Mutant Mudds started off as an indie darling that burst onto the scene in 2012 on the 3DS, then appeared in a “deluxe” Wii U port the next year—the “deluxe” features would later be patched into the 3DS original. Mutant Mudds was always a challenging game, and the final stages of the normal and “deluxe” packages cemented that fact. I cannot imagine too many of you walked away from completing the full Mutant Mudds experience thinking, “I need more of that, but much more unforgiving.”

But for those of you who lifted your fist to the heavens, crying out for more mud-encrusted punishment, your day has finally arrived. Mutant Mudds Super Challenge is here—it is, for all intents and purposes, both a sequel and an expansionpack. If offers the same assets and tile sets we’ve seen before, spread across 40 new stages and five boss battles (a first for the series). The difference is in the degree of masochism. From the word go, Super Challenge offers a punishing and occasionally cruel experience limited only by your individual threshold for pain and misery. There’s a death counter, too, in case you need to be reminded how pitiful your gamer skillz are.

It’s all brutally challenging, yes, but never impossible. I will say that the final stages—including their corresponding bonus stages—had me considering a different pastime. The last ghost stage, in particular, was likely responsible for a fifth of my total deaths. It’s here that Super Challenge crosses the line between challenging and frustrating. You’re not really learning anything new when you die; you’re just dying because your brain can only keep track of so many obstacles at once. One way to summarize the experience is that this game is fun until it’s not anymore. Where that line is crossed will differ from player to player.

It is far more difficult to excuse the game’s atrocious bosses. Out of the five, only two are reasonably enjoyable and that’s because they feature a strong platforming element. The other three are just plain frustrating and time-consuming. The Mudd Mage in particular doubtlessly produced a few new gray hairs.

Super Challenge also adds in a new wrinkle to the level design: hollow walls. Occasionally you’ll see an item within a wall, and that usually means Max can move behind it, collecting said item or items. It is frustrating when the wall can only be entered from one side when both are possible—and death awaits those who approach from the wrong direction. There is rarely any indication which side is right, so when you get it wrong, it’s a bit of a gut-punch. And while I won’t say too much about this, there’s another kind of collectible besides tokens and CDs that are fun to find, but their implementation is poorly thought-out. When in doubt, press up. That’s all I’ll say.

I enjoyed most of Super Challenge, but the game’s last few levels and most of the boss fights left me more frustrated than anything else. This is an excellent pick-up for hardcore Mudd fans, but if you’re new to the series, don’t start with this game—go with its predecessor. Even for Mudd diehards, I suspect your mileage may vary.

Second Opinion by Neal Ronaghan

I devoured Mutant Mudds when it first launched. It still stands as one of my more memorable 3DS experiences and was one of my favorite games of 2012. Similarly, I tore through Mutant Mudds Super Challenge, ripping through the 40 stages and five bosses as soon as I could. The stages are all certainly super challenging, but if you’ve kept up with the additions to the original Mudds over the years, the difficulty follows a natural progression. But aside from a few novel design twists, the stages just feel like spike-laden versions of prior levels. It’s still a good time, albeit a little too masochistic for my liking, but it feels more like another expansion akin to the Granny stages or the ghost ones than something brand new.

The elements of Super Challenge that make it feel more like a sequel are also its biggest failings. The boss battles are far more frustrating than fun. If you played the ghost boss in the Nindies@Home E3 demo, you’ve already played, by far, the best one. When the bosses utilize the game’s refined platforming, they excel. When they rely on bullet-hell dodging, they crumble. The prized collectibles, while cool and rewarding, are hidden behind an alarmingly unintuitive secret. Despite finding several of the locations of these things during my first playthrough, I didn’t know I had to press “up” to actually find them (to enter a door). These secrets are so hidden away that there isn’t really an in-game mention about their existence; you’d only know they’re there if you’re reading this or have followed Super Challenge’s development.

My feelings echo Zach’s full review above: if you’re someone who adored Mutant Mudds, Super Challenge might be up your alley. That’s really the only use case here, though. Newcomers should go play the original, and after that, if the original was too easy for your liking, check out Super Challenge.