Gideon’s Perspective
Mewgenics is a game that completely exceeded my expectations, and that’s saying something because the pre-release hype had me pretty pumped. By that I mean I consumed every single video that the game’s creators, Edmund McMillan and Tyler Gael put out as I impatiently waited for the game to release.
You can find a video version of this review on YouTube!
However, most of the time when I’m excited for a game, I hit a pinch point where my expectations clearly exceed the scope of the project. In Mewgenics, that simply never happened. It instead impressed me at every turn. I would write down multiple criticisms, only for the game to later address those criticisms the longer I played.
For example, I had worried that the lack of difficulty settings would impact the replay value, and I felt let down that house bosses never reappeared once defeated. Later in the game Mewgenics revealed that neither was true, you unlock higher difficulties and can resummon house bosses. I had to scratch out those notes.
That’s not to say I don’t have a few complaints. The humor is simply juvenile and painfully unfunny. I’m also not a fan of things being gross for the sake of it. I could do without poop monsters and fetus creatures. It’s Edmund’s style though, and I’m not throwing shade his way, we just have very different tastes when it comes to comedy and aesthetics. That said, there’s only a handful of things in the game that actually make my stomach queasy and for the most part, I love the New Grounds art style, I am a Millennial after all.
However, unlike The Binding of Issac, Edmund’s hit from over 10 years ago. I was able to push through those minor feelings of disgust and I’m glad I did, because Mewgenics is well worth the effort. What Edmund and Tyler have crafted isn’t just game of the year material, it’s game of the decade material. Mewgenics is the type of game that, just like Binding of Issac, will influence the entire rogue-lite genre going forward. It’s that good, and I truly believe it’s infinitely replayable.
| Gideon’s Bias | Mewgenics Information |
|---|---|
| Review Copy Used: No | Publisher: Edmund McMillen & Tyler Gael |
| Hours Played: 200+ | Type: Full Game |
| Reviewed On: PC | Platforms: PC |
| Fan of Genre: Yes | Genre: Rogue-lite, Turn Based Tactics |
| Mode Played: Normal & Hard | Price: $29.99 |
Mastercraft Game Mewchanics
There isn’t just one specific game mechanic that makes Mewgenics the brilliant game that it is, but a combination of several that work in tandem. With how I style my game reviews, it’s difficult to actually find a starting point, so I guess I’ll start with this. Mewgenics is the deepest rogue-lite and tactics game I’ve ever played. Yet, it’s shockingly simple to pick up and play, the depth is under the surface.
The gist of it is, you raise cats, assign them classes and items and send them out on adventures. During these adventures you loot items, gather food, encounter random events that often have DnD style skill checks and control your cats in tactical turn-based combat. The first flash of brilliance is the combat system itself.
By default, your cats can move once, attack once, use an item and can spend mana on abilities. The mana system is very clever. Your cats can use as many abilities as they have mana for, and it regains each turn based on their intelligence. This immediately separates Mewgenics from most tactics’ games.
You see, in most tactic games, including tabletop RPG’s such as DnD and Pathfinder. Both sides have to have roughly the same number of units, with a slight bit of leeway. This is because of action economy. The side with more units has more actions, and thus a huge advantage. The number of actions your cats can take, however, is fluid, and that allows enemy encounters to be fluid as well.
Many enemies in the game take more than one turn per round, and bosses in particular take several. However, you are always aware of the turn order and can plan around it. You can build your cats around knowing exactly how much mana they have each turn, so you know which of your abilities can be cast every turn, or what ones you have to conserve for. It may seem like a small thing, but it’s an extremely solid foundation that holds up the rest of the games mechanics.
The mana system is simple to grasp, but very strategic, and it blends into the second cog of Mewgenics machine. Combos and Synergy.
Cat Crafting
When you are setting off on an adventure, you know your cats stats, and any inherent abilities or passives they have either by default or through breeding. However, they will also have a starting active ability and passive ability from the class you assign them, and you don’t know what those are until you lock in. Once you lock in, those abilities are revealed and you can assign any items you have in your inventory to your cats.
As you adventure, you will acquire new items and get to choose from a random assortment of abilities for your cats based on their class. This is where things get very interesting. There are so many items and abilities in Mewgenics that I doubt even the developers know every interaction. It is here that you can craft a wide variety of builds, some of which will have average power, some that are game breaking and others that will completely blow up in your face.
For example. I had a ranger cat who had a powerful ability that dealt a ton of damage, but missed 70% of the time. I was able to combine it with an item that made sure physical attacks never missed. Another cat had a passive ability where after attacking, they would turn 180 degrees and attack again. Most of the time it would only get used in niche situations, but then I managed to get another passive that made them attack every adjacent space. That meant the cat would attack all around itself, turn around, and attack all around itself again.
I had found a really powerful hammer, but it reduced the speed of the cat wielding it so much that it could barely move. I was able to combine it with a bionic set of armor that made it so the cat could teleport anywhere, negating that weakness.
On the flip side, there can be unexpected consequences of your cats’ builds. I had a cat who would trample over and damage anything in its path. I had another cat who could call allies to it, but when I used it on my trampler, it trampled everything, including my entire team. I’ve accidentally electrocuted my entire team because they wore conductive metal, or were wet. I once had a cat with Necrophage who obsessively ate dead bodies, including its own fallen allies, pity I didn’t remember that when I used an ability that intentionally downed my own cat right beside it. There is a crazy number of combinations in Mewgenics and the games reactivity to those combos feel limitless.
Mewgenics clever design encourages you to find game breaking combos, but seldom allows you to abuse them. Each cat can only go on a run once, after that they are retired. They can breed and can defend your house, but they can’t be used on another run. When you combine that with randomly finding items, and making different skill choices, you are forced to adapt to each run. You can’t simply aim for the same build each time.
That isn’t to say you have no agency, you do. You choose what items to buy, what ones to keep in your limited stash space, and what skills to learn from the four random ones you are presented with each level. Most importantly, you can also breed your cats to try and set up build ideas ahead of time.
Breeding Cats
Between runs you manage your house and cats in it. You set up rooms with furniture that influence your cats and try to breed out powerful new bloodlines. The set up is actually rather simple, compatible cats will breed if left in a room where the comfort level is high, but that’s just scratching the surface.
You need to be wary of inbreeding, as it causes birth defects. You need to purchase furniture for rooms that influence how often cats breed, the quality of the kittens, whether or not they heal from injuries and develop new mutations. Cats can get into fights and wound or even kill each other each night, so you have to be aware of that too.
As you progress in Mewgenics and the runs get harder, you need to move on from simply breeding new cats, to breeding them effectively. Combining two parents with high stats that cover each other’s weaknesses is one part of the equation, but your cats can also pass skills and mutations down to their offspring. This is one of the ways you can multi-class cats, so to speak, and it blows the doors wide open on combo potential. On the flip side, they can also pass on disorders, but even disorders can be built around, as they tend to be both negative and positive.
Breeding cats with the stats, mutations, skills and disorders you want is a big part of the game, and one that gives you agency in how you approach runs. You are never in full control. You always have to adapt to a degree. But you can certainly set up a solid foundation to adapt from.
While breeding cats, you are bound to end up with far more than you actually need. This is where another form of meta progression comes in. There are various NPCs that you can send cats too in order to get a bigger house, more stash space and other benefits. Each NPC wants different types of cats, kittens, retired cats, injured cats and so forth. You also have to decide which ones to give away and what ones to keep.
It all works really well, the breeding system is a little obtuse, and intentionally so. You can’t just slap cats together and forget about it, not unless you want inbred monstrosities. You have to be mindful with a vested interest in your bloodlines. I’d honestly recommend a pen and paper to help keep track, but it certainly keeps you invested in the system.
Meowster Hunting
The enemy design in Mewgenic’s is another masterful system that makes the whole game a cohesive tactical experience. Enemies in the game are predictable, they aren’t units with massive arrays of abilities. They have a niche purpose in combat and are designed to fulfill that purpose. You might have rats that charge straight ahead, or a spider that webs units, then moves to bite them on the following turn.
Another enemy might slow your cats from a distance or shoot at the cat farthest from them. The point is, you can learn their patterns and how they act. You can eventually identify them at a glance, as they each have their own visual personality alongside their mechanics.
That may sound like fighting them is easy, but far from it. First of all, each region has numerous enemy set ups, you never know what you are going to come across, and you never see all the enemies of a given region in one run. Secondly, it’s an ever-changing tactical puzzle based on your own cats.
The way you approach any given fight is going to vary drastically based on your cats’ classes, and items, and even two cats of the same class will likely play far differently based on their stats, skills, and mutations. And that’s without factoring in the more random elements such as weather or environmental hazards.
If you play long enough, you might start to recognize some enemy constellations. But in my 200+ hours of playing it hasn’t even begun to feel repetitive. This also applies to the boss fights. The boss fights in Mewgenics are excellent, and very deliberate.
You might face a rat that throws bombs that go off on its next turn if you don’t attack and disarm them. Or a giant blubbery beast named Boris who constantly moves toward and tramples whoever attacks it. These boss fights always feel different because the tools at your disposal are ever changing. How you fight each one is going to vary with each team of cats, and it works great. It allows each boss to have its own quirks independent of the player.
It also gives you agency in your approach. You know that if you are going encounter Boris, that anything that can immobilize him is very effective, and you can try to plan ahead.
It makes every fight a cerebral experience, you have to constantly adapt to a puzzle where your tools are different each time, and the lives of your cats hang in the balance. There are no filler fights in Mewgenics, not unless you take super bred cats into the easiest zone for some reason. Each one has you thoughtfully pondering your next move, or what would be the most efficient way to win.
Sometimes you also have to decide between efficiency and safety. Your cats don’t fully heal after battle, but you gain better rewards the faster you win a combat. You have to decide whether to take more damage for efficiency or play more conservatively. There are also coins, and birds on the field, and killing birds nets extra items. You have to decide if you can spare the time and effort to collect them.
After each region boss, you can decide to cut early and come home. That’s often a good idea if you are already having a rough time. A full party wipe not only means that those cats are dead, but you also lose any items you brought and everything you have collected. You often have the weigh the risk of pushing onward, versus leaving early.
One sign of a good game is how often it presents you with a meaningful decision to make. In Mewgenics, it’s constant and unrelenting. You always have important decisions to make, both in and out of combat.
Embracing Chaos
Embracing chaos is also a part of Mewgenics. You face events and skill checks that usually allow you to make choices, but also leaves some of the consequences to chance. Perhaps a weather event occurs that changes how you have to fight through a zone. Maybe your cat gets equipped with a cursed object or parasite that alters it’s play style. They could even walk away with serious gameplay altering disorders.
At times it can seem unfair, but it’s actually another tool the game uses to keep things unpredictable. Have I had entire builds negated by an event outcome? Yes, and it tested my ability to adapt to a new situation. That’s the thing with Mewgenics, some things certainly happen that are out of my control. But I’ve never lost a run that I felt wasn’t ultimately my own fault, no matter how much an event had screwed me.
Mewgenics is all about skill expression, and part of that skill is the ability to adapt to unforeseen circumstances. Given the sheer brutality of the game, Mewgenics is surprisingly fair, it’s why the enemies and bosses are built to be as predictable as they are.
Chaos keeps things from being routine. Mewgenics allows you to break the game in hundreds of ways, to balance those scales, the game is also allowed to break you right back. Adapting to that chaos is part of the fun.
So, Much, Game
The scale of Mewgenics is difficult to fathom. There are around 900 items, and each of the 14 classes, has around 75 abilities, of which you can mix and match through breeding. It’s an insane amount of stuff. However, the number of zones, bosses and enemies is also incredible. I thought I was reaching the end several times, and even rolled credits more than once, only for Mewgenics to go “But wait there’s more!”
I expected around 3 to 5 zones, I got over 16, each with their own distinct personality, enemies and bosses. That’s not including a number of house bosses that show up, or side quests that Doctor Beanie gives you, each of which dramatically shifts how a given run plays. Finally, you also unlock additional difficulties, each of which also has additional unlocks.
At the time of writing this review I have 200 hours in Mewgenics spread over two save files and I haven’t finished what I believe is the final zone. I also have no intention of stopping once I do. Mewgenics may be the most replayable game I’ve ever come across.
In many ways I still feel like I’m just scratching the surface when it comes to builds and combos and the game is still challenging me every step of the way. At no point has the game felt remotely repetitive or routine. Every run is a new challenge that tests my tactical and problem-solving skills. Mewgenics is going to be a game I come back to for many years. It’s as evergreen as they come, and that’s without the inevitable expansions that Edmund and Tyler have planned.
Verdict
I know it’s early to call it, but I’ve already found my game of the year, and it’s Mewgenics. While I am looking forward to other games, I very much doubt anything is going to dislodge Mewgenics from the throne. It’s one of the best games I’ve played in 10 years, maybe ever. I’m honestly concerned that it may have ruined both, other rogue-lites and tactics games for me.
Heck, even the music is top notch. The tunes Mewgenics fills your ears with has no right to be so good given how wacky the lyrics are. Good luck getting them out of your head once you hear them, they live there now.
I think Mewgenics is ultimately the magnum opus of what I value in video games. It’s a near infinite sandbox of skillful strategy and tactics, blended with an immense amount of gameplay that is highly replayable. Mewgenics is a game that makes me engage and think every time I sit down with it.
Mewgenics is the very highlight of what the rogue-lite genre can be while surpassing the games that got me into the tactics genre in the first place, such as Final Fantasy Tactics, and it does so by nearly every metric. It’s mind blowing to realize that I only paid $30 for it. Less than half the price of a AAA game that wouldn’t last me a fraction of the time.
I’m obviously giving Mewgenics my golden shield award.
