For the longest time, I thought that the prevalent issue weighing down roguelites/likes was excessive RNG. Later on, I slightly adjusted my stance: RNG was okay, but a lack of player control to combat any unexpected changes as a result of RNG was not. In one fell swoop, Mosa Lina has neatly proven both of those issues to be mere symptoms of the root cause: modern roguelites/likes overemphasize the macro over the micro.

This problem I think, stems from the genre's overreliance upon meta-progression and run investment. While these would at first appear to be opposite ends of the spectrum (after all, meta-progression often relies upon you throwing away successive runs to gain some kind of advantage/pass certain checks), they both point to the same core issue of ultimately not respecting the player's time. In the former case, the moment-to-moment gameplay often isn't interesting enough to sustain a run. In the latter, the player either succeeds with the "god-run" and has to chase the high through more grinding all over again, or throws it all away due to mistakes/RNG and feels like absolute shit, lamenting what could have been with their hours spent, just inches away from the finish line.

Mosa Lina doesn't fall victim to this, because it was never about winning in the first place. There's no end to the game: the core concept infinitely loops and you'll never hit the credits roll unless you decide to manually mash through them in the pause menu. There's a scoring system in place, but the descriptions themselves often mock how points are handed out arbitrarily. On top of this, there's no meta-progression whatsoever because practically everything is unlocked and randomized from the start: you've got three randomized toys to play with out of a pool of nine randomly selected for the particular loop out of 21 possible toys, and if nothing works (which the game outright warns you will happen), just reroll until something sticks.

As a result, the game solves two problems at once: the aforementioned issue of filling up a player's time with weak moment-to-moment gameplay, and the classic issue of "lock-and-key" solutions creating linear puzzles that lack replayability. Although the game characterizes itself as "a hostile interpretation of the immersive sim," I find it to be more indifferent if anything. It doesn't guide you towards solutions, it never provides any incentives for finding solutions, and it never even bothers to explain its underlying mechanics aside from listing the control scheme and being forthright with its unpredictability. Yet by doing so, it sets itself up as the perfect player-driven sandbox. The difficulty and learning curve is entirely up to you; sure the types of tools are randomized, but half of the battle is figuring out what to do with the tool combinations given and exploiting the game's floaty gravity and set pieces with your heavy character and tight jump. If you can't succeed, a refresh is just seconds away!

I don't think I've yelled so much at a video game since my high school days of grinding Dota 2 (a very dark period in my life, I'm aware). However, these were not yells of frustration or exasperation in the slightest. No, this was me shouting in excitement every time something batshit crazy happened on screen (read: pretty damn often). Sometimes the game really does ask for the seemingly impossible with huge gaps to cross/jump and absolutely garbage or ill-fitting tools that I can't even say feel balanced at times; I swear the fish have been useless in 80% of their appearances. That's what makes it so damn enthralling though: savoring the thrill of discovery when I learned how to bomb-jump in mid-air by properly timing my placements, or somehow finagling a solution by pushing and juggling around some crazy contraptions made of dead frogs, some wire, and a ladder. The possibilities felt endless, and while I do have some critique for the initially unintuitive aiming (you shoot upwards/downwards at a 75 degree angle from the horizontal and can't fine-tune your trajectory any further), this game really is the full and realized package it claims to be despite (or perhaps as a result of!) its lack of excessive streamlining. With Level Editor updates on the way, I can 100% see myself returning to mess around more in the future. I'm nothing but pleased as punch that a game which wasn't even on my radar has sufficiently blown me away: in a year of flashy major releases and tired conventions, Mosa Lina pulls back the curtain to reveal that the basics are all you need for a good show after all.