That's a wrap on MOUSE: PI For Hire! 🐭
That was a fun and unique experience lol. Felt like a depraved old school Mickey Mouse version of DOOM in a good way. I adored the cartoon art style so much. The hand-drawn aesthetic of all the guns, characters and effects have wonderful charm to them, and watching cartoon mice get their heads blown off or turn into burning cinders was...oddly satisfying?
Level design was surprisingly well done with lots of hidden areas, verticality and playspaces made to incorporate a variety of player actions like double jumping, dashing, swinging on hooks and taking advantage of exploding barrels (fire, ice, poison).
Enemy variety is fairly standard at first with your normal enemy mice with melee weapons/guns, brutes, flying dudes, snipers, etc, though I was just a little disappointed that the game didn't expand on that after the first few hours. The bosses were all fun and engaging though with their own unique mechanics.
The audio/music was also well done and was a huge part of immersing me in a 1930's-esque noir adventure. Voice acting was also excellent all around, especially Troy Baker as Jack Pepper.
I do think the game was just a little long in the tooth overall. I enjoyed the shooting, the story, and yes all the CHEESE. But some levels felt a little more filler than others and probably could have been trimmed down.
Image quality was also surprisingly just a little poor, at least on PS5? (I was playing on a PS5 Pro). There were a decent amount of jaggies across the environments, at least on performance mode, which I wouldn't expect. The game doesn't seem super demanding.
But still, I had an awesome time overall and it lived up to the years-long wait. Definitely keeping an eye on what Fumi Games does next!
#MOUSEPIForHire