Mewgenics Review
Copious amounts of blood, dismemberment, decapitation, scattered entrails, fecal matter, loads of cats humping, plenty of innuendos and so much more. Unsurprisingly, the tone is going to be devise and this is the litmus test for Mewgenics, because if any of this makes you uncomfortable, it only gets worse. The thing is, Mewgenics has strategic depth that can go paw to paw with the best tactics games ever.
Unfortunately, Mewgenics doesn’t feature a strong narrative or give the player much purpose, it also doesn’t hold your hand and can feel pretty unforgiving at times. However, what it lacks it overcompensates with emergent gameplay due to the plethora of variables, the absurd creativity, and extremely deep tactical systems to the point that no two runs ever feel same, which is rarified air for a roguelite.
Mewgenics is a perfect amalgam of excitement, discovery, strategy, shock, and disgust, but you would expect nothing less from the creators of The Binding of Isaac, Super Meat Boy and The End is Nigh.
9
If you want a review with more nuance, continue reading below or check out the video
MEWGENICS REVIEW
Mewgenics is a turn based tactical roguelite about breeding an army of supercats. The gameplay loop of Mewgenics seems initially straightforward as you form a small platoon of four cats, either bred or strays, and then head out into the world looking for food, money and extremely useful junk. If the cats are lucky enough to survive this cruel world and return to the house with spoils, they will become retired, which means they wont be available for future runs, but will be able to defend the house, which comes later in the game and breed that will hopefully capture their valuable bloodline.
Before heading out, you will need to give each cat a collar, which will determine their class and what feline powers each cat will have. You will initially have a choice of the more common RPG classes including Fighter who needs to be up close for melee damage, Tank who can try to take most of the team damage, Hunter who attacks from range, and Mage who deals magical spells. After this, you will slowly begin unlocking new collars that add a new level of complexity and team synergy. All classes are fun and feel well balanced, meaning that player choice isn’t dictated by the best class, but by how they want to experience the game.
Choosing the class is extremely important because the collars are transformative. It will decide a good portion of their starting skillset, their base health, and more, which greatly influences how you utilize each cat on the battlefields. Pairing the right inherited skills with the right collar can be game changing. Collars will also play a large role in determining the base character stats of each cat. If you’ve ever played any RPG, you will be familiar with strength, dexterity, consitution, intelligence, speed, charisma and luck. These stats will greatly affect how far you can move, your critical chance, your mana regeneration after each round, how quickly you take your turn and much more.
After deciding your classes, the cats will venture into the alleys and from there the adventure will take them all over the city from places like the sewers to the junkyard, the cemeteries and anywhere else a cat can get into trouble. Each biome has its own unique soundtrack, biome specific enemies and when combined with how different each environment looks and behaves, it makes each biome feel distinct, despite each one using the same 10x10 grid formula.
The way that Mewgenics lays out each act might look different, but for anyone familiar with Slay The Spire, it will be second nature. There are combat encounters, elite combat encounters, shops, event spaces and the eventual boss. Unlike Spire, there is less choice during, as your only given one choice during each act, which is around the halfway mark and you can take the fork in the road for the more difficult path full of more rewards.
The big difference comes at the end of the act, if you can defeat the boss. You will have to decide whether to play it safe by heading back to the house with the surviving members of your war torn platoon or risk it all and push forward to the next act. Bringing home treasures, food and money to upgrade the house and feed all the waiting mouths is very helpful, but real value is the DNA of your cats, who are now battle tested and have acquired possible game changing skills and passives. Losing resources is tough, but losing rare abilities and mutations is worse. If you decide to push forward you will also have the choice of different biomes.
This is the point where Mewgenics plants its flag firmly in the sand of what makes it unique, aside from the obvious visuals and tone. The legacy cat breeding element that can be passed on to further generations to make super cats and push past your previous limits with ease. During each act, the cats will individually level up, which happens mostly from combat, but also from events between combat or shop purchases. The cats will be able to gain four different abilities or passives for either offensive, defensive, movement and miscellaneous.
I’d also be remiss not to mention that at the end of each act waits a boss that presents an extremely unique challenge paired with an incredibly original song, which make the boss fights feel like much more than just another stop on the map. Although the entire soundtrack is great, the score during the boss fights is exquisite.
MEWGENICS FURBALLS (CRITICISMS)
Mewgenics has a very steep learning curve, not because the gameplay is hard to understand, but because of the absurd amount of variety with over ten very different classes, over two hundred unique enemies, thousands of different abilities, another thousand items and many different biomes with very different environmental effects. This doesn’t even get into trying to breed the best super soldier cat.
On the bright side, this abundance is a large reason why runs are like snowflakes, but it also means that there will be a lot of times when you’re forced to learn the hard way. A good run can completely come off the tracks for many reasons that you couldn’t possibly be prepared for and the only way to understand is with hard knocks. Meeting a new boss or even a different ability from that same boss on a subsequent run or crossing an enemy with a debuff you weren’t prepared for or picking an upgrade that wasn’t fully clear and ends up causing more harm than good. Due to the sheer amount of variety across the board, this can become a common occurrence.
The battlefields in Mewgenics can become a little too chaotic. When you combine your starting squad, the enemy forces, environmental items and then add in hazards, pickups, body parts and more, it can become hard to determine what’s happening. This is problematic because there might be a tiny flea or maggot that you cant see who is about to deal enough damage to turn the tide of battle or a bomb’s fuse that is still lit that you don’t see, which can decimate your platoon and abruptly end an otherwise great run.
A way to remedy this would be to offer the player a little more control. Unfortunately, there is no way to zoom in, zoom out or at the very least rotate around the battlefield, which would alleviate nearly all of these headaches. Some tactical games allow full rotation, but even having four preset angles at 90 degree increments would be incredibly helpful. There is a tactical view, which flattens the whole maps into basic icons, which is helpful, but doesn’t solve all the issues and it’s also not fun to look at.
This isn’t going to bother everyone, but at the end of the run, there is no statistical analysis. In other run based games, there is usually some stats to dive into to see how certain items and abilities performed, which is very helpful to inform future runs, as well as what cats should be sent down the pipe and used for upgrade currency instead.
MEWGENICS FINAL VERDICT
Playing Mewgenics is like watching a car crash or doomscrolling as it triggers the same parts of your limbic system in the brain. There’s a voice in your head telling you there is something morally wrong with what you’re doing, but the tactical gameplay depth and near infinite combinations provide such a fantastical and addictive experience that Mewgenics overpowers that voice in your head, as you feel compelled to push ethical boundaries rivalling Dr Moreau or Dr Frankenstein and become the best mad scientist of all time.
Mewgenics might lack an engaging narrative, but not every game requires one and that’s not why you're here. The real draw is the emergent gameplay paired with the unpredictable nature of each run due to the sheer amount of variables, it’s always captivating, heavily strategic and despite how borderline unfair it can feel at times, just like catnip, Mewgenics is irresistible.
