The variety and consistency of British publisher Team17 is actually beyond impressive. Ranging from beloved games like Overcooked and Golf With Your Friends, to some slightly more obscure indie darlings, like Narita Boy or the ultra acclaimed Blasphemous. Team17 have done it all at one point or another, so why not go another step with the level based puzzle and reflex-based game Super Magbot?

For anyone not familiar with Super Magbot, just imagine a game that has been heavily designed to be similar to that of Super Meat Boy. The world layouts are very much the same, while the levels are all based around tight time limits and precise reflexes. While Super Meat Boy is very much free moving, with reflexes being limited mostly to “jumping at the right time”, Super Magbot takes a bit more of a Celeste approach in some aspects. Magnets are weird, and using magnets to complete everything in a platformer is also unusual.

For anyone who hasn’t played Celeste or needs a small refresher, essentially the goal is the get through a section with a limited amount of jumps. In Super Magbot, the same rule applies, but instead of jumps, it’s how many times each magnet can be used. Just like real life, your magnet has two sides, a negative and a positive. Throughout each level, different magnetic parts will be available to use, opposites (negative-positive) attract, while the same (negative-negative) repel. This will be used to help launch yourself around.

The levels, as with any game, become more and more complicated as time goes on. Requiring multiple uses of each magnet while in the air, one thing that is highly appreciated is how obvious the magnetic sections are. Nothing would be worse than sitting there for five minutes trying to figure out where to use the magnet when it is actually really obvious (I’m looking at you, Portal). A lot of levels also have collectibles as well, so these will require you to go slightly out of the way, or find other paths to be able to plan to get them. It also improves on the game’s overall replayablity factor.

Super Magbot has some pretty high-energy music, stuff to keep you moving along at the high-speeds required to be able to ace all the levels. While the music isn’t exactly “fitting” to the different level designs, it’s fitting with the pace of the game itself. The opposite can be said for the art style, which is paired well with the overall level design and the multiple biomes you visit throughout your journey. There are some cases though, where the design of the level doesn’t match the pace of the game. For instance, in the first world, there are wood beams that look as if the character should be able to land on them, as if you were supposed to prepare to use the magnets again, only to fall through to a pit.

Start to finish, Super Magbot is a ton of fun, and for anyone who didn’t quite like the disappointing gameplay proposal of Super Meat Boy Forever, this is much closer to the style you may be looking for. Filled with a ton of levels and a pretty fair learning curve, Super Magbot is a perfect pick-up-and-play experience. Hopefully this is a game that sees success and can be brought to other consoles as well, as I’m sure a ton of Meat Boy fans out there who would kill for an interesting clone like this one.

 

Graphics: 7.5 Super Magbot‘s different areas and biomes are varied and comprehensive. There are issues regarding background elements standing out as if they were in the foreground, but they don’t away too much from the overall enjoyment.	Gameplay: 9.0 Super Magbot is intuitive, tight, and fluent. The biggest concern going into this game was the controls feeling too lose for the number of inputs required during any one section.
Sound: 7.0 The music in Super Magbot is fitting to the pacing of the game, but doesn’t entirely match all of its different areas.	Fun Factor: 8.5 Super Magbot is a ton of fun, a great pick-up-and-play-game. It works well on PC, but it would feel more at home on consoles.
Final Verdict: 8.0

Super Magbot is available now on Switch and PC.

Reviewed on PC.

A copy of Super Magbot was provided by the publisher.