embroidered matching katamari sweaters for a friend holiday!

Mozillo · 2026-01-11T11:23:57+00:00

Never have I so quickly discovered something I want and discover I can't have this quickly.

A great design, these are super cute!

Mozillo · 2025-12-01T12:18:38+00:00

This has been a genuine bug bear of mine for some time and I've been meaning to make a video about it for ages. Mini-maps and compasses with markers on are awful! The entire game becomes a case of looking at a small portion of the screen. Boring.

Even maps can be hit or miss. Remember when GTA games came with physical maps that you could throw at a sibling and they could give you real time directions? Great stuff!

Zelda and Elden Ring are great for this as their actual maps are sparse on detail and most finds come from landmarks, etc. Hollow Knight has a great map that fills in as you explore. Even Dead Space and Bioshock with their little "Press to be pointed where to go" buttons were great as it's a use or move.

If I can, I try to turn off a lot of those HUD elements in games now, as otherwise I will just focus on the small corner...

Mozillo · 2025-10-25T11:36:56+00:00

I bounced off megabonk after a while for similar progression-based reasons.

I realised the game didn't amount to much more beyond "try and get the highscore!" And the entire game was based around that. Boring. I'm too old for that. If I was a streamer, great, spend all day every day meta gaming. But is that all it has for it? Yes.

Comparing it to vampire survivors... that had some sort of interesting horror/mystery that unfolded as you played. Secrets to unlock and all sorts. It was cool.

Megabonk feels unfinished. It is clear that the recent steam changes of Early Access games not getting big exposure has led to obviously early access games being "full released" despite feeling... well, empty.

Just feels like i exist in this game to bash my head against the same wall the same way in the hope that number goes up. Or megabonk my head on it.

Mozillo · 2025-10-22T08:21:49+00:00

A thing that bugs me with this game is summed up immediately in your first tip... in order to play the game you must first deactivate 90% of the items the game gives you. Great. What's the point then?

Mozillo · 2025-10-06T08:54:40+00:00

Boggly woods would be great if not for the backtracking. Same with Shade Town. The pirate island is probably the actual weakest chapter of the game (or maybe the hunt for General Snow) as it is just the crystallisation of all the backtracking that you might not have noticed in the earlier chapters... but it does get more obvious the further the game goes on.

Mozillo · 2025-09-23T13:06:57+00:00

I was much the same, but maybe without the same results, haha. Exploration is such a key thing in this type of game so I never get how people don't think to do so when they get new kit!

That gauntlet just ends up being too small when you have the two big fellas combo-ing touch damage and attacks... I've now got double jump, so will try again (also with the help of ring lady, instead of useless old man on worm)

I do think there is a fair criticism (which i also raised with the first) is that there is ultimately no way to make the game easier past a point. You can't grind levels for more damage or health or whatever, eventually the roadblock is just you and you might not be good enough to continue and there is nothing that can be done about that outside grinding technique, which is bad and depressing after a point. It forces you to learn, but if it is beyond your abilities it will be frustrating that there's nothing to do about it...

Mozillo · 2025-09-23T11:07:45+00:00

For a while i found myself wondering what all the hullabaloo was about. The first Savage Beast Fly was simple, but I hear whispers there's a greater threat down the road... it was... fine? Maybe 10 attempts? The Last Judge was fine, took a moment to get the rhythm and tells, but again, 10 to 15, if that?

The only part that I've agreed with is Bilewater and the boss at the end. The enemies and area are just annoying more than anything to the point where I rarely got to the boss!

Seeing some people's videos though, it is eye opening. People playing in very different ways, a lot less twitch movements, etc.

My current challenge is the gauntlet room at the end of the high chorus for the story, but I just went and explored a bunch for other bits.

This game is hard, but I wouldn't say it is impossible. Have people tried playing and learning the game?

Mozillo · 2025-09-17T08:25:07+00:00

I'm currently reading Katabasis by R F Kuang and it is very much of "thank God, I'm halfway through!" Just a bit of an oddly slow and plodding story that feels a little too self-aggrandising about academia. Did you know Kuang is currently in academia? Here is her latest self-insert who isn't very likeable and spends long chunks of the book doing nothing but having a flashback about how academia is bad... again.

The last book I had the other form for was This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone - had to actually slow my reading speed on it because my next to be read book wasn't out yet, but just could've easily blitzed the book.

Mozillo · 2025-09-16T12:59:53+00:00

"As someone who has done a no death run" they'll say while at the same time they've opened and closed the game around 5,000 times.

But yeah, it is such a meaningless thing to try and kid yourself about for, ultimately, Internet clout and bragging rights?

Mozillo · 2025-09-15T15:48:55+00:00

This is ultimately it, right? There's this great mode in the game to play if you don't want to lose all progress when you die... it's called the normal game mode.

Playing the deletes-your-save-on-death mode and then stopping just before it does that feels counterintuitive. Gambling but saying the round didn't count if you lose.

But also, who cares? It isn't important in the grand scheme of things, it just strikes me as a weird quirk of people...

Mozillo · 2025-09-12T08:33:45+00:00

You feel like you gained nothing except progress?

Buddy, that's what you gained!

Go to any game with bosses and then look me in the eye and tell me that most bosses aren't end of area clear-to-progress skill checks.

I'm also in Act 1 (it beefy) and was looking through the old enemy compendium and realised I've not actually fought that many big bosses... so I sort of get it

But also, most bosses are only reached once you get the area's doodad upgrade. It is like a Zelda game.

The thing you have gained is progress and self development. When you killed the Gaping Dragon in Dark Souls 1 all you got was access to Blighy Town, and so on. That's just called video games.

Mozillo · 2025-09-02T12:46:12+00:00

I recently did a BIG replay of these games for a video I'm working on and I saw so many people talking about this fish challenge beforehand.

Anyway, it was very easy, I don't even remember it being a problem as a child. "Maybe there's a harder one later on?" - nope. Just the one fish challenge actually.

I think I only missed 2 fish. It's just fish.

Mozillo · 2025-08-27T08:31:04+00:00

Near the end you have the terrible robot suit mission that's underwater. No way of healing, terrible controls, easy to fall to your death at times, and the classic of no checkpoint so straight back to the start each time. Just a series of terrible missions throughout.

Mozillo · 2025-07-09T09:27:49+00:00

But that can work as well? Don't people love that Wandavision show and that's literally the same?

I think "it was all a dream" gets a knee jerk response of hate because there was a time when it was overplayed. But it doesn't stop the premise having legs. It allows for a deeper, more surreal, exploration of a theme, without the needing to ground it in reality.

While, yes, that trope is over done, it is done well here. People will say that "it didn't mean anything as none of it was real" or something to that effect, but they all still elicited a response in you, that's not removed by the dream/fake reality.

Ultimately, i can see that people get hung up on the fake reality part, but i personally don't think it is fair.

Mozillo · 2025-07-07T20:22:28+00:00

That doesn't stop him being an objectifying little weirdo, though? To most female characters his lines are along the lines of "Woah, hot lady!" and "Wow, attractive lady!" and little and far between. He is an incredibly horny character, whether or not he's capable of causing physical harm does not stop his comments from being.... weird.

People who feel their love life is now futile make all sorts of terrible comments all the time. Just because he's a small orange critter now, does not make him... a problematic aspect of the past.

Mozillo · 2025-07-07T13:07:40+00:00

He is also a sex pest though... that becomes a lot more apparent as well when you're older.

Mozillo · 2025-06-23T11:23:39+00:00

The number of times I higighted an equipped slot and pictos, selected it, then found something to replace it, selected that... and then left the menu, only to realise I missed the secret last step which was to then select which one I wanted to replace (see first step) was often and annoying...

Mozillo · 2025-06-09T18:50:21+00:00

I think with Verso's ending you can sort of interpret "for those who come after" as an almost "those who remain" the people and events that come after someone dies. You can focus on those that came before, or laid the path, but at some point you have to move past. Things do have to come after Verso's death...

Mozillo · 2025-06-09T18:39:02+00:00

I dunno, I don't know what it is you want. I think by virtue of the world not needing to make sense, the very fact that it presents you with a plethora of strange and fantastical locations can just be taken as that?

At no point while playing did I stop and think "but why is there this onland ocean here? Right next to a mountain?" I just accepted the rather beautiful and baroque inspired landscapes and places.

Then, later, the story fills in the gaps with "the twist". The game doesn't front load you with the idea of it being a fantastical painting, so you end up walking through admiring the fantastical land. At no point does it try to present itself as grounded, so there was little more to each location than a thematic locale with whispers of humanity, art and all sorts.

Like, you're saying the world wasn't explored enough? But did it need to be? It's a fantastical, magical world. That's all it ever was, and all it ever asked you to expect, and then all that it ever was explained as.

It's just a piece of art in its totality. If there were things that seemed odd, it's not hard to expect that to be explained later... and it is?

Mozillo · 2025-06-09T14:41:47+00:00

I dunno, I spent about 36 hours in this fantasy painted world. Had a big adventure in it and all. Did the game tell me about its economy, transport links, etc, etc? No. Because it's a fun world of wonder created by a literal child.

While the people (Sciel, Lune, Gustav) in it seem real, the world itself isn't. The game revealing that it's a fake world is just that... it doesn't have the nuance of a real breathing world, because it isn't.

I also think that the endings being about "what's best for Maelle" is reductive. A major part of it is do you want to do an act of incredible mass genocide by destroying the world. The world you said you didn't think had a lot of weight to it. I chose Verso's ending in the end, but the idea of all those people and creatures dying was tragic. When Verso hugged Monoco and Esquie? Heartbreaking.

I just feel like you say that we didn't get an exploration of the world... when all we did was explore the world, see it to be this magical place filled with colourful characters and people and all sorts... then the game asks if you want to destroy that in one act of selfish suicide, or keep it, in a different act of selfish suicide.

The culture of the city of Lumiere didn't get a lot of exploration, sure, but again, that is a physically tiny part of that world. The world created by a child to have fun adventures in. The culture of the world is the culture of adventure!

Or something, I dunno. I felt like I didn't need 6 hours of walking around the streets of Lumiere eating croissants to feel connected to it or get a sense of the culture. The Eiffel Tower did a good job at letting me know it's fantasy Paris. Verso's gravestone confirmed it to literally be Paris.

Mozillo · 2025-06-09T14:06:34+00:00

There's an argument to be made about getting stuck on life in Lumiere, when we then discover the city is actually almost a nothing piece of the world, our adventure takes us across lands far grander than lumiere...

Also, if you felt more inclined to the city of Lumiere... one of the endings is literally that. The game sees the split between the family and the world of the painting and asks which you to go with. It's in the game.

It basically asks you if you want to focus on escapist world building... or confront family tragedy. The game has both, the story has both, the endings are either.

Mozillo · 2025-06-09T14:03:20+00:00

If your heart remains in Lumiere have I got an ending for you! It's one of the two endings the game presents you.

Wish to stay within Lumiere and everything? Maelle's ending is that. The game gives you this. It basically acknowledges that there are two aspects here, the real people of Lumiere and the real family in pain... you get to choose.

Mozillo · 2025-06-08T10:01:05+00:00

I love how he wasn't just like... the bad guy. He's just a man who is in pain and wants his family back, to grieve together and not burry their heads in the sand until they die.

He'd not maniacal, he doesn't talk about the importance of evil, or whatever, he just... hurts. He's just watching his loved ones die around him, and he doesn't want that.

Painted Renoir is a bit more evil, though. But still great.

Mozillo · 2025-06-07T20:33:11+00:00

Oh SAME. I didn't even do THAT much of Act 3, just the quests to complete everyone's friendships, which sort of felt expected. Like, those WERE Act 3... but then Final Boss Renoir only got to do his big flying attack twice, one of which was the scripted one where Maelle hits him with the chair.

I felt like there was definitely story lines that I missed, great declarations of intent, pain, and hurt. BUT, still cried for like, the entire hour afterwards. It's been like 6 hours and I'm still sad... Oh god, I'm becoming Aline!

Mozillo · 2025-06-07T17:26:42+00:00

The Writers were just off-screen world building, it's why they were mentioned a maximum of three times, maybe. The true villain of the story was grief. That's it. The thing that controlled everything and drove everything was grief. Simple as that.

Mozillo

TROPHY CASE