00:00After 20 hours spent training necromancer cats and raising an army of sentient rocks,
00:05I can safely say Mugenics is one of the best roguelikes I have ever played.
00:11Although this is another roguelike from Binding of Isaac creator Edmund Macmillan,
00:15the two games couldn't be more different. Mugenics is a cat-breeding tactics RPG,
00:21whereas The Binding of Isaac is a Zelda-like dungeon crawler with twin-stick shoot-'em-up
00:26controls. Both, however, thrive on a bold love of chaos that few other roguelikes are bold enough to
00:32court. Even now, I am still uncovering new combinations of cat powers and stumbling across
00:38events that can help and hinder my strategies unexpectedly. I've still barely touched Mugenics'
00:44Act 2, instead focused on perfecting my runs through its earlier zones, and getting ripped to shreds
00:53by super bosses in the process. I've been a roguelike lover for many years,
01:00and it's the moorish experiences of The Binding of Isaac and Spelunky in the early 2010s that
01:05really had me hooked. Since then, I've run the gamut from deck builders to action adventures,
01:11many of those I've loved, and yet I always find myself coming back to those original loves.
01:17Mugenics' runs, grid-based scraps punctuated by the chance to improve each catfighter,
01:23has the same hold on me, which is a surprise as I usually bounce off tactics games in general,
01:30the likes of Final Fantasy Tactics or even XCOM 2 being a bit too much for my poor brain to
01:36handle.
01:37Again, it's about the chaos. While Hades 2 is a phenomenal roguelike that's given me tens of
01:44enjoyable hours in its own right, I find its high degree of design polish can sand down the game's
01:50friction a tad. With its neatly designed system of weapons and godlike boons that always come with
01:56the option to pick three upgrades, I tend to find my preferred method of play and stick with it doggedly
02:02through repeat playthroughs. Many modern roguelikes have a similar framework, where a litany of options
02:08can be all too easy to pare down, a massive amount of variety becoming a blur of letters in a
02:14word
02:14search where I look for optimal solutions and struggle to break that habit. While Mugenics does
02:19have tactical decisions to make, be that which gear you equip or which new abilities each class of cat
02:25can acquire as they level up, there's enough unpredictability that you can never make order of
02:30its chaos. As cats retire after each run, only sticking around long enough to, hopefully, pass
02:37along some of their skills to a new generation. I'm never completely sure which stats I'll have to
02:42play with for my four cat party on each playthrough. Even gear can't be counted on for infinite reuse,
02:48a chance to break after each adventure meaning I have to fill my backpack up each time. Over time though,
02:54the gameplay begins to settle into an effective loop. Your cats head out and hopefully return safely
03:00home with vastly improved stats and fresh gear. Then those feline heirlooms are passed down to the
03:06next generation, and your retired kitties are given a home in which they'll help create the generations
03:11that come after that. Each night there's a chance that cats will breed, passing on their vital statistics
03:17and sometimes their abilities to their offspring. A retired cat in a comfortable, well furnished home
03:23will breed more regularly, and give birth to kittens in better condition, which will grant you the edge
03:29when they're ready to go out on their own adventures. Breeding is not a transparent venture. I spent
03:35multiple days unsuccessfully trying to interbreed my retired tank class cats in order to create a host
03:41of roided up kittens, but I'm still not sure why those cats weren't interested in each other. On another
03:48occasion, it took several days to discover that the powerful fighter I was trying to breed kept spurning
03:54advances night after night because he was more interested in male housemates than the female
03:59ones. And even when cats do breed, there's little guarantee that they do so with the mate you've
04:04chosen for them, or that the resulting kitten will have inherited the stats you were aiming for.
04:09At times, it means Mugenics can feel a little unfair. You might be on a run with cats particularly
04:16susceptible to debuffs only to encounter a weather event that means fire is breaking on each map zone
04:22constantly. But equally, you might butt heads with the first zone's bomber rat boss while it's raining,
04:29meaning his explosives are completely nerfed. Compound this across a huge amount of shuffled
04:34encounters, goodies within chests, ability synergies and random events, and the structure of any run is
04:41completely amorphous. Looking on in despair as I misjudge the distance of a shark that'll instantly kill
04:47my bleeding kitten who's been backed into a corner, or my cat literally exploding to a
04:52boss right at the end of a run throughout which said kitty had to escort a quest item to the
04:57final
04:57screen, I've had some foul unlucky runs. But with the right combination of upgrades,
05:04I've had even more times where I feel like I've broken the limits of the game right back to storm
05:09through dicey encounters, nudging chance ever so slightly in my favour. Mugenics' run by run evolution
05:16is pure chaos, but I always feel like I have a chance to, at the very least, barely make it
05:24through,
05:25my cats clawing back home to help usher in the next generation. And when these fresh-faced,
05:32all too innocent felines set out, I truly have no idea what they'll encounter next, how I'll stomp the
05:40enemies, or be obliterated in turn. And that makes for a roguelike, I simply can't say no to another
05:49run playing. But what about you? Does Mugenics sound like a game you're interested in? Let us know in
05:55the comments, and stick with GamesRadar for the latest previews, reviews and more.
