Along those lines, I'm not 100% convinced that all characters can beat all the levels. The game is designed around Meat Boy and the rest of the cast (that largely control like Meat Boy) just plays around in his world. In other words, there aren't any distinct powerup locks or alternate paths in the levels designed around specific characters. While some bandaids and warps can only be accessed with some characters, the level challenges aren't designed in this way. While the optional characters do change the way you can navigate through levels, I don't consider their inclusion in the game as a layer of the level design. If you think Meat Boy is a bit too unweildly, then surely there's another character more akin to your style. I particularly like how Flywrench, a character that can fly indefinitely in its original game, still maintains flying like mechanics without breaking the wall dependent platforming style of Meat Boy. Like Super Mario Crossover, there are some brilliant adaptations of characters into the Meat Boy style. The only other layer on top of the core level design is the characters. After all, the game indicates when you've collected the bandage(s) in a stage, but not when there's more to grab. I would have also liked the remaining levels with bandages marked on the world map in some way. In other words, there's no ghost bandage image to remember where it used to be. It's difficult to even provide examples of my favorite bandages because once you grab them they're removed from the level on latter attempts. These layers are great for the most part, but I wish each level had a bandage to grab. Warp zones remove the player from the level altogether. The biggest difference between bandages and warps is that bandages challenge the player to collect them and survive to the end of the level. Bandages and warps are optional challenges designed like Mario coins (challenging your platforming prowess), Mario secrets ( stressing your exploration skills), or puzzles ( testing your ability to problem solve). The layers in Super Meat Boy's level design are simple, well designed, but not evenly applied.
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