Never Give Up wears its inspiration on its sleeve. Displaying quirky visuals and rock-solid gameplay, Armor Games' new platformer directly calls back to the surprise hit Super Meat Boy. However, Never Give Up takes the basic premise of Super Meat Boy and tweaks it just enough to avoid feeling like a carbon copy.
You're tasked with tackling a series of levels – known as 'rooms' – before taking on the boss at the end of a particular area. What Never Give Up does, however, is present you with the same room five or six times in a row, with each new appearance extending the length of the room and introducing new obstacles to gradually make it more and more infuriatingly difficult. But as the room increases in difficulty, so too does your skill and confidence.
You'll come across a multitude of deadly traps in the game, including circular saws, lasers, bombs, charging rhinos, and of course, bottomless pits. The game pushes your patience to its absolute limit, constantly taunting you with a 'Give Up' button on each level that lets you instantly proceed to the next room. In doing so, however, you'll be left with a lasting reminder that you basically failed and threw in the towel.
It's not quite fluid enough to stand toe-to-toe with Super Meat Boy, but Never Give Up is nevertheless a solid platformer that offers up highly inventive, ludicrously challenging levels along with a smattering of dry humour that's well suited to the style of the game. Add to that a collection of unlockable costumes that only become available after gathering a certain number of collectable, and you've also got a hefty amount of replay value.
Comments 13
Not as smooth, not as fluid? Super Meat Boy runs at a perfect 60 frames per second on Switch. So it this game hitching, dropping frames, running at a less than buttery frame rate? It sounds interesting. If it runs at 60fps I'd be curious to buy it and give it a try...
l kinda want to get this game
Trust your instincts?
Never (Gonna) Give (You) Up
This is the shortest review I've seen on here since the WiiWare World days. No 'Verdict' at the end either. A new style of review for smaller indie games perhaps?
@OorWullie ah good old WiiWare World. Yes, these ‘mini reviews’ are a new format which we’ll be using (sparingly!) in the future to cover interesting indie games which we might have otherwise overlooked for a formal review. Hope you guys like it. 👍🏻
I always felt like you gotta be a masochist to enjoy these kind of games.
@Dazza This is great news! The primary appeal of this site for me was always that the crew here would highlight smaller, interesting indie games that other places ignore. Now with the massive amount of games hitting the eshop on a weekly basis, anything that you do to capture more of them is highly appreciated!
@PBandSmelly It had previous games before, I never played them, but I saw them thanks to Markiplier. They were simply called Give Up.
If ever there were a game whose review which needed to be rickrolled, it's this one!
Ooh I can't help it...
Where are the collection and game review graphics? I shouldn't have to search for the game page to access them.
N++ > super meat boy > never give up
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...