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The appeal of Mewgenics gameplay is very similar to the appeal of Mewgenics as a concept. Similar to the thrill of pushing the limits of cat breeding, this cross-pollination between roguelikes and turn-based RPGs is an experiment that may look unnatural but expertly walks the line between awe-inspiring and morbidly horrific.
Thus, it is not surprising to learn that Mewgenics is the long-term love child of Edmund McMillen (Binding of Isaac, Super Meat Boy) and Tyler Glaiel, conceived 14 years ago. This game skillfully weaves together a style that rests on a knife’s edge between freaky and funny, all while remaining one of the tightest rougelikes and turn-based RPGs I have played to date.
Bite club
The opening is typical roguelike fare; we are given a brief bit of context (something about going adventuring for science, don’t worry about it) before being given a decision not unlike choosing a Pokémon starter. We need to choose two cats (one male, one female), with the game once again asserting its tone as the cat we do not choose is broken down for parts.
Then we are quickly thrust out the door and into the first battle, which thankfully borrows from the best. Though this fight is perhaps a little less sophisticated than what you might expect from a tactical RPG like Final Fantasy Tactics, the grid system and clearly shown turn order are both more than welcome additions.
There are really three core actions: movement, attacks, and magic. The movement and attack actions are limited to one use per turn. However, the ability to move before you attack and vice versa is perfect in allowing positioning to feel just as important as attacking, as you have to manage hits while maintaining safe distances within a one-use constraint.
Spells are where this combat becomes truly magical. This system is managed by an MP bar, where the player receives MP for a unit at the end of each unit’s turn. Importantly, these actions are not limited to a single use per turn. As long as you have MP and can target something, you can keep firing away.
The cats will mostly gain new magics each time they level up, and the amount of strategic depth it brings is incredible. It is no exaggeration to say that strategies will almost entirely revolve around these moves, and finding synergies within a certain cat’s toolkit proves exceptionally satisfying.
This is also where the forecasted turn order adds an extra depth that elevates the system to new heights. This additional layer of information scratches the tactical itch in a big way.
In one run, an ice spell became a crucial move, allowing me to carefully manage when my foe could act by slowing them. I had to balance my need to deal damage with the need to keep the initiative. This balancing act turned what could have been a frustrating fight into a satisfying puzzle to crack.
First surprise
Being a roguelike, gameplay in Mewgenics is built around ‘runs’. Those who played the likes of indie darling Inscryption will be right at home here. There are occasional fights intermixed with random events designed to reward you with gear or advantages in combat.
Should you fail, you’ll find you’ve wasted an encounter, or perhaps, you’ll be saddled with some worse fate, such as a random mutation to one of your feline friends.
Gear adds another layer of spice, often providing boons such as health regen or an extra attack. While equipped gear can be lost upon a total party kill, your equipment choices often determine your success in combat, creating a palpable tension rooted in choosing what to equip and who to equip it to.
Conversely, random events end up feeling like a weak link. These events offer little in terms of choice, often only relying on luck. The most common event will see a random cat from your party faced with a random task requiring them to pass a check on one of their stats.
While there can sometimes be multiple options, as you are told the stats required, it is often a case of choosing the option best suited to the cat’s highest stat. Thus, success and failure can feel almost entirely luck-based, which is more annoying when you often rely on gear to clear encounters.
Bothersome cats
Though beyond the adventure, the focus here is on the breeding, and the game certainly does not shy away from the gory details. The game will occasionally take you to your home, where any cats who had braved the outdoors will retire, as you are forced to find/create your next 4 compatriots to brave the great outdoors.
The system is basic on the surface. When a mommy cat and daddy cat love each other very much, a game developer makes you watch as they make the beast with two backs, and a baby containing potential traits from one or both emerges. Though the game does not forget about ideas such as inbreeding or sexual preference, which quickly complicates things.
The game largely balances this well, as you have to constantly manage the breeding stock to ensure survival of the fittest cats while avoiding obvious issues such as birth defects. Though this can once again feel a little luck-based, as breeding occurs randomly between random partners. Additionally, since there’s no overview menu, it can often be tedious to actually check moves or attributes.
That said, Mewgenics allows plenty of options in managing the herd, through its cast of colourful characters to whom you can donate your dead or less-than-desirable cats. This feeds back into providing the player money or furniture, which can be used to upgrade your home, ensuring a good feeling of forward progress despite failures (see also Hades 2).
This brings us to the final layer of customization: classes. The standard array of fighter, mage, tank, and hunter is here, offering a good set of base skills/stats to help dish out and distribute damage.
There are other classes to unlock as you progress, such as a thief or a butcher, once again adding good layers of customization to keep things fresh even 50-plus hours into the game. This also helps to relieve the burden of luck introduced through breeding.
While moves and attributes will be random, the role of each class tends to remain fixed. Even if you may have slightly different moves, a tank is still a tank. This is helped as a cat assigned a class will get class-specific moves before you begin, and will gain additional class-specific moves / passive abilities per level up.
Equally, the game forecasts which stats each class will need; this makes deciding on which class to assign to whom far easier. Though luck is still a factor, breeding is a good baseline for messing around and seeing what sticks while providing plenty of space to make mistakes and rectify them through class choice or level-ups further down the line.
Overall, Mewgenics does a good job of keeping you on your feet as you would want from a roguelike, constantly changing your party and forcing you to experiment with new combos or moves. Though with a combat system like this, you do sometimes wish you had better control over which moves or attributes you will end up with.
Mewgenics is a real love letter to turn-based RPGs and rougelikes alike, providing plenty of simple experimentation and innovation on the genre, all while keeping the process accessible enough to allow anyone to pick up and play.
If you are looking for the next great rougelike to dominate hundreds of hours of your life, this is easily a top choice.
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