Level of Enthusiasm: Wiki
You ever felt so engaged in a game that you are updating the Wiki? That’s where I’m at in Mewgenics.
Granted, the Wiki was basically all blank pages since the game came out just a few weeks ago; hard to demonstrate “Wiki-updating enthusiasm” if it is already filled out for you.
But, guys, whew. I play a lot of games, and it is vanishingly rare when I play something that completely consumes the entirety of my play experience. Or should I say: allows itself to consume my play experience. Expedition 33 has a lot going for it and won all kinds of awards for reasons… but I find it difficult to play the game for more than one “session” at a time. Combat is stressful, not fun. Each new area is a hard stopping point wherein you encounter new mobs with new attack patterns you have to memorize so you can Parry them (or die). Two hours is basically my limit for the day.
Mewgenics also technically has stopping points. Maybe all your cats die in a series of unfortunate bouts of RNG. Going into brand new zones can be stressful in its own way too. “This enemy’s ranged attacks delete my equipment? And there are six of them?!” Nevertheless, I persist. And it’s fun. I don’t even bother with GW2 dailies anymore, as that’s 10-20 extra minutes of Mewgenics I could be playing. The last time I experienced this was with Abiotic Factor, and Wartales before that. No doubt I will burn myself out before too much longer, but Christ I almost have 100 hours already.
Not bad for a $30 MSRP game.
Posted on March 3, 2026, in Commentary and tagged Abiotic Factor, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Level of Enthusiasm, Mewgenics, Wartales. Bookmark the permalink. 7 Comments.
In An Age 
I’ve read about it and watched the beginning of a video showing the game. As much as it has cats (which is good), from what I understand it feels like playing the original X-COM with a lot more RNG on top. You compare it to Slay the Spire, which I absolutely hated, so I’ll skip this one. Maybe when it’s on sale for <10E, if I still remember the name, I’ll think about it.
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To be clear, there is very limited RNG in the Mewgenics fights themselves.
When I hear someone talk about X-COM, I immediately think “95% chance to hit, and I miss three attacks in a row.” With limited exceptions, Mewgenics works exactly described on the tin: if something is in range, it hits. A specific attack having a chance to stun, or equipping an item that gives you a 10% chance to dodge would be one of those exceptions. Also, I guess technically the AI choosing which cat to target may be considered RNG as well. Critical hits are a thing too. OK, yeah, some RNG, but certainly not the baseline X-COM level nonsense.
Outside of combat though, all sorts of things go. Events are straight bullshit 99% of the time. You get four choices to pick from when someone levels up, but each class has like 75 abilities/passives, so not all of them are good or relevant to something you are already building towards.
When something does hit though… yeah, man. The high is obscene. Had a combo where a Druid cat summoned four squirrels, each of which immediately get a turn and deal 8 damage 1-3 times apiece. Practically soloed the run.
Anyway. The comparison shouldn’t be Slay the Spire, it’s more tactical Binding of Isaac.
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Ok, that’s reassuring, but the other comments about the interface apply? People say that when you go above 20 cats it’s a mess to find what you want because there are no easy sorting/searching modes and you end up going through all the cats one by one to find the good one. Like in the good old days of XCom where every mission was 5 mins distributing the equipment because there’s no easy way to “give the strongest weapon to the guy with the higher speed” without going through all the characters.
Then there’s Timberborn 1.0 being released 12/3…..
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I mean… sorta? It’s true that there isn’t a spreadsheet-style sorting mechanism; the best we got from the most recent patch is that if you just cycle through the cats, they are in Age order. If you funnel enough kitten rejects to one of the NPCs, you eventually unlock the ability to tag cats with different icons to notice them in the pile.
But the thing to understand is that it largely isn’t necessary.
The cats are disposable. The best possible cat team you got gets to go on one (1) adventure. That’s it. Technically they can participate in one house boss fight too, but sometimes they will literally die of old age (or die in a cat fight) before that comes to pass. You have to give them away to NPCs to unlock basic functionality, including the ones with potentially OP upgrades. Which doesn’t matter much because, again, they are basically done, win or lose, at the end of a run.
I’m slowly breeding towards a “royal” line that has maximum stats (all 7s), but I also have 43 cats running around. Do you know who I use on adventures? The ones that are too inbred to produce non-birth defect offspring. I could increase efficiency by trashing all but like a breeding pair of royals, but… meh. It’ll happen eventually. Or I’ll end up beating the game way before that anyway.
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“Each new area is a hard stopping point wherein you encounter new mobs with new attack patterns you have to memorize so you can Parry them (or die).”
Ok just, you know, don’t do the punish yourself parry build? You do this to yourself.
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I… don’t?
It’s been a minute, but it felt like each character could take maybe 3 unparried hits before going down. I also just got introduced to a new enemy attack type that will one-shot me if I don’t press a different, third button.
Regardless, the point is that E33’s combat system is exhausting. Could I slap the Confident Picto on everyone and face-tank everything? Maybe. I could also lower the difficulty. Or I could prioritize playing a game that is actually fun to engage with right now.
I’ll swing back around to E33 for the story eventually, but I’ve soured on the combat for sure.
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You can also just out-level stuff, even a little makes a big difference. Also dodging is much easier than a parry, in terms of timing window. I do kinda agree that the pure combat, unless you enjoy the timing aspect, isn’t the best, though I did enjoy setting up the skills and combos to what eventually felt good/strong. Switching up characters also helped.
But yea, do try to stick with it to the end of the story, very worth it IMO.
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