Yakuza Kiwami 3 is a remake of what is perhaps the most divisive game in Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s Like A Dragon franchise. It comes with overhauled graphics, refreshed combat, a more fleshed-out narrative, and, of course, a new separate story – dubbed Dark Ties – which follows the path of antagonist Yoshitaka Mine.

Having recently gone back to the Yakuza 3 Remastered on PlayStation 4, I can say that Kiwami 3 is a very comprehensive remake, and changes to its visuals, combat, and story certainly feel striking.

But are all of these changes for the better? Does this remake continue the high standard that RGG Studio set with the first 2 Kiwami games? Well, the answer to those questions may not be particularly straightforward.

A Dragon reborn

Let’s start by discussing the main game: Yakuza Kiwami 3. This follows the story of Kazuma Kiryu – also known as the Dragon of Dojima – a former Yakuza and Tojo Clan Chairman. Following the events of Kiwami 2, Kiryu decides to run an orphanage on the island of Okinawa. But it doesn’t take long before he’s embroiled in yet more drama.

His orphanage is under threat, due to it being situated on land that's needed for a government-backed resort plan. The new Tojo Clan chairman is shot by a mysterious figure. And a succession dispute is erupting among the Tojo family patriarchs. The narrative is still gripping, although this revisit does make a couple of changes.

As some fans may already know, there’s been a shake-up to the finale, which is undoubtedly going to ruffle some feathers. I won’t go into details, but in my view, this change isn’t executed very well. It takes some of the emotion and impact away from the original Yakuza 3, causing the game to fall short of the very best RPGs, narrative-wise.

Something else that may reduce the impact of the narrative is the newly added English voice acting. I know I’m far from the only one who’s said this, but some of the English voices are poor, especially that of Kiryu himself. There’s a lack of maturity and gruffness to the protagonist’s voice, meaning his iconic personality doesn’t shine through. As a result, I played through the game in Japanese.

Still, a lot of the other adjustments feel largely positive. For instance, combat feels far better than it did in the original. The new Ryukyu style – which is inspired by Okinawan weapon arts – is brutal and optimized for wiping out swathes of enemies at once. There’s a wide variety of weapons that Kiryu can use in this style, and learning new combos makes it truly devastating.

The Dragon of Dojima style feels excellent too, and perfectly personifies the classic brawler combat Kiryu is known for. You can learn new abilities, including heat action finishers and grabbing techniques – usually, you’ll have to use points earned in battle to do so. Other aspects, like health and strength enhancements, require you to use cash instead. In my opinion, this feels more streamlined and polished than the original upgrade system, and I really enjoyed enhancing my build as the game progressed.

Just generally, combat feels more refined in Kiwami 3. The issue of enemies continually blocking has been significantly improved, battles feel a bit faster-paced, and Kiryu’s movement feels more fluid. I did find that the game was considerably easier than other Yakuza games – at least playing on standard difficulty. As a result, I reduced my use of healing items in battle – but you can select a harder difficulty option instead, if you’d prefer a greater challenge.

Another significant addition is the Lalala Phone, which you can customize to improve Kiryu’s abilities – or just for aesthetic reasons. This is surprisingly fun and provides a real throwback to the late noughties. You can also add friends in Tokyo or Okinawa, and eventually unlock rewards for doing so, giving an actual incentive to use your phone. This has seemingly replaced the original’s Revelations feature, though, which was a source of quirky and often funny cutscenes.

But before I move on to Dark Ties, I want to talk about two other major changes – one that I loved, and one that I was less hot on.

I’ll start with the good: Life At Morning Glory. Here, you can complete a bunch of mini-games, like helping the children with homework, sewing, harvesting crops, and fishing. I was absolutely addicted to these – especially the latter two, as they’re necessary for cooking meals requested by the kids. Cooking is a blast, and it’s really wholesome watching Kiryu bond with the orphans over food. More generally, you see so much more of Kiryu’s relationship with the children in this remake – and although he may be a punch-first, ask-questions-later kind of guy, you get a window into the softer, more sensitive side of him, which is a joy to watch.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t in love with the other major addition, Bad Boy Dragon. In this story, Kiryu becomes chairman of the Haisai Girls and supports them in their aim to protect Okinawa, crush the oppressive Tokyo Night Terrors, and become Japan’s leading girl gang. You’ll fight in turf wars and large-scale battles in order to achieve all of this, and frequently recruit new members along the way.

Personally, I found this part of the adventure to be a little tedious. Fighting in turf wars feels same-y after a little while, and the trope of helping a group of underdogs win against the odds – as seen with Four Shine in Yakuza Kiwami 2 and Real Estate Royale in Yakuza 0 – just felt a little uninspired. The environments you battle through also lack differentiation, making this part of Kiryu’s campaign less compelling than others.

Enter the underworld

Kiwami 3 definitely adds a lot of good stuff, but not all of its additions work out for the best. But my suspicion is that a lot of players – especially returning fans – will be more interested in the Dark Ties content, which follows Tojo Clan newbie Yoshitaka Mine. Here, you uncover the origins of Mine’s Yakuza career, explore his relationship with the brutish Tsuyoshi Kanda, and explore his desire to learn about genuine human bonds.

This is a shorter style of game, with just three chapters. Dark Ties clocked in at under 8 hours for me after I completed the story, as well as a healthy dollop of side-content. But there’s still plenty of fun to be had.

Firstly, I want to talk about combat. We already gushed about Mine’s moves in our Dark Ties preview, and for good reason. Mine’s shootboxing style is truly vicious and brilliantly reflects his character – especially when you’re using the souped-up Dark Awakening mechanic. But even his normal moveset – made up of Intense knee smashes, rapid-fire jabs, and acrobatic grabs – makes Mine’s new campaign a blast to blitz through. Seriously, I even found myself enjoying random encounters with street thugs.

I really took a shine to Kanda Damage Control as well. This sees Mine attempt to boost the reputation of his aniki, Kanda – a man who I’d describe as a disgusting pig if I were feeling generous. In order to do this, Mine has to do good deeds around Kamurocho – after which he always claims to be Kanda himself. It never gets old, honestly. These often involve high-octane battles, but sometimes descend into the typical wackiness that Yakuza is loved for. I spent a lot of time with this, and plan to max out Kanda’s rank in the coming days for sure.

But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Because the other major part of the game – Hell’s Arena – did not do it for me at all. This is basically a dungeon crawler where you have to avoid death, loot treasure chests, and destroy your enemies with the help of various mercenaries and weapons. In a similar vein to Bad Boy Dragon, the dungeon-crawling in Hell’s Arena can feel tedious, and the setting didn’t feel varied or interesting enough to draw me back in.

Story-telling is pretty good throughout Dark Ties, though. Mine is fixated on Tojo Clan Chairman, Daigo Dojima, and the way that the latter’s men will risk their very lives in order to save their boss. I was engaged with Mine’s pursuit of human connection, his conflicting relationship with Kanda, and his rise through the Tojo Clan, ensuring that Dark Ties felt like a worthwhile addition overall.

The Dragon and the Kirin

We’ve spoken in depth about Yakuza Kiwami 3 as well as Dark Ties now, but it’s time to bring them together and look at the package as a whole.

Now, something that has whipped up a lot of discussion online is the graphical quality of the game – especially with regards to Kiwami 3. An update was released during my review, intended to fix “a lighting issue” and “other quality concerns”. This will be available for all players at launch.

Using version 1.11 of the game, I didn’t have some of the lighting issues encountered by other players, and with HDR active and a few tweaks, I had Kiwami 3 looking pretty solid. RGG Studios’ attempt at ‘tropical lighting’ can make some in-game elements appear oversaturated, though. Some street signs, for instance, looked almost too bright, creating quite the contrast against the original’s grittier color palette.

Just generally, I wasn’t bowled over by the visuals across both campaigns, actually. Some of the in-game textures – stuff like cars and walls, say – just look a bit dated, and lacked the sharpness I’d expect from a 2026 release. Sure, you’re still getting an upgrade overall from the remaster of Yakuza 3, and the game’s visuals aren’t ugly or anything – they’re just not especially impressive.

But back to the good stuff. I was really pleased with the performance of Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties on PlayStation 5. With 4K visuals and a smooth framerate, you can expect pretty seamless gameplay with very few hiccups.

I was also loving the soundtrack once again. Yakuza always brings together an eclectic mix of aggressive battle music, smooth jazz, and upbeat tracks to suit every mood or setting, and Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties is no different. You can even listen to tunes from other Sega titles, like Rhythm Thief & The Emperor’s Treasure, Persona 3 Reload, and Metaphor: ReFantazio using Kiryu or Mine’s phone, which I adored.

But now I want to return to the questions that I posed at the beginning. Are all of the changes made in Yakuza Kiwami 3 for the better? Well, the short answer is no. On the whole, you’re getting an improved experience, with better combat, a shiny new battle style, and boatloads of new content. However, changes to the finale and the slightly tedious Bad Boy Dragon side-story felt less positive.

Does Kiwami 3 maintain the high standards set by its remade predecessors? On the whole, yes. The more streamlined upgrade system, good performance, and quality of life adjustments are most welcome. But I think RGG Studio could’ve made a more visually impressive game. A few other choices – like redesigning a major character named Rikiya and removing Revelations – may also upset some hardcore fans.

With that said, I was a fan of Dark Ties overall, in spite of a couple of flaws. I wouldn’t say that this helps to propel the overall package to the dizzying heights that other entries in the series have reached, though. And ultimately, I feel that Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties sit in the ‘good category’, rather than the ‘great’ one.

Should you play Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties?:

Play it if...

Don't play it if...

Accessibility features

There’s a pretty comprehensive set of accessibility features to explore in Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties. You can set auto quick-time events, swap the left and right sticks, choose between rapid or hold button controls, and customize the camera to your liking. You can also alter subtitle language and text size, map controls to different buttons, and utilize color vision assistance.

How I reviewed Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties:

For this review, I spent more than 50 hours playing through Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties. During this time, I rolled credits on both Kiryu's and Mine’s campaigns, defeated all of the reapers, and completed the Life At Morning Glory and Bad Boy Dragon storylines.

I played the PS5 version of Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties on my Sky Glass Gen 2 TV, which is connected to a Marshall Heston 120 soundbar. On occasion, I dipped into the Yakuza 3 remaster in order to compare performance, graphics, and gameplay.

I’m a long-time fan of the Yakuza series, and recently reviewed the Nintendo Switch 2 versions of Yakuza Kiwami and Yakuza Kiwami 2. More generally, I’m a massive JRPG fan, and have written about titles such as Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake, Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army, and Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter.

First reviewed February 2026

It’s finally here; after a tumultuous few years of will-they-won’t-they development, Edmund McMillen (The Binding of Isaac’s creator) and his frequent collaborator Tyler Glaiel (for The End is Nigh and Aether) are finally ready to share their latest creation – Mewgenics.

Mewgenics is a game that does exactly what it says on the tin – its core mechanic is selective cat breeding – but if you’re looking for a life simulator, that it is not. Instead, you’ll march your army of superpowered pussycats through harsh battlefields (read: sewers, junkyards, and other such dismal settings), fight your way through turn-based encounters against grotesque foes, and develop winning formulas that will eventually lead your feline friends to victory.

It’s a surprisingly compelling and complex game, offering ample collectible items, a healthy number of achievements, and plenty of replayability. If you spent the 2010s haunting the virtual halls of Newgrounds or playing titles like The Binding of Isaac and Super Meat Boy, you’ll feel the warm embrace of nostalgia, but you won’t get bored quickly thanks to the creative ways Mewgenics plays with the roguelite formula. It’s unforgiving, in places, and won’t always let you take the easy route, but it’s great fun the whole way through.

That same strength could be a weakness for some players; the raunchy humor, slightly monstrous art style, and energetic dialogue might register as dated to some. Stripped away from its tone, however, the game still stands as a thoroughly enjoyable, well-paced, and amply versatile addition to your Steam library. Plus, it’s Steam Deck compatible, where it feels right at home.

No purr-lace like home

Welcome to Boon County, where the cats are cute, the real estate market is booming, and both of those statements are only half true. In this rundown part of town lies your humble home, a shack-like property inhabited by your collection of cats. From these modest beginnings shall spring forth legend, however, because it’s here you’ll collect, breed, and care for a cat army.

That means ensuring there’s enough food, cleaning up their waste (and, er... corpses, occasionally), decorating your home, and shopping for both supplies and in-level items. You can also prune the genetic pool by shipping off cats to allies you’ll meet along the way to unlock various features and perks, so from the get-go, there’s plenty of macro management to dig your teeth into.

Along that vein, it’s important not to underestimate the importance of this hub; even in the early game, the cats you keep around shape the outcomes of the battles to come, whether that’s due to the mutations and stats they carry or because they have a penchant for infighting and can leave permanent injuries on one another.

When you’ve had your fill of cat care and it’s time to end the day, your cats can choose to fight each other or mate, leaving you with new messes to clean up. Later in the game, it’s possible to steer these interactions a little more by seconding your cats in groups as you gain new rooms for your shack. I had great fun selectively breeding in some mutations that I found especially cute, even if they did come at the detriment of some of my cats; I can’t help it, their goofy little snaggle teeth are irresistible.

New strays will also arrive each day, offering an easy way to fill out your party when you’re low on soldiers, or the gene pool is getting too slim. Over time, though, stockpiles will run low, and at that point, you can venture out with four cats of your choice to battle foes and bring home vital supplies like food and money; and here’s where the meat of the game begins.

I can’t fight this feline anymore

Upon selecting your chosen warriors, you’ll be able to assign them to one of four classes to begin with; this increases to more than 12 over time, each with unique abilities and passives that you’ll curate over the course of your travels; those, too, can be passed on to descendants. There are over 1,200 abilities and passive traits in the game, so no two runs will play the same – this variation made the game pretty hard to put down.

There are seven stats each cat will come pre-loaded with: strength (melee and damage), dexterity (range and damage), constitution (HP and regeneration), intelligence (mana regeneration), speed (initiative and movement), charisma (max mana), and luck (chance-based events like critical rolls).

Based on these, certain classes will align better with different cats, but the further you get in the game, and the more chaotic your approach to breeding has been, the more often you’ll find yourself with some pretty busted combinations.

I managed to score a necromancer carrying many cleric traits, loaded it up with a bunch of perks for healing, and created the most monstrously good wham-bulance (high damage, high heal) since I discovered the Soraka/Yuumi bottom lane combination in League of Legends. A niche reference point, but if you know, you know.

After equipping any items you may have to boost stats and grant new abilities to your kitties, it’s time to head out on the road, where you’ll face enemies ranging from zombie kitties to strange psychic eldritch beasts, tom cats to bomb-lobbing mousers, and beyond in randomized battle encounters.

There’s a fantastic range of enemies to fight (over 200), each with their own abilities and behaviours; a personal favorite is a pair of giant shark cats, which I realised all too late can devour your brave soldiers in one bite – and there’s no coming back from this particular death.

Outside of perma-death situations (which there are quite a few of!), enemies will down your teammates, and their fainted bodies can take damage three times before exploding into chunks of bone and meat.

This is more than just an inconvenience in-fight; each time one of your cats becomes downed, it will pick up conditions like injuries and jinxes. Sure, they’ll heal up a little at the end of combat, but these injuries limit their stats for the rest of the run, and items or abilities that cure these conditions are few and far between.

Speaking of which, in between battles, you’ll pick up various items (of which there are over 900) and face different encounters. In these encounters, a random party member will choose from different stat-based options, and, based on your stat points, a probability-based outcome decides if the interaction helps or hinders your crew.

The luck element of the game is often cruel, and there’s no room for sentimentality with your party; your front-line soldiers will die sometimes, and when that happens, you run the risk of losing everything you gained in the process.

A game that keeps on giving

There are multiple pathways to travel, starting with the Alley and branching off to the Sewer and Graveyard. These lead on to the Caves and the Junkyard, respectively, and that’s just in the first act. Later, you’ll unlock more roads to travel with their own challenges. For example, in the Desert, the extreme heat leads to health loss over time unless you keep your cats cool and watered.

Survive a run, and you’ll be able to take your newly buffed up cats back home, where they’ll retire (likely into your selective breeding programme) and no longer be able to go out on battles – with a few exceptions.

All the above is basically just a precursor to the game in its entirety; I’ve played a solid 30 hours, and I’m still only 20% of the way through. There’s a reported over 200 hours of gameplay, so I’ve no concerns about tiring too quickly of Mewgenics. I’d assume that’s before you factor in unlockable achievements, too, meaning much like The Binding of Isaac, I expect superfans to see hours well into the thousands worth of kitty cat combat.

It helps that the game has excellent music, consistently great art, and some really well-designed levels. Some of the boss fight song lyrics had me chuckling even as my ill-fated kitties erupted into a spray of body parts and blood, and the rest of the soundtrack has enough pace and variation to keep me locked in to the addictive gameplay loop.

Every time I’ve sat down to play, I’ve unlocked some fresh hell for my cats to endure – one of the latest is a monstrous doomsday cat called Guillotina, who turns up at my cats’ home every week or so to fight retired cats.

The chaos is almost certain to continue amplifying as I delve further into the world of these calamitous kitties, and while I don’t know if it will have such a broad appeal as the comparatively simple The Binding of Isaac, I hope long-time fans of it and other creative roguelikes in the genre will give it its due. I certainly intend to!

Should you play Mewgenics?

Play it if...

Don't play it if...

Accessibility features

Mewgenics is hit-or-miss with accessibility; there are no subtitle adjustments, difficulty adjustments or colorblind settings, but text boxes are pretty large by default and you can change the size of UI elements like the status bar, tooltip size and adjust the noise and grain and flicker levels. The controls are mappable, too. Some more work could be done here; a clearer font and colorblind settings wouldn’t go amiss, but hopefully that’s something we see in a later update.

How I reviewed Mewgenics

I spent over 30 hours in Mewgenics, covering the first act and most of the second as well as some side quests; enough to get a good sense of the gameplay, though I’m sure there’s plenty still to come as the game goes on.

I played on both my gaming laptop (Dell’s Alienware M16 R1) and my Steam Deck paired with my Corsair Void v2 MAX Wireless gaming headset, and it played wonderfully on both.

First reviewed January-February 2026

It’s finally here; after a tumultuous few years of will-they-won’t-they development, Edmund McMillen (The Binding of Isaac’s creator) and his frequent collaborator Tyler Glaiel (for The End is Nigh and Aether) are finally ready to share their latest creation – Mewgenics.

Mewgenics is a game that does exactly what it says on the tin – its core mechanic is selective cat breeding – but if you’re looking for a life simulator, that it is not. Instead, you’ll march your army of superpowered pussycats through harsh battlefields (read: sewers, junkyards, and other such dismal settings), fight your way through turn-based encounters against grotesque foes, and develop winning formulas that will eventually lead your feline friends to victory.

It’s a surprisingly compelling and complex game, offering ample collectible items, a healthy number of achievements, and plenty of replayability. If you spent the 2010s haunting the virtual halls of Newgrounds or playing titles like The Binding of Isaac and Super Meat Boy, you’ll feel the warm embrace of nostalgia, but you won’t get bored quickly thanks to the creative ways Mewgenics plays with the roguelite formula. It’s unforgiving, in places, and won’t always let you take the easy route, but it’s great fun the whole way through.

That same strength could be a weakness for some players; the raunchy humor, slightly monstrous art style, and energetic dialogue might register as dated to some. Stripped away from its tone, however, the game still stands as a thoroughly enjoyable, well-paced, and amply versatile addition to your Steam library. Plus, it’s Steam Deck compatible, where it feels right at home.

No purr-lace like home

Welcome to Boon County, where the cats are cute, the real estate market is booming, and both of those statements are only half true. In this rundown part of town lies your humble home, a shack-like property inhabited by your collection of cats. From these modest beginnings shall spring forth legend, however, because it’s here you’ll collect, breed, and care for a cat army.

That means ensuring there’s enough food, cleaning up their waste (and, er... corpses, occasionally), decorating your home, and shopping for both supplies and in-level items. You can also prune the genetic pool by shipping off cats to allies you’ll meet along the way to unlock various features and perks, so from the get-go, there’s plenty of macro management to dig your teeth into.

Along that vein, it’s important not to underestimate the importance of this hub; even in the early game, the cats you keep around shape the outcomes of the battles to come, whether that’s due to the mutations and stats they carry or because they have a penchant for infighting and can leave permanent injuries on one another.

When you’ve had your fill of cat care and it’s time to end the day, your cats can choose to fight each other or mate, leaving you with new messes to clean up. Later in the game, it’s possible to steer these interactions a little more by seconding your cats in groups as you gain new rooms for your shack. I had great fun selectively breeding in some mutations that I found especially cute, even if they did come at the detriment of some of my cats; I can’t help it, their goofy little snaggle teeth are irresistible.

New strays will also arrive each day, offering an easy way to fill out your party when you’re low on soldiers, or the gene pool is getting too slim. Over time, though, stockpiles will run low, and at that point, you can venture out with four cats of your choice to battle foes and bring home vital supplies like food and money; and here’s where the meat of the game begins.

I can’t fight this feline anymore

Upon selecting your chosen warriors, you’ll be able to assign them to one of four classes to begin with; this increases to more than 12 over time, each with unique abilities and passives that you’ll curate over the course of your travels; those, too, can be passed on to descendants. There are over 1,200 abilities and passive traits in the game, so no two runs will play the same – this variation made the game pretty hard to put down.

There are seven stats each cat will come pre-loaded with: strength (melee and damage), dexterity (range and damage), constitution (HP and regeneration), intelligence (mana regeneration), speed (initiative and movement), charisma (max mana), and luck (chance-based events like critical rolls).

Based on these, certain classes will align better with different cats, but the further you get in the game, and the more chaotic your approach to breeding has been, the more often you’ll find yourself with some pretty busted combinations.

I managed to score a necromancer carrying many cleric traits, loaded it up with a bunch of perks for healing, and created the most monstrously good wham-bulance (high damage, high heal) since I discovered the Soraka/Yuumi bottom lane combination in League of Legends. A niche reference point, but if you know, you know.

After equipping any items you may have to boost stats and grant new abilities to your kitties, it’s time to head out on the road, where you’ll face enemies ranging from zombie kitties to strange psychic eldritch beasts, tom cats to bomb-lobbing mousers, and beyond in randomized battle encounters.

There’s a fantastic range of enemies to fight (over 200), each with their own abilities and behaviours; a personal favorite is a pair of giant shark cats, which I realised all too late can devour your brave soldiers in one bite – and there’s no coming back from this particular death.

Outside of perma-death situations (which there are quite a few of!), enemies will down your teammates, and their fainted bodies can take damage three times before exploding into chunks of bone and meat.

This is more than just an inconvenience in-fight; each time one of your cats becomes downed, it will pick up conditions like injuries and jinxes. Sure, they’ll heal up a little at the end of combat, but these injuries limit their stats for the rest of the run, and items or abilities that cure these conditions are few and far between.

Speaking of which, in between battles, you’ll pick up various items (of which there are over 900) and face different encounters. In these encounters, a random party member will choose from different stat-based options, and, based on your stat points, a probability-based outcome decides if the interaction helps or hinders your crew.

The luck element of the game is often cruel, and there’s no room for sentimentality with your party; your front-line soldiers will die sometimes, and when that happens, you run the risk of losing everything you gained in the process.

A game that keeps on giving

There are multiple pathways to travel, starting with the Alley and branching off to the Sewer and Graveyard. These lead on to the Caves and the Junkyard, respectively, and that’s just in the first act. Later, you’ll unlock more roads to travel with their own challenges. For example, in the Desert, the extreme heat leads to health loss over time unless you keep your cats cool and watered.

Survive a run, and you’ll be able to take your newly buffed up cats back home, where they’ll retire (likely into your selective breeding programme) and no longer be able to go out on battles – with a few exceptions.

All the above is basically just a precursor to the game in its entirety; I’ve played a solid 30 hours, and I’m still only 20% of the way through. There’s a reported over 200 hours of gameplay, so I’ve no concerns about tiring too quickly of Mewgenics. I’d assume that’s before you factor in unlockable achievements, too, meaning much like The Binding of Isaac, I expect superfans to see hours well into the thousands worth of kitty cat combat.

It helps that the game has excellent music, consistently great art, and some really well-designed levels. Some of the boss fight song lyrics had me chuckling even as my ill-fated kitties erupted into a spray of body parts and blood, and the rest of the soundtrack has enough pace and variation to keep me locked in to the addictive gameplay loop.

Every time I’ve sat down to play, I’ve unlocked some fresh hell for my cats to endure – one of the latest is a monstrous doomsday cat called Guillotina, who turns up at my cats’ home every week or so to fight retired cats.

The chaos is almost certain to continue amplifying as I delve further into the world of these calamitous kitties, and while I don’t know if it will have such a broad appeal as the comparatively simple The Binding of Isaac, I hope long-time fans of it and other creative roguelikes in the genre will give it its due. I certainly intend to!

Should you play Mewgenics?

Play it if...

Don't play it if...

Accessibility features

Mewgenics is hit-or-miss with accessibility; there are no subtitle adjustments, difficulty adjustments or colorblind settings, but text boxes are pretty large by default and you can change the size of UI elements like the status bar, tooltip size and adjust the noise and grain and flicker levels. The controls are mappable, too. Some more work could be done here; a clearer font and colorblind settings wouldn’t go amiss, but hopefully that’s something we see in a later update.

How I reviewed Mewgenics

I spent over 30 hours in Mewgenics, covering the first act and most of the second as well as some side quests; enough to get a good sense of the gameplay, though I’m sure there’s plenty still to come as the game goes on.

I played on both my gaming laptop (Dell’s Alienware M16 R1) and my Steam Deck paired with my Corsair Void v2 MAX Wireless gaming headset, and it played wonderfully on both.

First reviewed January-February 2026

Six years since the last game (and after a brief trip over to Ancient China in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty), Team Ninja’s premier soulslike series returns with Nioh 3. And my word, was it worth the wait.

Nioh 3 will feel familiar to fans of the other two titles in, but it’s clearly taken inspiration from other Team Ninja games that were released in the interim. Here we have the addition of a semi-open-world akin to Rise of the Ronin, and even a new style shift mechanic that isn’t wholly unlike the moveset variety of Ninja Gaiden 4 or Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin.

In short, Nioh 3 feels like a culmination of most things Team Ninja has put out over the past decade. It’s a brilliant evolution of what makes the series so special in the first place, maintaining that lightning-fast combat and dizzying build variety.

Meanwhile, the formula has evolved to bring something entirely fresh to the table. As much as I adore Nioh 2 and think it’s one of the best soulslike games out there, I don’t know if I can go back after the brilliance of Nioh 3.

Though as much as I’ve loved my time with Team Ninja’s latest outing, there are undoubtedly blemishes. Performance on PC is a bit all over the place; graphics options are plentiful, but the game does struggle in denser environments and has a habit of forcing DLSS, at least on my rig.

As for the game itself, Ninja Style - which I love, by the way - does feel a little over-tuned. Few enemies are able to keep up with your high evasion in this style, and the trade-off of not being able to replenish your stamina via a Ki Pulse (an ability that refills a portion of stamina with a carefully-timed R1 press) isn’t much of a downside.

Aspects of Nioh 3 like this, as well as the ability to fast-travel between shrines, freely respec at any time, and the sheer versatility offered by the style switching system, make for a game that feels overall a little easier than prior entries.

While not as much of a cakewalk as Wo Long felt at times (with its immensely generous parry system, especially), there’s a much more lenient difficulty curve in Nioh 3 that should feel more welcoming to newcomers, but could frustrate series diehards who may not feel reasonably challenged until much later sections of the game.

Shifting across time

In the original Nioh, players took on the role of a set character - Irish swordsman William. Nioh 2 gave us agency to create our own characters, albeit relegating us to an unnamed protagonist.

Nioh 3, meanwhile, feels like a combination of both. We play as a character known as Tokugawa Takechiyo, though we still have full control over their appearance and gender via the returning character creator.

After a brief tutorial section, Takechiyo is thrust back in time to the Warring States period of Japanese history when their brother, Kunimatsu, enacts a coup brought on by jealousy of Takechiyo being chosen to succeed the seat of the shogun. There, players will side with Tokugawa Ieyasu in an effort to prevent legendary warlord Takeda Shingen - in league with an army of yokai - from claiming the seat for himself.

It all starts off in typical Nioh fashion. You’ll pair up with (or face off against) known figures from the Warring States period, including Hattori Hanzo and Ii Naotora. And roving bandits will be the least of your worries, as once again, Japan has been overrun by yokai - demonic entities that take on several monstrous forms.

The Nioh games usually take place over a number of years, but Nioh 3 has expanded this concept and features events across multiple generations at various periods of time - each one offering a whole new map to explore. I was greatly surprised at the variety of locales on offer, and Team Ninja has done a wonderful job providing a broad range of settings, some of which very much came out of leftfield.

It takes two (styles)

So how’s combat, then? Well, Team Ninja has taken a boldly different approach this time around. The core gimmick of Nioh 3’s combat is its dual styles. Samurai Style is, broadly, Nioh as you know it.

You can switch between mid, high, and low stances for a variety of different moves depending on your weapon type of choice. New here, though, are Martial Arts, which you can activate upon filling a gauge by landing attacks or successfully guarding. The style feels a good bit stronger and weightier than what I was used to in Nioh 2.

That provides a noticeable divide between Samurai and Ninja styles. The latter, then, is a much more agile form. You move much quicker in combat, and your dodging ability and attack speed are greatly enhanced. As mentioned, Ninja’s trade-off is that you can’t recover Ki via Ki Pulses, as you can in Samurai Style. However, you recover Ki very quickly while in this form, thus offsetting the drawback a fair bit, at least in the first half of the game before the challenge level really ramps up.

Ninja Style was definitely my preferred way to play much of Nioh 3. And given that Samurai and Ninja have their own unique weapon types and armor sets - of which you can form loadouts for both - you certainly can pick one style and stick with it. But as I progressed through the game, I found plenty of scenarios that played to the strengths of both.

Ninja’s ability to use magic, for example, makes it great for crowd control and dispatching enemies with elemental weaknesses. Samurai is fantastic in one-on-one duels against tougher opponents, though, as proper use of Martial Arts can quickly drain an opponent’s Ki for a quick and easy critical hit.

Get out there

Nioh 3’s shift to open field level design brings many, many worthwhile changes with it. You’ll no longer pick missions from a simple map screen. Instead, more detailed levels are baked into a larger, explorable environment.

Each explorable area is divided into smaller parts, each with an exploration level. You’ll passively increase this as you explore, including finding new shrines, treasure chests, or clearing bases overrun by bandits or yokai. Increasing the exploration level of an area will gradually reveal things you can find within.

Getting as much exploration done as possible is certainly worth it, too. You’ll often find textbooks that allow you to learn new skills and Martial Arts, as well as no shortage of Samurai and Ninja’s Locks. These automatically grant you a skill point for their respective style and the weapon types therein. No longer do you have to grind out weapon usage in order to earn these skill points. If you find a new weapon type you’re desperate to try, you can load some points into it with little hassle.

That’s doubly true in Nioh 3, as you can freely reset and reallocate skill points at zero cost. I love this change, as it means you’re more actively encouraged to settle into a build that’s right for you.

Like in Code Vein 2, if you fancy a quick build change in Nioh 3, it’s blissfully easy to do. This also goes for your more general stats, which you level up at shrines. And handily, a diagram on this screen will let you know which stats work best for each weapon type. Super convenient, and means you’ll be spending less time stressing over builds, and more time trying them out.

Thorough exploration also ties into the revamped Titles system, which is now broken down into categories and offers various permanent buffs and stat increases, such as healing item drop rates, stealth effectiveness (yes, you’ll really be racking up the backstabs in Nioh 3), and general melee attack damage against certain foes. Basically, actions like taking over bases or simply dispatching enemies in either Style will earn you points in their respective categories, which you can periodically redeem in the Titles menu.

There’s just a lot of stuff that contributes to your overall power in Nioh 3. To the point where it can make the first couple of chapters a bit of a cakewalk. Bosses, by and large, still present a steep challenge, and you’ll still run into a fair few gatekeepers to your progress. But overall, I’d say Nioh 3 is a touch easier than its direct predecessor.

Feeling the heat

That is, of course, until you reach one of several Crucible areas. Crucibles are another addition I really love. Effectively acting as mid and end-of-chapter levels, a Crucible is an enormous yokai realm that comes with various gameplay modifiers - one of which is a reduction to your maximum health upon taking damage.

This makes Crucibles particularly dangerous. However, the rewards for exploring within are very much worth it, as it’s in these areas that you’ll typically find higher-end gear and earn more experience generally upon killing enemies. Crucibles are definitely a step-up in difficulty, and the demonic tone shift within them provides a suitably climactic bookend to each major area.

I didn’t think it was possible for Team Ninja to one-up Nioh 2 in as many ways as it has with Nioh 3, but I’m beyond pleased that it does. It’s a fresh-feeling take on the soulslike formula in general, combining Nioh’s satisfyingly quick action with a richer, more fleshed-out world to explore.

The game could definitely use some work on PC in the performance department, and there are certainly some enemy types I wish the developer had left in the past (the snake-like Nure-Onna is the bane of my existence). But crucially, it’s a game I’ve often been unable to put down, if only to see what kinds of wonderful locations and bosses await around each and every corner.

Should I play Nioh 3?

Play it if...

Don't play it if...

Accessibility

Nioh 3 has some basic accessibility options. Full controller assignment and keybinds are supported. Furthermore, subtitle options include size and the ability to display the speaker, and sound effect captions.

Colorblind settings are limited, but there does exist an option to alter the color perception settings of important text and loot rarity color patterns. There is also an option for the game to play a sound effect when you get near an object that you can interact with, such as doors, characters, and items.

How I reviewed Nioh 3

My playthrough of Nioh 3 lasted around 50 hours, including the main campaign and a huge chunk of exploration and side objectives.

I played the game on PC (via Steam) for this review, with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 GPU and primarily using the 8BitDo Ultimate 2 as my controller of choice. I also made use of the Nacon RIG 900 Max HS gaming headset to experience the game’s atmospheric audio design.

First reviewed February 2026