Morsels review: "The Binding of Isaac style roguelike shooting gets somehow grosser, but struggles to set itself apart"

I'm not sure if it's right to say that Morsels puts its best foot forward, but this roguelike shooter admirably puts its foot right in some grimy mess as soon as you boot up the game. Defaulting to an extreme VHS-style CRT look, your lil mouse critter main character flops down a pipe dripping brown goop before being greeted by an (admittedly charming) sentient fatberg. At this point, less than a minute in, Morsels is either scratching an exact, cursed itch, or is making you feel so sick you immediately won't want to play. I have to respect how quickly the vibe check happens.

Morsels' style is the best thing about it, and as I learn to battle my way through dungeon-like layer after layer I'm enthralled to discover new sights. With big eyes, each playable 'morsel' critter and enemy looks like A Nightmare on Sesame Street meets claymation – striking an odd balance between adorable and terrifying, but always with a degree of tactility. Almost like the brilliant Animal Well, at times your tiny pals will encounter much larger, realistically styled animals which become unsettling in a whole different way because of the contrast in visual styles.

Crumb and yolk

The grossout approach is interesting, as it's one of many similarities between Morsels and The Binding of Isaac. Though they diverge in several crucial ways, they overlap an awful lot. They're both top-down roguelikes where you attack – usually by shooting – around you in multiple directions (eight in Morsels, as you can blast diagonally). Room and floor layouts are even similar, though here your little mouse and other morsels in tow are looking to ascend from the depths, to dethrone larger animal leaders. Each floor is also completely seamless, so you won't be trawling through fast loads, but enemies will follow you quite a stretch.

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Morsels' biggest differentiator is the titular morsels themselves, each a kind of grimy but downtrodden underdog just like the mouse. Becoming a sort of creature collector, cards can be obtained – either as simple loot or through fighting optional small boss fights – that allow you to become another character. For the most part, the small mouse doesn't even feature, instead having you control one of three Morsels you can swap between on the fly with just a tap on the d-pad.

Each has their own health bar, experience points, and – crucially – abilities. No two Morsels control quite alike, making much of the early learning curve about understanding what each new Morsel you recruit does. Gumsel is perhaps the closest Morsels has to a 'normal' one, a wad of gum that simply shoots bubbles in a direction. There's Smugsel, an angry clump of city smoke who has to get in close to land powerful punches, which can be boosted by landing right after a dodge to encourage ducking and weaving. Shromshel, a mushroom who shoots out other fungi that lock into place and then move alongside player movement before exploding on enemy impact. Uggsel, an egg that can never hatch, who attacks by kicking a football around.

Unlike Isaac who can cry infinitely, all moves have a cooldown meter. It's generous enough to rarely be a problem, but having to meter-watch just to shoot out a round of bullets is irritating more often than not. This can be a big factor on which Morsels you find irritating to play as and try to skip – and you almost certainly will have some that rub you the wrong way to play. As they experience points, they reach a second form, which is much like the first but more powerful. Keep earning experience and, erm, they die, turning into a ghost powerup instead.

The idea seems to be to force you to keep learning new Morsels, but I'm not entirely sold on this. Instead, I save my best ones for crucial moments so they don't get over-used and rotate ones I didn't like so much instead. I'm not sure a complete run really goes on long enough for you to need several – only going through two or three generations. It can just feel a bit annoying to have a preferred way of playing taken away, and I've yet to find being forced to pivot very thrilling.

Still, each Morsel is impressively and radically transformative on play. At times, each can make you feel like you're playing a different game – though every one of those different games still feels like you're playing The Binding of Isaac but not quite as good. I'm less into most of Morsels' other roguelike upgrades and pickups – many of which seem to be simple stat boosts which are hard to really appreciate, or Isaac-like items you deploy to, for example, temporarily get a sort of invincibility or summon a powerful throwing item.

Either at hidden shops or in encounters between each floor you have the option to spend crumbs or take part in a challenge to earn more crumbs. Forking over these tiny bites can get you some powerful ability upgrades, but mostly they amount to kind of more things happening. My first clear came about by combining a somewhat frequent item that turned my daisy shields into spinning attacks while another upgrade helped me spawn more, all on top of another that summoned increasingly large numbers of birds to swarm around me, ultimately undermining the importance of the Morsels themselves as I could sort of just sit back and let what would happen, happen.

I grumble, but I have enjoyed my time with Morsels. I like the idea of juggling multiple characters with radically different movesets, even if I ended up ignoring a few who feel miserable to play as (looking at the gas spewing dog rectum Zigsel especially). The visuals are wonderfully disgusting, and the vaporwave dreamscape soundtrack is lovely stuff. The problem with newcomers in the roguelike genre, though, is they're designed to be endlessly replayable, meaning the best roguelike games have remarkable staying power. Morsels is a good one of these while also frequently a bit annoying to play, all while being too similar to The Binding of Isaac for me to not just play that instead. Morsels stands out, but not quite enough – and it's left eating crumbs.

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