Have you ever wondered what a mashup between Dr Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine and Super Meat Boy would look and play like?

Has that thought even crossed your mind? Probably not. But that’s what we’ve got with Dr Fetus’ Mean Meat Machine. The title even gives it away.

Thing is, what we actually have is one of the smartest, most creative takes I’ve seen on Match-3 puzzling in … well, forever…but equally the game lets itself down because it enjoys being an asshole a bit too much.

Worlds run on too long, ideas seem stretched out, and the difficulty curve is … well…if you’ve played Super Meat Boy you probably have some idea.

And I get it, that’s the schtick of the franchise. It makes sense that the game is punishing, unrelenting, not in the least bit willing to let up or have you take a breath. Because that’s just what Team Meat do. If fierce grinders don’t take you out, friendly looking ghosts will, or firey floating discs or a deadly boss out for blood.

The one thing I really liked about Robotnik’s take on Puyo Puyo is that bosses had an identity and you had some good back and forth banter with them as they talked up their evil schemes. Here, they’re mostly just arms and machinery that kill you.

Oh, did you miss that part? Yeah, you can die in Dr Fetus. Again and again and again. Just like Super Meat Boy. Basically, if your descending puyo get caught out by any number of the hazards on the screen, they splat into a massive blood puddle and you have to restart. Candy Crush, this ain’t.

Fortunately, the game does have a checkpoint system. It’d be borderline unplayable if it didn’t and in order to activate it you need to match four of the same coloured meats in order to stabilise the grid and unlock the next phase.

But there’s a catch, because of course there is. By matching more and more of the meat, you also unlock more traps, effectively making the level more difficult for yourself. Now there’s some incentive.

I mean, you can even turn off the checkpoints if you want. You know, if you’re really feeling sadistic and want to be overly hard on yourself.

So it continues, over and over across six different worlds with around 20 levels each. Some little cut scenes split in-between, usually to introduce a new mechanic or meat. But there’s a lot of levels to play.

Therein lies one of my problems. The content feels so painfully padded at times. Worlds outstay their welcome, as environments don’t really change over the course of 20 levels that look largely the same and you’re forced to contend against the same mechanic in increasingly more infuriating ways as you move from one level to the next.

It just becomes such a chore after a while, which is really a shame because the core idea of things killing you on the grid or them taking away your meat when you think they’re safely resting at the bottom of the grid really adds a level of strategy and thought.

But the game just ruins it by overfilling the screen with, well, death. On some levels, you’ve got a microscopic bit of leeway to navigate your way down to the bottom. You even have a slow button so you can wait for the right moment to drop or stop yourself falling too fast.

In a platformer, this works and you can get away with it somewhat as there’s usually some learnings to be had or timings to improve on. I just felt it was a bit cheap here.

One cool thing Dr Fetus does do is play with perspective a lot. Some grids appear really up close to the screen, others are quite spaced out,  and this usually depends on how many death traps it wants to put in your path. In that regard, you don’t necessarily know what you’re switching into after completing a level.

As mentioned, it also brings the gore. In true Meat Boy fashion, you’re matching sloppy entrails together to find a perfect specimen and when you do they explode, leaving guts and entrails behind. Even completing a level fills the entire grid with blood.

But the game just starts feeling so samey and even the new mechanics and worlds it brings up end up playing largely the same, just blood-boilingly more aggravating.

This game has potentially spun up an interesting alternative genre, though, a prospect I find incredibly exciting. I’ve never been a Meat Boy fan in particular and so perhaps I wasn’t the target audience for a game that just enjoys killing me over and again.

These ideas are clever, though, and could work in some fascinating ways in other games. Better paced out, with a more natural blend of Puyo Puyo action and danger, I’m all for that. And in a way, you can do that here if you visit Accessibility settings and turn on invincibility. Sadly, though, this further exposes how much the game relies and revels in your continued death.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, the ideas are great and the concept is refreshing, but the game bogs itself down by trying to be too hard and offputting.

Verdict

Dr Fetus’ Mean Meat Machine shows great respect to what SEGA and Sonic Team achieved all those years ago, bringing Puyo Puyo into more homes while adding their own unique spin on an established genre. But the lesson it didn’t take from it is how to balance its ideas, develop them to the full and show more respect to the player as opposed to reveling in their misery. 

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Pros

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Dr Fetus’ Mean Meat Machine is out now on PC, PlayStation, Switch and Xbox 

Code Kindly Provided by Headup and Team Meat for review purposes

Played on Nintendo Switch