A Brutal Leap into a New Dimension
It’s not often a game gets a follow-up 16 years after it came out, and even when they do, they are often completely disjointed or rebooted versions that don’t resemble the original in any way. So the release of Super Meat Boy 3D is a surprise in more ways than one.
Super Meat Boy 3D follows the same formula the original did back in 2010, with the notable change that it is now in 3D. Who could’ve guessed?
What this means is that there are a series of increasingly difficult, if not downright frustrating, levels to play through where Super Meat Boy has to run, jump, and dash his way to the end of the level where his girlfriend – Bandage Girl – is waiting for him. It also marks the return of the original game’s villain, Dr. Fetus. And with the cast having been reintroduced – but this time with more polygons than before – it is time for the game to begin in earnest.
Meaty Mechanics
If you couldn’t tell already, this was what games were like in the early 2000s.
I don’t mean that in a bad way, in fact it’s refreshing to see a game that so faithfully sticks to its roots like this. It’s just odd because I thought the time of seeing games transition from 2D to 3D was long behind us.
Mechanically, Super Meat Boy 3D is straightforward. You hold the right trigger to run faster, can jump and wall run, will grapple walls and slide down them, and pressing X in the air will cause you to dash. You can also ground pound by pressing B in the air, but that’s never really explicitly needed during the game. It’s more designed for speed runners that want to get the absolute best times.
Super Meat Boy 3D also sees the return of the level playback that occurs once the player finishes each stage. Every life that was used to attempt the level is played back alongside the successful attempt, so the player can watch every Super Meat Boy meet their untimely end, while one manages to survive.
Navigating the Worlds
The game is spread across five different worlds, each with their own visual theme, level gimmicks, and final boss. After completing 10 of the levels, the boss fight becomes available and beating them allows the player to progress to the next world. This makes it surprisingly accessible for players. That’s not to say it’s easy, but it’s easier than it could’ve been. After all, Super Meat Boy is intended to be punishingly difficult, and it’s not a game that casual gamers often visit.
In fact, many people that pick up games like Super Meat Boy 3D play it not just to beat it, but to master it. Which is why there are two main metrics each level provides after beating it. How long did it take the player, and how many times did the player die in order to eventually find success? Neither of these things matter for those just looking to play to the end of the game, but for anyone that wants to 100% the game, they live and die by these numbers.
Each world has an “A+” time which is just their term for the par time to complete the level. After beating the “A+” times on enough levels, you unlock dark world variants of the stages. These are modified layouts of every level that are more difficult to complete. An added challenge for anyone that is craving more of that Super Meat Boy action after beating all the light world variants of the levels.
Collecting Bandages
Each level also has bandages hidden around them, which can be collected to unlock different characters, each of which will have different play styles. Super Meat Boy is a solid all-round character, while other characters may move faster, jump farther, or have some modifier on their movement that increases their difficulty to control.
When collecting bandages to unlock new characters, it isn’t enough to just grab them, the player also needs to make it to the end of the level without dying. Of course, everything kills Super Meat Boy in a single hit so any mistakes means having to go back and recollect the bandage if you’re going to make progress on unlocking new characters.
It’s a cycle of completing hard challenges, which in turn make the game harder, so that the player can repeat the process until they hit their limits.
The Depth Perception Hurdle
The transition to 3D works well, for the most part. The controls are responsive, but the movement does feel a bit more floaty. For a hunk of meat, Super Meat Boy does manage to get plenty of airtime when jumping around. This works well for the open design of many of the maps, but where Super Meat Boy 3D struggles is in depth perception.
If I had to point to a single pain point throughout the entire game, it would be how awkward the depth perception is in certain levels. Each stage has a fixed camera position, and it will follow Super Meat Boy faithfully as he sprints through the levels. The issue is in levels that have a lot of obstacles perpendicular to the camera, especially when they jut out towards the camera. It can be very tricky to make jumps, especially on wall running segments, because you have to make assumptions about the obstacle depth.
This is when the game veers more into just pure frustration, more than a fun challenge. Because while the feeling is similar, there is a difference between knowing your reaction time wasn’t fast enough compared to the frustration in having to make a guess on how to navigate an obstacle. Thankfully, this was only an issue on some levels.
Performance wise, the game runs well. There was a single stage that seemed to have some frame drop issues early on, but many ran smoothly. And almost every obstacle felt fair and added its own unique challenge.
I say ‘almost every’, because in the final world they introduce gravity fields, which are by far my least favorite portion of the game. The mechanics that dictate momentum change based on how you hold the jump button when moving into the gravity field, and if you shift too far to the side, they can mess with your depth perception. Both are things that aren’t ideal in a difficult precision platformer. They are manageable, and I am sure some people will just tell me to “git gud” but I just didn’t care for them as a mechanic.
A Solid, Polished Jump into the Third Dimension
That said, the game is well put together. Artistically, things are very different from the original with the shift to 3D. While I personally enjoyed the 2D art style and design a little more, the 3D is done well. The classic Meat Boy mechanics are still present in Super Meat Boy 3D and it feels great to sprint through a level while narrowly dodging whatever the game throws at you. It can be frustrating at times, but to a certain extent, that’s kind of the point. For the most part, this is a great challenge that hits the mark much more than it misses.
Important Links
Super Meat Boy 3D Launches Day One On Game Pass – And Yes, It’s Still Brutal! – https://www.thexboxhub.com/super-meat-boy-3d-launches-day-one-on-game-pass/
Super Meat Boy 3D Leaps onto Xbox Game Pass Day One in 2026 – https://www.thexboxhub.com/super-meat-boy-3d-leaps-onto-xbox-game-pass-day-one-in-2026/
Download from the Xbox Store, via Game Pass if you like – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/super-meat-boy-3d/9NJ67TQQ51Z0
