Mewgenics
Developers: Edmund McMillen, Tyler Glaiel
Publishers: Edmund McMillen, Tyler Glaiel, Nicalis
Platforms: Xbox Series X (Reviewed), PlayStation 5, PC, Switch 2
Release Date: Available Now
Price: $39.99 USD – Available Here
Overview
What do you do when you’ve already created what many saw to be one of the greatest roguelikes of its time? Well, people love cats right? How about teaming up with another popular indie dev and making an entire roguelike built around the same twisted humor and design of your signature title while making it all about cats and breeding them together. That is roughly how we have found The Binding of Isaac‘s developer Tyler Glaiel teaming up with Endmund McMillen to bring forth what ended up dropping a bomb of a roguelike with Mewgenics in the most unexpected ways as a PC exclusive early this year. With the signature art style, gross and brutal humor, and more all piled on top of everyone’s favorite felines and now released on consoles, has the console release of Mewgenics been as successful?
Story
Players take on the role of an unnamed “cat lady” that has recently been brought back from the dead by mad scientist Dr. Thomas Beanies and put to work to help him create a race of genetically superior cats, giving the player a small home to work with and a few starting cats to build with in the strange world of Boon County where it is clear that something has already gone quite wrong thanks to the nature of nearly everything around them alongside the enemies players encounter and even allies in other buildings.
It is worth noting that as a roguelike Mewgenics does not force the story on the player strictly, though it does advance as players make progress through various stages and make actual progress into new levels but for the most part a lot of information comes from the NPCs players talk with as they send them cats for improvements, examine the world as their party of four cats venture out and randomly trigger events and encounters, and of course face off against some of the most absurd, humorous, mutated, or even all three in one, bosses possible.
That isn’t to say that Mewgenics doesn’t have an overarching storyline, as it does, but it will likely take players quite a while to make it to the end thanks to the way the roguelike works out and how random things can be. That being said, the major storyline takes the ridiculous nature of the premise to the next level, taking things far beyond the scope of Tyler Glaiel previously had on offer especially thanks to certain reveals that won’t be spoken of here. Ironically, what makes the game shine the most is the moment to moment storytelling that players will end up inventing themselves.
While we will discuss this primary feature more in a bit, the breeding aspect and finding a crew of cats, or even one or two favorites, and having them fight a grueling battle and then retire safely to make some new kittens and live out the rest of their time either slumbering at the player’s home, outside of the occasional last-stand fights that feature players needing to trot out their retired cats to do battle against threats attempting to destroy their very home, until they pass on from old age. This little detail is minor, but a touching element considering how ridiculous the game can be and how attached most people become to their pets, even their digital ones. Let alone the ones that you’ve bred into some form of mutated monstrosity that is obsessed with eating poop and has ADHD but can dish out the most damage of the entire team thanks to being a Butcher class.
Gameplay
On the surface Mewgenics may seem like a fairly simple premise. Select four of your best felines among your growing hoard of cats and send them out on an adventure that will see them battling across multiple zones, triggering events, fights, finding items, and if they are lucky, fighting the boss at the end of a stage if they don’t die along the way. But the reality is far more complicated than that as not only does combat take place in a strategy-RPG style manner, even successful felines can’t return to fight another round as they retire after a successful mission. Instead these retired cats will now be able to be used for the other core aspect of Mewgenics, the breeding mechanics and passing on their strengths, traits, and weaknesses down to their offspring.
Mewgenics‘ breeding system is about as complex as they come and also involves some of the biggest elements of RNG outside of the actual adventures themselves as players will initially only have a little bit of information to work off of for their various cats since, despite being a cat lady, the player’s character can’t even figure out their sex on their own to start with. This means players will need various upgrades and improvements to their home and unlocks from neighbors to eventually uncover various traits about their cats such as what male or female cats may bond and mate the best and whether some rival might try to start a fight instead. Similarly, trying to pair two males together will just end up in a fight as well or neither cat breeding as a result, often with some rather humorous looking circumstances.
Another aspect of the breeding system is how stats will eventually play into what roles and abilities the kittens will be able to inherit and take on as a result. Since cats can pass on various attributes and skills to their kittens, some may start off strong with unique abilities right off the bat that make them better suited to a class assignment than others while others may have mutations or disorders that may make them either less useful, or paired properly with the right equipment or teammates, incredibly powerful. Various class unlocks as well as equipment comes in the form of completing missions and stages throughout the game’s campaign and while not everything is carried over should players die, most standard home upgrades do and players will almost always have a generally large flock of cats to fall back on, even if they might need to do a bit of work to build their strength up to match their fallen counterparts.
Outside of the house and into the adventures themselves, players will be able to send out a team of up to four selected cats as they travel through various nodes that range from battle nodes, items or discoveries, random events, and more. The battle nodes are the most unique element here since that is where the real challenge comes into play. As mentioned before, fights are handled on a turn-based isometric strategy-RPG grid where the environment can play a major factor into some elements as well. Tall grass can be used to reduce enemy accuracy, however it can also be set on fire to deal massive damage to anything inside of the grass. Similarly water spells can be used to douse flame but are weakened in areas of high heat. This means players will want to bring a team that’ll be able to handle most situations while trying to also min-max as much as possible, even if it means a bit of loss along the way.
There are two major issues that come with Mewgenics and while one of them is more like a general issue of roguelikes in general, the other is the fact that so much information is dumped on the player at once with very little introduction, meaning most will find themselves either flailing blindly until they get the hang of things or using a guide to try and figure out what each mutation might be best or various benefits from combining certain equipment with certain disorders. The other issue is that randomness can sometimes be a major factor in completely ruining a run or devastating a player’s progress for a short period of time. This is something to be expected in a roguelike but it often feels exceptionally punishing here since runs can often last for a few hours with a team on later stages and while it is possible to “save scum” the game does warn players that there are consequences for doing it too many times that include debuffing the player’s cats and straight up removing control if they do it too often in a run.
Audio & Visuals
Mewgenics is something akin to a fever dream someone might have of how felines might look when they’ve been subjected to radioactive material… or cross-bred so much that some of their kittens might barely look like a normal cat anymore, let alone a cat that might have two heads or some other weird mutation. The creepy-chibi design of the world is bleak and wonderful at the same time with stylish presentation and the multitude of feline designs making it possible for players to spend hours upon hours and not manage to get an exact duplicate. Combine this with the dark nature and crude designs sometimes, including plenty of crude animations, and a large enemy variety to work with and Mewgenics will have plenty to keep players looking at throughout their entire time with the roguelike.
The title doesn’t feature much in the way of voice work unless you count meowing because in that case the game features so much meowing and purring that it’s a wonder how many they’ve crafted for the game. The soundtrack also consists of a ridiculously catchy number of background tracks that work with both the exploration and combat missions and even the slower moments back at the home base where players will find themselves tidying up the mess that comes with living with a hoard of in-bred and mutated cats, with nearly every song being a perfect fit for the nature of the game.
Overall
Mewgenics makes the transition to consoles purrfectly and it does it in a way that not only makes sure that this exceptional roguelike has retained all of its unique humor and grossly cartoonish designs but all of its complexity as well, making it one of the deepest games of its genre. That being said, while Mewgenics remains a hilarious and often great time, it can be just as frustrating as it is enjoyable due to poor luck and some real rough onboarding for those who have never played the game before.
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