Review | Dr. Fetus’ Mean Meat Machine
had me curled up in a ball
Dr. Fetus’ Mean Meat Machine is one of the most difficult and frustrating games I’ve ever played. A play on the old SEGA title “Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine”, this title takes the gameplay style of Puyo Puyo and gives it the ole meat (boy) twist. Tricks, traps, honkytonk music and more await you through 6 worlds and over a hundred levels. Is it worth torturing these clones (and yourself)? Nomaybyes?
A baby in a bottle
You are Dr. Fetus, the villain of Super Meat Boy games. In his laboratory, he has created clones of his archenemy and will conduct experiments in a match 3 puzzle game. The twist is that there are cheats galore, ready to destroy your clones and force a reset. Saw blades, ghosts, laser beams and more are ready to repeatedly ruin your run.
In typical matching game style, you have multiple colored Meat Boy clones. Green, red, yellow, and purple disgusting blobs fall down a chute when you place them. You can slow down, speed things up, and even run left and right to avoid obstacles. None of the levels use a simple “placing things in a race against the clock” style. Taking inspiration from the Meat Boy series, every state is a death pit, filled with saws and more. Hitting any of these is an instant loss and reset and about halfway through the game, I was ready to dust my Xbox with how hard it all got.
The pain
Touching certain obstacles means you lose, while others will transform your clones. The laser beams will turn your hideous monstrosities into a clear mess that litters your game board. To get past this, you’ll want to do everything you can to build combos. The bigger the combo, the longer you will get the invincibility of your pieces. If you’ve ever played a Puyo Puyo-style puzzle game before, it’s a simple premise. By matching four of the same pieces, they will explode. Everything above them will collapse. Using his big brain and dexterous thumbs, he can plan big chains for big points.
That’s all different here, as the endless dangers can make it maddeningly difficult to take out a single group, let alone several at once. The classic Meat Boy style is so maddeningly difficult,
unlike that series, even though this game was full of bugs during my review period. Pieces falling into each other or the environment ruined numerous potential level clears. More than once, a level just stopped working, as if the game had decided it had crashed but wouldn’t let me restart without going to the pause menu or shutting down the game.
For those who love challenges, this is the game for you. If you’re like me and value your sanity, there are accessibility options. You can slow down the game and even make your clones invincible. The latter isn’t as useful as you think, as most of the 2nd half of the game’s levels are more about beating hazards that keep destroying your placed clones (which aren’t invincible) than avoiding getting hit.
Meattastic Sites and Sounds
Dr. Fetus continues the excellent art style of the Meat Boy games, with hilarious clones and strong cutscene animation. The variety of levels is decent, although in a game like this, I barely noticed after a while. I was too busy playing the good music and recovering from hitting my head against the wall in frustration.
The soundtrack is a Honkytonk-sounding mix of guitar riffs and synths that works well with the generally upbeat tone. This is a game about an evil fetus living inside a mech suit that’s torturing and killing clones, but it all feels appropriately silly in just the right-for-IP way.
I ran into many bugs in my review period, including numerous crashes. Whether you use Quick Resume or not, the game has never felt more stable and that’s a shame, as when it works it has flashes of brilliance mixed with its sadistic puzzle nature. You have to be quick and make things work right to get through later levels, and sometimes the game messed up what should have been a successful run.
wrapping things
Dr. Fetus’ Mean Meat Machine is an occasionally brilliant match-4 puzzler. It has great ideas mixed with mediocre execution. I can’t say I “enjoyed” my time playing it, but I appreciated the sights and sounds when I was sane enough to pay attention to them.
Dr. Fetus’ Mean Meat Machine
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| Well Animated | too many mistakes |
| Good music | difficulty spikes |
| Big ideas | rarely “fun” |
| frequent crashes |
| AVAILABLE IN | xbox series |xbox one |PS4 | playstation 5 | Change | Steam |
| POSTED ON | June 22, 2023 |
| DEVELOPER | Head up |
| PUBLISHER | Thunder |
