Recent reviews by Chunky Buttons

I recommend Mewgenics as long as the current save scumming workaround stays intact. This game requires a huge time sink and not just for the fun of the gameplay and progression. There's a lot of variety and it isn't typically balanced well due to that. The beginning is a hard sell due to my previous complaints of beginner's traps and instant death. However, I find less time wasted as long as you abuse saving and restarting. RNG is just way too high in this game, if you like games with extremes of unpredictability in and against your favor then it'll be perfect for you.

Original Review:
I want to like this game and I really did up until the later parts. I love the aesthetics and the gameplay loop is generally fun. I like poop humor and the art style, I've been a fan since the Newgrounds days. The biggest problem that ruins the entire experience is how RNG and 'beginner trap' dependent the difficulty is. There are a lot of times where you cannot win or the odds are completely stacked against you. Then you just keep building up your arsenal of cats and items just to lose it all and restart or they get used up/die. You'll wipe great runs on ridiculous RNG or completely unfair mechanics like insta-death and permanent cat loss moves. It feels more like wasted time rather than a fun game worth the experience and time.

Eventually you lose a sense of progression and it gets repetitive very fast. On top of all this you are then expected to do side-quests and main-quests that add even worse modifiers that make it more unfair and RNG dependent.

For minor nitpicks: the UI definitely could be more intuitive and fluid and I don't like having to rely on tactical mode because of the art overlapping. They also need to make it so you can see all your cats' health at a glance in battle. In battle there's often too much clutter even with tactical mode.

If they reduce permadeath mechanics or at least stops feeling like its wasting my time I'd recommend it. Having to make a new army of cats and redoing the same map over and over again until you're ready to progress again just isn't fun. I feel this game is mostly for people who have a ton of time to waste and don't mind constant repetition.

I originally bought it on release for the Switch, but it is so much better on PC. It runs better, loads faster, and just a complete upgrade. It works much better on Steam Deck so don't bother unless you really need a portable version of this game (although I have not played the mobile version)

For the game, it's probably the best and most accessible in the DQM series. Finding, collecting, and synthesizing monsters is really fun. I like the seasons and weather system, it adds a lot of variety with monster spawns. Combat is well done. The whole traits/skills system feels a bit limited sometimes, but works. The scouting system works well, but it can get annoying sometimes. Once you start needing A tier and S tier monsters it can get to be a bit much, especially grandparent synthesis. I suspect you might be able to get by using lower tier monsters with higher tier spell sets, but I haven't tried that yet.

The only real complaint I have is it seems like the graphics are going more towards the newer Pokemon series. The monsters/models look great, but the shading tends to look pretty awful. The spell effects, general effects, and sound effects all are fantastic though. I think DQ11 graphics would work much better or at least just use a better shader for the game.

Edit: After beating all the story has to offer... it's very disappointing. I still recommend it on sale, but the campaign is not even the full story (barely even half way through the anime's story??). The main gameplay will end up being the randomly generated temple, but with the limited bosses and content, I see it getting stale pretty fast. I can't believe this was a full price release, it feels incomplete on a lot of different levels. I got enough out of it but the AI is so bad they can die and ruin an entire 30+ minute run because they just stood there in a bomb AOE that is easily avoided if you had control. You cannot control them fast enough to move them out manually.

It's worth it on sale in my opinion. The biggest elephant in the room is the story being mainly told through stills, audio clips, and drawings. It's definitely disappointing, but I highly recommend watching the anime and just skip the retelling here. However, the in-game cutscene recreations are fantastic and if they had done that for all the story nuances instead of stills it would be worth full price and make it a truly special experience and wouldn't be so polarizing.

The gameplay is very fun. I'm only early in, but the core loop is fun so far and everything feels good. You don't just mash buttons and the unique mechanics of the first three characters make them all play very differently and they're all fun.

I'm barely halfway through the anime and I'm planning to get through that before finishing this, but so far the game is faithful (if you ignore certain liberties they took to make the gameplay more fun). I was really hoping this would start with fighting the bad heroes at the beginning, but it's only told through stills and you don't get a real introduction to the monster island. It's also pretty limited in terms of exploration, I'm hoping this improves, but you kind of just get arena battles and small stages. I think the random generated dungeon stuff does make up for this though.

I'm expecting it to get better, but I like everything so far and everything was done well except the storytelling. It feels lazy in that regard, but gameplay-wise it is a great game if you want a hack-and-slash. I think Dragon Quest Heroes did this formula better, but if you want more of that kind of game then this is worth it.

Great game, very fun with a lot of different ways to play.

Bought it twice, great visuals and gameplay. A lot of options for different game types and multiplayer is still fairly active as of May 2025, crossplatform works great.

I really liked Stasis and Cayne but thought Bone Totem's multiple character mechanic would be too convoluted and annoying. I was so wrong and pleasantly surprised, I wish I picked it up sooner.

The story is great as always and has so much lore and world building. The gameplay is a lot more intuitive than I first thought and feels a lot more accessible than the previous games. I miss the old art style, but this is very well done and admittedly feels a lot better. Most puzzles are fun to figure out and solve and I like how there's some freedom with the order to do things between characters.

The only negatives I found are some stiff animations (not a huge issue for a small dev team) and a couple confusing areas/puzzles, but nothing is impossible to figure out.

If you like point and click games pick this up, I definitely recommend it.

Great game in the same vein as early Dragon Quest. Everything is well done and feels smooth. I like the simple graphics and music. It has a good amount of quality of life features that keeps if from being annoying while still keeping what's great about the early JRPGs. With more content (and possibly a party system) this game would be perfect.

More than worth it even in its current state. It feels like a lot of passion went into it so far.

Very fun, but it gets a bit repetitive fairly quickly. A lot of upgrades and perks that get expensive fast, but adds a lot of replayability trying to one-up your previous bests and allow you to get farther. I'd like to see gameplay differences between characters, but the designs and overall aesthetic are great.

Update: After getting all achievements I found was that once you find the one build that basically makes you invincible then it gets very easy. It's still fun, especially with coop, but multiplayer really needs a way to communicate and also show what kind of progress the host has. After all the achievements it loses a big of replayability other than playing with lesser builds, but if you want to keep going you just use the OP melee build to max everything out.

So much fun, everything from the driving mechanics to the customization is done so well. This is the first time experiencing the TXR series and I wish I would've found these game sooner. I still have a long way to go, but so far everything is done very well and has an appropriate amount of challenge.

Cool, just takes a bit to get used to. Hope the forces of evil stop trying to get the dev