mini game, it is very well made, thought out, drawn, physics, etc. To keep things interesting, a warp zone, patches, various characters, bosses, and many different obstacles have been added. And most importantly, even a small plot, albeit unfinished. It is clear that the meat boy saved his girlfriend, the girl patch, but in the last video the doctor fetus steals the meat boy, and, playing as the girl patch, we, so to speak, try to save the meat boy, the game ends, no videos are shown to us. I think this is a hint for a sequel, because the game has become very popular!