Reviewed for PC
If you like roguelikes, you know The Binding of Isaac. It’s in the pantheon of the genre’s best games. Edmund McMillen is the designer behind Isaac, Super Meat Boy, and a handful of other cult classic indie games (he’s even in Indie Game: The Movie). But since Nicalis took over The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth back in 2018, McMillen has been working on one game, Mewgenics. In fact, McMillen said that Isaac was originally just an experiment to ‘dip his toe in the water’ for Mewgenics. Now, almost ten years later, Mewgenics is here, but was it worth the wait?
If you’re comparing it to The Binding of Isaac, maybe not. You might even think it’s boring. But Isaac is a fast-paced shoot-em-up, while Mewgenics is a strategic RPG. Think Slay the Spire or Darkest Dungeon. These are two greats of the roguelike genre, and Mewgenics holds its own against them. From what I’ve seen (and there’s so much more in this game), Mewgenics beats both games for variety. It’s got branching paths, endless items, skills, quirks, and you get a new team of oddball cats every run (with over 150 voices for the cats, including cameos from people like Markiplier, Logic, Dax Flame, and Marguerite Perrin).
What’s the gameplay like in Mewgenics?
Each run sees you and a band of four new cats go on a grid-based RPG adventure. Between turn-based battles you choose paths, find items, and buy gear. The goal is to find food and coin for your cats back home, to upgrade your home and unlock new powers, but as new areas unlock, the adventures do get deeper and more difficult (you may start in The Alley, fighting rats, but the further you go, you’ll find strange body-horror creatures, walls of flesh and even visit the moon).
Overall it follows the same gameplay loop that many roguelikes do; each run you bring back resources to build up your homebase and unlock new items to help you get a little further in the next run.
What makes Mewgenics feel unique?
One of the best things about a roguelike is its pick-up-and-play nature. Got a spare hour? Send your cats out on an adventure. What keeps each run fresh is a mixture of:
- McMillen’s iconic blend of dark humour and cutesy doodle-like drawings – The town NPCs are especially funny and charming.
- You have a new team each run, each with strange quirks (from minor ones like Hot-Blooded, which increase fire damage, to
- The cat breeding system means you can bring old heroes’ stats and skills into new runs.
- Silly and catchy soundtrack from Ridiculon (here on Bampcamp).
Mewgenics Overall
For fans, the ten-year-long wait has put Mewgenics on a pedestal of high expectations. Realistically, the game’s team is barely ten people, and it can’t compete with The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth which is practically a triple A game at this point. Because of this, it’s a great indie game, no doubt one of the best this year, but it’s a little rough around the edges. Endless gameplay variation is hampered by limited visuals and audio (the 150+ cat voices being a charming exception).
It’s also not a game you can really binge, which is a double edged sword; Lasts longer, but gets tiresome if playing runs back-to-back. It’s because of stuff like starting all runs with a study sesh— reading cat skills, assigning classes, equipping items. The end of the run is a little dull too. Either you eat a loss and breed new cats, or return triumphant, only to drop your heroic cats into a pipe to unlock things. There’s not a lot of visual flair to keep this management stuff interesting.
It’s a shame, because the meat of the game is so rich. Developing a strong team and figuring out strange and powerful new combinations feels like some of the best parts of Isaac. Each boss has a strange gimmick– from shooting goo to possessing your team– that tests your teams’ skills, strategy, and luck; The Radical Rat tosses bombs, so a fire-based team will blow themselves up unless you make it rain. It’s these moments of luck, chaos, and invention that make Mewgenics an awesome roguelike, and definitely worth the low price of admission.
Mewgenics: What’s best about Mewgenics is how much variety the core gameplay has. You could play it every day and find something new each time. It seems designed for that: endless RPG adventures. The only downside is that they look the same each time. If you play multiple runs back to back, it gets stale. With a little more visual variety and flair, the game would be perfect, but as it is, it’s better in short bursts. When it comes out on mobile platforms, it'll be perfect, but until then it's sure to be one of the best indie games this year. – Branden Zavaleta
FAQ – Frequently Ask Questions About Mewgenics
Can you rename your cats in Mewgenics?
No, each cat comes with a random name when they’re born or found. You can however decide their character class.
Do cats die in Mewgenics?
Yes, if hurt too much while downed, cats die permanently. Having all cats downed during a run sends all cats to the kitty graveyard, though with a silly art style and sense of humour, it’s never especially sad, but it can be dark. Cats often die in dramatic ways in cutscenes, for example when you unlock “The Caves” area, a cat is shown caught in a giant spider’s web and eaten.
Is Mewgenics a game for kids?
No. Mewgenics may not contain swearing, but it does have sexual references, violence, gore, drugs, and dark humour. Though the game is rendered in a sketchbook style, it’s designed for a mature audience, and the only option to reduce this is that the cat-humping animation can be replaced with safe animations.
Is Mewgenics a game for kids?
No. Mewgenics may not contain swearing, but it does have sexual references, violence, gore, drugs, and dark humour. Though the game is rendered in a sketchbook style, it’s designed for a mature audience, and the only option to reduce this is that the cat-humping animation can be replaced with safe animations.