MOUSE: P.I For Hire is the long-awaited first-person shooter by Fumi Games and arguably my most anticipated game of 2026 (between this and RE Requiem), given that I've been watching this game's development since the first teaser almost 3 years ago and BOY has the hype paid off for me.

• The visuals. The main draw of this game, MOUSE: P.I For Hire takes the rubber hose animation of the 1920s-1930s and creates an entirely new and fresh universe that breathes life into both the animation style and the FPS genre. The only other game that it can really compete with is Cuphead, since that also takes the same animation style, albeit they're different genres, but this combined with the greyscale/black and white filter makes for a somewhat gritty, vintage and incredible representation of what I assume is an American city of some kind, with the game calling it "Mouseberg," since it's a world of mice and/or rodents instead of humans. And cheese. Lots of cheese.
  
  
• Level Design is SUPERB! I knew the game would have 20 levels, but I didn't expect each level to feel unique, and unique they accomplish with MOUSE! You'll be going to all kinds of places, from police stations to the opera house, the forests/Wetlands as they like to call it, sewers and many more! There's also plenty of long and short levels, so they all won't take the same amount of time, and as you gather more tools, the game opens up exponentially, with double jumping, a grappling hook, jump pads and even light destruction with barrels, objects you can shoot down to crush enemies and breakable walls. Exploration is also really solid, with plenty of secrets, collectibles and items to find
  
  
• The lockpicking system. Surprised a lot of people haven't brought it up, but MOUSE changes this up by instead, using your tail to pick safes and door locks instead of an actual lockpick. ISN'T THAT JUST COOL? It also works differently by pointing your tail towards the locks while also avoiding spikes, sometimes having a timer to put you under a bit of pressure, and you can always undo your tail actions if you do something wrong. Slept on feature imo
  
  
• I found the story to be pretty interesting, with a lot of cases to solve and clues to find. Without spoiling too much, you play as Jack Pepper, former war veteran of WW1 or "The Old World" as he calls it, who now works as a private investigator after quitting the police force and gets an offer he can't refuse: a big case that could set him up for life. You investigate the death of an actress, as well as the disappearance of a magician, among other cases that all come together in a noir narrative that I enjoyed from start to finish, with plenty of humor, lots of pop culture + game references, dives into some serious themes like Fascism and of course, investigating as you put the pieces together to figure out what's going on. While the detective side is light due to the clue board being simple and not having to put too much thought, finding the clues themselves make up for it as some aren't required but help to flesh out the narrative more and contribute towards achievements
  
  
• Voice acting in this game is top notch across the board, but I have to give a special shoutout to Troy Baker for once again, doing his thing portraying another character, in this instance, being Jack. Not only does he do it well, he does it justice and I laughed a good amount of times at some of the lines he said! Makes me wonder if some of it was improv or it just came from the script
  
  
• A unique feature I like about MOUSE is that any collectibles you miss from levels can be bought from the store back at either the game's hub or Roadhouses that you find throughout the game. They also discount them for really cheap, allowing you to buy most of the collectibles without having to do the exploring yourself. Although you should go out of your way to do it cause it's so fun and satisfying to do
  
  
• Gameplay is very run of the mill: if you've played one boomer shooter, you've played them all. It takes stuff from other games but not in a way where they necessarily throw it at your face. It works just right, with plenty of weapons to use, weapon upgrades, alt-fires that change how weapons feel and platforming that feels fun and cool to do, along with some fun boss fights
  
  
• Another feature I love is something that Cuphead does as well: Having this top-down or isometric view of the world, but in MOUSE's instance, Jack has a car and you use it to drive from level to level. It's also more zoomed out to let you see more of Mouseberg, alongside little things like the trains going down the tracks, planes flying over or the clouds going by
  
  
• Characters in this game are great, with lots of charm, personality and flair about them. Igorrr is a highlight for me (iykyk)
  
  
• Really love the addition of Cheese, which is an in-game consumable that replenishes your health and is always in your backpack, so if there's no health or armor consumables available, you pop that in a pinch to get back on your feet, which makes sense, cause mice
  
  
• Enemy variety kind of shocked me, with plenty of small, medium and heavy enemies, from gunners to melee attackers, flyers, juggernaut goons and many more. It never got old, given the game's length (12-20 hours according to devs)
  
  
• Soundtrack... is peak. 1930s Jazz. Don't think I need to say more here. I'm sure I'm gonna be smashing the soundtrack on spotify once I've wrapped this game up
  
  
• Performance wise, it's incredible. Finally, a game that's not only under 10gb, but doesn't require any form of upscaling or frame gen tech in order to play it, which is what I expected with this kind of game anyway. HUGE W!

• As much as I love this game, there are some issues I have with it. Firstly, the lack of mission replay. As it stands right now, once you finish the game, unless you have saves on all of the levels, there is no way to replay an area once you leave, and MOUSE becomes one of those games where you gotta do everything in one run. While I don't think it's an issue personally, I know this will be a problem or a turn-off for a lot of people, so I hope that Fumi either adds this, let collectibles carry over to new playthroughs retroactively or possibly add a free-roam mode, allowing you to load your final save, take all of the progress and play through levels once more, with changed enemy spawns so it's not just a copy and paste of the first time you played it. New game + wouldn't be a bad shout either
  
  
• Save stations or typewriters are too plentiful. Within the first hour, I'm positive the game throws like, 7 or so typewriters and it just trivialises the game, combined with the forgiving autosave system as well. I don't see this being changed, but would love to see typewriters be removed across the board by at least 50%. I know I could just skip it and forget it exists, but that doesn't excuse its quantity
  
  
• Game is easy, especially when playing on Supersleuth, the game's hardest difficulty. I was originally on Detective, but once I upgraded a few guns, it became trivial to the point where I amped it up to Supersleuth and it was a breeze. I'd love to see a higher difficulty be added in the future
  
  
• Some of the weapons are kind of meh, even with upgrades

MOUSE: P.I For Hire is an incredible game and something gaming needs: a game that's not only unique, but takes something we don't see often and putting a spin on it, with the rubber hose visuals being striking, the story being interesting and the gameplay that, while it takes from other boomer shooters, feels both familiar and fresh at the same time, alongside the metroidvania elements. This is one for the books. Do yourself a favor and get this game.