In the ever-growing landscape of retro-inspired indies, it is becoming harder and harder to find some way to stand out. There are so many releases out there that try to capture that authentic NES experience, but somehow miss out on that most critical element of the beloved titles of the system: fun. The Meating is one of the latest to try its hand at a nostalgia-powered, pseudo-NES adventure, and like so many attempts before it, it just does not capture that same magic. Developed by Mega Cat Studios and released on Nintendo Switch, this provides players with a quirky premise and a nostalgic aesthetic. What it struggles to provide, however, is a compelling gameplay experience, and it ultimately feels more like a relic than a revival.
The Meating casts players as Kon, a ghostly minotaur on a quest to reclaim his dismembered body parts after a disastrous online dating encounter leads to his untimely demise. A butcher chops him up and distributes his meat all over the place, leaving poor Kon as just a floating head on a quest for vengeance. The narrative is certainly weird, and there are a couple of lines of dialogue after each chapter where Kon finds out a bit more about the resting place of his various meaty bits. It is a goofy sort of framing device that was mostly put in to explain why this minotaur head is floating all over the place collecting slabs of beef. Armed with ghostly abilities like pyrokinesis and possession, Kon will have to navigate through over 60 levels, each themed after different cuts of meat, in a bid to restore himself and uncover the mystery behind his butchering.
The Meating heavily wears its NES inspiration on its sleeve. While there isn’t a ton about this game that works, one of its strengths is its dedication to authenticity (for better or worse). This very much looks like something that could’ve been on the NES, and the visuals have that somewhat charming, somewhat “ugly” style that defined a lot of games from that era. It at least manages to capture the feel of the sort of titles it was trying to imitate which is great. It is a shame that it isn’t really successful in anything else beyond that.
At its core this is a puzzle-platformer that challenges you to collect keys, avoid traps, and defeat bosses. Levels are relatively short, a lot of the puzzle elements here are fairly light, and the combination of those two things means a lot of the journey is just sort of boring. The level design as a whole is a pretty major letdown, and a lot of the game feels very basic as there isn’t too much here in terms of actual creativity. Levels very quickly blend into the next one, and there aren’t many examples of things that stick out as a clever use of the limited mechanics available. It does wind up feeling like one of those old school NES titles, but not a good one. It has the vibe of one of those cheap ones a lesser developer just sort of slapped together and tossed out there, and a lot of the levels feel perfunctory rather than actually fun.
The Meating does try to mix things up a bit by introducing various abilities as progress is made. The goal here is to add additional layers of complexity to the puzzles, giving Kon tools that he needs to use to actually make it to the end of each level. Unfortunately, the various abilities don’t ever really add anything to the gameplay. Each one seems to only ever have a single trick or use, so what frequently happens is the game shows the player the one thing it could do and then that idea gets used over and over again in that batch of levels until it all finally just sort of moves on.
The implementation of the mechanics often feels clunky. The control scheme, which requires cycling through powers with the select button and activating them with an Up + B combination, is awkward, and doing this on the Switch just isn’t that enjoyable. The icons are kind of a mess too, so it gets to the point where there are a handful that need to be cycled through and it isn’t clear which power is what without trying them out. At no part did any of these skills feel fun. It was often just a thing you need to do to get past a part, and they are no more exciting than finding a locked door and having to dig through pockets to find the right keycard.
There’s also an issue where this seems to be more dedicated to feeling like an NES title than actually being something entertaining. Its priorities were to pass as a real NES game and then that was it. There are a lot of examples where The Meating could’ve been better if it embraced a more modern design philosophy, and its adherence to NES gameplay design repeatedly ends up with it actually shooting itself in the foot. Occasionally it is something little. For example, a password system is employed for saving progress – a clear nod to its NES inspirations. Well, there is no one out there that wanted that…
Absolutely nobody’s favorite part of an NES game was its cumbersome password system, and including it might feel authentic but it also completely misses the point on why people liked these sort of titles in the first place. This does automatically prepopulate the passwords on the password input screen, so it isn’t a huge deal. It is just another example of a bad idea The Meating uses in lieu of actual fun gameplay design.
The Meating looks quite like a real NES title, but that by itself isn’t necessarily a good thing. Visually it captures the essence of 8-bit era graphics with its pixelated art style and limited colour palette. Each level is distinct, with environments ranging from eerie slaughterhouses to candlelit mansions. However, once again its commitment to authenticity works against it. The visuals are faithful but lack the polish and detail expected in contemporary retro-inspired titles. There are indies inspired by this style that look great, and then there are those that are inspired by NES that…well, just look like NES games, which isn’t the compliment some might think it is.
On a similar note, the music is serviceable but lacks memorable melodies that could enhance the overall experience. The Meating would’ve been better served coming up with a distinct personality or aesthetic, and instead this package feels like a lazy emulation of the thing it is trying to be. There are ways to draw inspiration from something and still elevate that into something more interesting, and The Meating doesn’t even try to do that.
All flaws mentioned so far would’ve been more forgivable if The Meating was fun to play, but it isn’t. It offers a somewhat challenging experience, particularly on the harder difficulty, so it does at least get that element of the good ol’ NES right. It doesn’t really do it in a “fun” way, though, and most of the challenge is just figuring out what this wants one to do. Boss battles are sort of a lowlight, and there is a lot of trial and error that doesn’t really feel satisfying to work through. It goes beyond the underwhelming boss fights, though, and a lot of levels have parts that feel borderline unfair.
There are plenty of ways to accidentally softlock oneself in a stage and there are going to be a lot of times you just have to quit and restart because of some mistake that wasn’t obvious to avoid. It is easy to mismanage the ability meter, and there are a lot of levels where running out of that leaves no other option than a forced restart. There are also dead ends and pits that you can’t get out of, and it is always particularly frustrating when a death occurs because of exploration.
