King of Meat review—Well seasoned, but undercooked

King of Meat is an emotional roller coaster. I enjoy the electrifying world, the satisfying combat, and the inspired dungeon designs. But I was also tearing out what’s left of my hair in frustration at the contradictory flow of the combat and annoyed by the self-indulgent presentation and grating characters. These issues undercut everything I enjoyed about this co-op party platformer.

King of Meat's combat feels good. You can unlock several weapons, and the hammer was my favorite. Hearing its crunch when slamming skeletons and seeing the floor crack never got old. Shaking my hips in place to tee off with a golf swing is pure fun. Other weapons feel similarly satisfying, but excitement fades once hordes of enemies appear, especially armored enemies.

There’s a paradox between combat and enemy design. All attacks have long post-attack pauses that leave me vulnerable unless I cancel with a dodge, which makes sense. However, with so many enemies chasing and shooting me from all directions, there are few opportunities to stay in one place and use combos. I'm limited to single attack-dodge cycles, which sucks the fun out of combat and makes combos pointless.

Armored enemies make combat even more frustrating because attacks have no effect until their staggered meter is filled. This meter is only filled with a slow, close-quarters shove or strong attacks, which often feel impractical while hordes close in. The most difficult armored enemies require special items found in the dungeon, making your initial loadout feel inadequate against them.

That design conflict also affected completing weapon challenges, which strengthen weapons as you complete them. Many challenges require completing combo strings, so I picked dungeons with the weakest enemies, ultimately pulling me from more interesting gameplay.

Online lag also disrupted combos. Sometimes I’d launch enemies for an air combo, but they stayed grounded, flailing as if airborne, negating my ability to hit them in the air. Even worse, lag occasionally deleted an input, so my combo didn’t register.

Tonics help mitigate some of the issues with unbalanced combat. They provide buffs (or debuffs to the enemy) for one dungeon. They’re essential on harder difficulties and noticeably impact combat, but against armored enemies, they don't help change the approach to combat.

Glory Moves are another helpful tool. Consider them King of Meat’s ultimate moves. Some freeze enemies, some heal over time, or unleash a satisfying projectile belch. They’re very useful at higher difficulties, but neither Tonics nor Glory Moves fix the imbalance caused by armored enemies.

Thankfully, King of Meat is more than a glorified tenderizer simulator. It shines as a puzzle platformer. The dungeons, inspired by platforming classics, use in-game assets and collectathon design well. Traps require planning each jump, and treasure chests are cleverly hidden. I often finished dungeons thinking I’d found every chest, only to realize I had missed most. That motivated me to hit replay and search for more.

What's frustrating is that, regardless of difficulty, you always get the same amount of experience to level up. Leveling up unlocks new skins and weapons. You could spend 30 minutes tackling the toughest dungeons and collecting treasures to increase the high score on the leaderboard, but none of that is reflected in the experience earned. I saved a lot of time by speedrunning easy dungeons, which felt like I was undermining my own efforts, and was boring.

King of Meat includes matchmaking with 2-4 players, and is infinitely better with others. Most of the core issues aren't resolved, and in fact, co-op can present more challenges like partners killing an enemy you had in a combo or increased latency, but I would rather matchmake than play solo ten out of ten times.

A standout feature is the dungeon creator. Glowmade gives designers a full suite of surprisingly robust options. Navigating menus can be a little intimidating, but once I got used to it, creating scenarios and using the logic editor became enjoyable. A mouse would be more efficient, but building on the Series X is adequate and comfortable, and it’s easy to find and play user-made dungeons, which are organized by type, like “New” or “Trending," so the best dungeons are easily accessible.

Unfortunately, there are more annoyances outside of the dungeons: the hub world. Shopkeepers — who sell skins, upgrades, tonics, and glory moves — bombard you with pointless dialogue and annoyingly try to make themselves the center of attention. I end up smashing the skip button to move on, which is a shame because the voice acting is excellent.

Cutscenes further disrupt the experience. They act like ads, and just like real ads, they get in the way. Some are funny, and all are well-animated and voiced, but they slow me down. The ads don’t immerse or connect me to the world or characters, and they don’t tell a story. They feel like director's cut content, except they should have been cut. The intro animation is similarly long, crammed with silliness, hard to follow, self-indulgent, and I couldn’t wait for it to end.