Like many other roguelite fans, I recently fell in love Mewgenics. As much as I hate to admit it, I was pretty addicted to the game and found myself coming back for just one run in a way I haven't played since. Hades 2 last year. While Mewgenics it's too early a game of the year contender for me, it also infuriated me on several occasions, mainly because it has so many complex mechanical interactions that I wasn't able to consider all 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. Like huge Pokemon fan too, I like being able to breed units to optimize stats and build ultimates Mewgenics an army of cats that will make their way through the different chapters of the game. However, I was almost overconfident in my party's abilities and accidentally created an unwinnable situation for myself.
As a cat lover, I can't decide if Mewgenics is meant to offend me or not
Mewgenics is without a doubt 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 due to an interaction I never saw coming
Mewgenics has some crazy interactions between all its different mechanics. Given the various buffs and debuffs, stat modifiers, allied and enemy abilities, and environmental physics, I learned first hand how much Mewgenics players are tasked with managing all these systems while keeping their cats alive during the run. I have also barely scratched the surface when it comes to this Mewgenics' mutation and I already expect to find some overpowered combos when I really dig into this feature. In the meantime, I'm still huffing and puffing Mewgenics' different acts and areas and I've already found my least favorite.
Match the critics' averages
Start
Match the critics' averages
Easy (6) Medium (8) Hard (10)
One Mewgenic enemy in the Crater is the bane of my existence
The crater is the location of Act 2 Mewgenics which can be reached after completing the desert. The crater immediately threw me into a mini-boss fight, which only gave me a preview of the headache to come. Some of the most annoying enemies in the game come from The Crater, including:
-
Ameba
-
Birthwort
-
Bramble Baby
-
Carnibulb
-
GeoLad
-
Crater Creeper
-
Hemlock
-
Infested kitten
-
Nettle
-
Headless
-
Rock head
-
Tremble
By far the most frustrating of these enemies to deal with is the Infested Kitten. While the common enemy variant of the Kitten that can be found as an enemy in the Alley isn't much of a threat, the Infested Kitten has the ability to plant the Possessed when it uses its basic attack. The Possessed turns an affected unit against his team for one turn, and I first encountered this mechanic in The Graveyard boss fight against Dybbuk, who has a cat that deals a deathblow and forces you to fight your own teammate to catch up. The Infested Kitten's Possession mechanic, while only temporary, allows the enemy AI to act on your behalf during that turn, which led to a chain reaction that almost softened my game.
How Mewgenics wasted my time and almost drove me mad
This whole situation started with the Necromancer class I was wearing Mewgenics to the team who happened to know the Flesh Golem skill. Flesh Golem is a 0 mana cost skill that allows the Necromancer to summon a friendly unit at a cost of 10 health from every other unit on the team. In exchange, this Flesh Golem knows one Mewgenics skills from each of the friendly units that have been spawned.
In general, this is a pretty useful skill, as having more allied units is a huge help against many of them Mewgenics' bosses. However, what happened during my crater expedition is that my Necromancer was attacked by an Infested Kitten, resulting in it becoming Possessed. During this turn, my Possessed Necromancer cast a Flesh Golem, and what I didn't know, it created an enemy Flesh Golem drawing on the health and skills of Infested Kitten and my Necromancer.
As a result, the Flesh Golem that was created only knew the basic attack and Flesh Golem skill that it inherited from my necromancer. This meant that the enemy AI would constantly move to a new tile and summon another Flesh Golem. Fortunately, only two could be created at a time, as Flesh Golems only have 20 HP and two instances of Flesh Golem casting would kill them. However, this whole debacle meant that each of his moves would take about 5 minutes to complete as he tried to move into the open, spawn a new Flesh Golem, kill himself and the old one, and then repeat until he could move into the open. After all was said and done, my screen was filled with Flesh Golem corpses and I wasted about 30 minutes doing what I thought would be a simple game. Mewgenics combat encounter.
As a combination of Isaac 'Hater' and a huge Pokemon fan, Mewgenics is possibly the best game I've ever played
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 new ones
At least one hair-pulling encounter taught me that possessed units that spawn minions will cause those minions to be enemies. As frustrating as this scenario was, I appreciate how complex the mechanics are Mewgenics they are and I like to see creative solutions Mewgenics boss fights that make them essentially trivial. I'm afraid to go back into the crater now and I know when I do to make sure I don't have a necromancer in my party and stay away from Infested Kittens if possible.

- Released
-
February 10, 2026
- Developers
-
Edmund McMillen, Tyler Glaiel
- Publishers
-
Edmund McMillen, Tyler Glaiel
- Number of players
-
For one player
- Steam Deck compatibility
-
Unknown
