Bob Barker’s worst nightmare
Edmund McMillen has a knack for creating games that will slowly consume your every waking moment, from Meat Boy to The Binding of Issac, and now, with Mewgenics, has created another game that’ll have you sit down for a quick session before you go and make some lunch, saying: ” I’ll just play one more round; I’ll just push on to that new area. Just ten minutes more.” Then, it’s 2 am, three days later, and your actual cats are dragging in pigeons because they think you’ve lost the ability to hunt.
It was bad enough when it was on the PC, but now it’s on the Switch 2; I have resigned myself to the fact that any plans I had for the foreseeable future are indefinitely on hold. I have cats to look after now. Weird, mutant, inbred cats that go on little adventures for me and bring me back such delightful treasures.
Maybe I could take it with me; I am sure my parents won’t mind me ignoring them. I have a house full of cats to contend with. I need to keep them happy, so they’ll breed stronger, better kitties. So the adventure can continue, and they can kill those awful things in the cemetery, and maybe half my party won’t be mashed into paste by the blob monster in the sewer.
Sorry, I was thinking about playing Mewgenics. (Why am I writing this review, when I could be playing more Mewgenics?) What McMillen and co-developer Tyler Glaiel have created is one hell of a compelling core gameplay loop that draws you in, and once it’s sunk its claws into you, it doesn’t let go. As I said, it’s just one more round.
It’s half illegal cat farm sim, half roguelike turn-based strategy role-playing game, and it’s absolutely brilliant. The loop is deceptively simple considering how deep the mechanics are. After local crackpot Dr. Beanie asks you to help with his feline research by hoarding cats.
Being an amiable sort, you then begin filling your home with cats. More strays turn up at your doorstep every day to take in, and your herd inside seems to have two pastimes: fucking and fighting. It’s up to you to make their home comfortable and manage their numbers so they clash less and copulate more.
You then grab four kitties to send off on a merry adventure around the neighbourhood, facing all manner of twisted beasts to eventually return home with lots of loot and much improved stats – or traumatised, broken messes that are only good for the farm. Or the weirdo that lives in the sewer, or the shifty bloke that will give you a bigger box if you ‘donate’ ten cats to him, or the woman from the pet store who takes in old cats, or the camp guy who only likes kittens. I’m not really sure what half the neighbourhood is doing with all these cats. I assume they just like them as much as I do.
You send cats out on increasingly far-flung and dangerous adventures; they come back stronger, slaughtered or sick, with a truckload of loot. Then you breed them to hopefully create the next generation of adventurers, and the cycle continues. All while your home fills with cats. They are also used as currency to improve your home, so you can breed and keep even more cats.
I’ve been playing it for about a week, and I’m still finding new quests, and items, and secrets, and bosses, and unlocks, and all that other stuff that keeps you saying “just one more round.” Did I mention there are cats?
Not just any old cats either; these feline warriors can go into battle as a variety of classes that you assign to them, from fighters and mages to clerics and necromancers. These add random abilities to your cats’ inherited gifts, and choosing the right class for the right kitty can make all the difference.
Then you’re away on an adventure across the overworld map, wandering from one disaster to the next, encountering strange events and tough choices, usually resolved by picking one of your stats and hoping for the best, stopping at shops stocked with new gear and rare candy (that works exactly as you would expect), there’s even the occasional loot drop, and a whole load of brawling.
These turn-based battles pit your quartet of cats against a menagerie of grotesque monsters and twisted abominations that are as devious as they are disgusting, all drawn in McMillen’s distinct style, with more than a few nods, winks, and callbacks to his previous games.
Combat is accessible and fairly fast-paced: a simple grid-based setup where each cat has a basic attack they can use once per turn based on their class, like the hunter’s long-range lob or the fighter’s powerful swipe. They also have four more spells they can use as many times as you want until you run out of mana.
On top of that, you’ll scavenge for equipment that adds further buffs and weapons that can be handy in a pinch. The fun part is combining all these desperate and random parts into creating synergies that knock your opponents about for heaps of damage while dealing with whatever odd wrinkles the enemy throws at you, whether this is lumbering towards whoever attacked them, tossing bombs at your squad, or regenerating once they’ve been knocked down. Each fight feels fresh, and figuring out the best approach, especially during Mewgenics tense boss battles, is as taxing as it is entertaining.
Each encounter presents the kind of fast, fun fights that are an ideal fit for the Switch 2. It’s unlikely you’ll agonise over every tactical decision you make in a fight. However, there’s still a surprising amount of depth to how you approach each run from a macro level, especially how you develop your cats’ abilities to synergise effectively in each bout and therefore become a more effective fighting unit. Rather than four cats that are a danger to themselves and others. Though that can happen too.
The one downside to the bouts, though, is that often the screen can become cluttered with explanations of different status effects, especially in the later stages after your poor kitties have been through the wringer a few times and have several rare blood diseases but can now do an obscene amount of damage.
However, that same cat can just as easily get merc’d in the blink of an eye and literally explode. Sometimes your best-laid plans and carefully curated cats will just get slaughtered through what feels like no fault of your own. Like XCOM, it’s hard not to get attached to your named squad. But unlike XCOM, it’s not in your best interests, at least emotionally, to do so; there are always more cats for the grinder, and they probably won’t all come back.
At least they can live on through their increasingly strange and peculiar offspring. Which you also have very little control over.
Like actual cats, they’ll do whatever they want. You can make their conditions as favourable as possible; you can lock them in the attic with the other cat you want them to breed with, and they’ll still successfully mate with the one cat you didn’t want them to.
Each kitten inherits traits from its parents, but each is still unique since there are an insane amount of variables that govern every cat’s stats, abilities, appearance, and even their voice ( made up of a library of more than 12,500 meows)
It’s chaos, and the only thing you can do is ride it out – it is a game about literally herding cats. The best you can do is try and nudge everything in the right direction and clean up the poop before your house is covered in it.
It’s a brilliant blend of emergent systems that’s made to be infinitely replayable, and no two games of Mewgenics are quite the same. It’s the kind of game you trade stories with your friends about – Heartwarming, absurd, and horrifying in equal measure.
Mewgenics has that same twisted sense of humour, odd obsession with poop jokes, and strange sense of heart that all of McMullen’s games have. In many ways it feels like a true successor to The Binding of Issac. Which was also a chaotic joyride of emergent systems, cobbled together with a mischievous sense of glee and an incredibly compelling core gameplay loop.
The Switch 2 also handles Mewgenics really well. It runs at a consistent pace, loads quickly, and looks good in both docked and handheld mode. It also has some rather nifty console-specific control options, with some fairly solid touchscreen controls in handheld mode and mouse controls, though these work best on the TV.
Isaac’s composers, Ridiculon, also return with a rockabilly soundtrack that absolutely slaps. Each boss has its own custom theme, and every last one is a banger and a half. Even the instrumental background music is incredibly catchy and will certainly see plenty of playtime even when I’m not playing Mewgenics. It’s top-tier stuff that makes an already phenomenal experience even better.
VERDICT
Mewgenics is an impeccable roguelike that weaves its myriad of seemingly disparate systems into a chaotic, compelling black comedy that effortlessly converts emergent gameplay into emergent storytelling.
Finally, console gamers can see what all the fuss is about, and the Switch 2, thanks to slick control options and its pick-up-and-play proclivities, makes it the easiest way for Mewgenics to slowly take over your life.