Like a lot of other roguelite fans, I have recently fallen in love with Mewgenics. As much as I hate to admit it, I’ve been pretty addicted to the game and find myself coming back for just one more run in a way that I haven’t since playing Hades 2 last year. While Mewgenics is a way-too-early contender for Game of the Year for me, it also has infuriated me on a couple of occasions, largely because it has so many complex mechanical interactions that I haven’t been able to account for all the possible outcomes when setting up a strategy.
I’m a big fan of both turn-based strategy RPGs and roguelites, so Mewgenics is a match made in heaven for me. As a huge Pokemon fan as well, I like being able to breed units to optimize stats and create the ultimate Mewgenics cat army to steamroll my way through the game’s different chapters. However, I almost got a little too overconfident in my party’s abilities and accidentally created a nearly unwinnable situation for myself.
As a Cat Lover, I Can’t Decide If Mewgenics Should Offend Me or Not
Mewgenics is bound to be one of my favorite games of 2026, but it’s also the most likely to give me pause—no pun intended.
My Mewgenics Run Almost Ended Because of an Interaction I Could Have Never Seen Coming
Mewgenics has some insane interactions between all its various mechanics. Considering the different buffs and debuffs, stat modifiers, ally and enemy abilities, and environmental physics, I’ve learned firsthand just how much Mewgenics players have their work cut out for them in trying to manage all of these systems while keeping their cats alive during a run. I’ve also barely scratched the surface when it comes to Mewgenics‘ mutations, and I’m already anticipating finding some overpowered combos once I really sink my teeth into this feature. In the meantime, I’m still chugging away at Mewgenics‘ different Acts and Areas, and I’ve already found my least favorite.
Balance the critic averages
Balance the critic averages
Easy (6)Medium (8)Hard (10)
One Mewgenics Enemy in The Crater is the Bane of My Existence
The Crater is an Act 2 location in Mewgenics that can be reached after completing The Desert. Right off the bat, The Crater threw me into a miniboss fight, giving me just a preview of the headache that was to come. Some of the most annoying enemies in the game come from The Crater, including:
- Amoeba
- Birthwort
- Bramble Baby
- Carnibulb
- GeoLad
- Crater Creeper
- Hemlock
- Infested Kitten
- Nettle
- Headless
- Rock Head
- Tremblo
By far the most frustrating of these enemies to deal with is the Infested Kitten. While the regular Kitten enemy variant that can be found as an enemy in The Alley is pretty non-threatening, the Infested Kitten has the ability to inflict Possessed when using its basic attack. Possessed turns the afflicted unit against its team for one turn, and I had first encountered this mechanic in The Graveyard boss fight against Dybbuk, who possesses the cat that deals the killing blow and forces you to fight your own teammate to finish him off. While only temporary, the Infested Kitten’s Possession mechanic lets the enemy AI act for you during that turn, which resulted in a chain reaction that nearly softlocked my game.
How Mewgenics Wasted My Time and Almost Made Me Rage Quit
This whole situation began with the Necromancer class I had on my Mewgenics team, who happened to know the Flesh Golem skill. Flesh Golem is a 0-Mana cost skill that lets the Necromancer summon a friendly unit at the cost of 10 health from every other unit on the team. In exchange, this Flesh Golem knows one Mewgenics skill from each of the friendly units it took health from to be created.
In general, this is a pretty useful skill since having more allied units is a huge help against many of Mewgenics‘ bosses. However, what happened during my expedition through The Crater is that my Necromancer was attacked by an Infested Kitten, resulting in it becoming Possessed for a turn. During this turn, my Possessed Necromancer cast Flesh Golem, and, unknown to me, this created an enemy Flesh Golem drawing from the health and skill pool of the Infested Kitten and my Necromancer.
As a result, the Flesh Golem that was created only knew a basic attack and the Flesh Golem skill it inherited from my Necromancer. This meant that the enemy AI would constantly move to a new tile and summon another Flesh Golem. Only two could be created at a time, thankfully, since the Flesh Golems only have 20 HP, and two instances of Flesh Golem being cast would kill them. However, this whole debacle meant each of its turns would take around 5 minutes to complete as it tried to move to an open space, spawn a new Flesh Golem, killing off itself and the old one, and then repeat until it couldn’t move to an open space. After all was said and done, my screen was filled with the corpses of Flesh Golems, and I had wasted about 30 minutes on what I thought would be a simple Mewgenics combat encounter.
As a Binding of Isaac ‘Hater’ and Huge Pokemon Fan, Mewgenics is Possibly The Best Game I Could Play
I’ve been a Pokemon fan for almost 27 years, and Mewgenics combines some of my favorite things with what I loved about The Binding of Isaac.
Mewgenics’ Mechanics Are So Deep that I Feel Like I’m Constantly Learning About New Ones
At least the encounter that left me pulling my hair out taught me that Possessed units that spawn minions will result in those minions being enemies. For as frustrating as this scenario was, I do appreciate how complex the mechanics of Mewgenics are, and I love seeing creative solutions to Mewgenics boss fights that basically make them trivial. I’m afraid of going back to The Crater now, and I know when that when I do, to ensure that I don’t have a Necromancer in my party and to stay away from Infested Kittens if at all possible.
- Released
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February 10, 2026
- Developer(s)
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Edmund McMillen, Tyler Glaiel
- Publisher(s)
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Edmund McMillen, Tyler Glaiel
- Number of Players
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Single-player
- Steam Deck Compatibility
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Unknown
