Game Review, Mosa Lina
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Mosa Lina
Broke me physically and mentally, in a good way.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2477090/Mosa_Lina/
Intro:
Hey folks, welcome to the blurbs. I'm your host Mosa Hyrulina, and today I'm going to share my thoughts on a bit of a hidden gem from my ever growing Steam library. The topic of today's blurb is none other than Mosa Lina, a magnificent puzzle platformer roguelike with immersive sim elements. After a recent update, it has absolutely consumed every spare moment of gaming time I've had in the last few weeks. Here are my thoughts.
Story:
While Mosa Lina doesn’t really have a story, I wanted to remind readers that not all games need award-winning narratives. Sometimes, you just want a game to show up, shut up, and let you have fun without guilting you into a 200-hour odyssey. Mosa Lina gets that! Some games even have a gameplay loop so strong that you’ll sink hundreds of hours into them—no story required. That's it, rant over! :) Let's get back to business now.
Gameplay:
A typical Mosa Lina run begins with the game giving you nine randomly selected items from its roster of forty-eight. These items will be your tools for every level in that run.
Once the run starts, you’re dropped into the first level with three of your nine items and must complete its objective—collecting fruit—by any means possible. The randomness forces creativity, rewarding experimentation. Sometimes you can't quite figure out how to beat the level with the tools you are given, but that's okay! If you die or reset, you’ll respawn in a new level with another three random items from your pool, and you'll eventually get another shot on the first level you tried. This continues until only the ninth level remains, which transforms into a larger, more challenging "boss" stage with additional goals. Clear it, and the run is complete.
Mosa Lina’s runs are wildly unpredictable—your difficulty hinges entirely on the random items you’re given. But if you’re stuck, the game offers an escape hatch: a quick-respawn button for a new level, and a full reroll option in the pause menu to restart with fresh items. Here, failure isn’t punishing—it’s part of the fun. Experimentation is the only way to learn.
The magic lies in each item’s duality. They all have obvious functions and at least one hidden trick, none of which the game explains. Take the arrow: you can use it to topple objects or fire it into walls to create makeshift platforms. Every tool has these 'aha!' moments, and when certain items click together? That’s when the real chaos begins. The game’s like a sadistic toybox—it’ll hand you a bubble wand and a grenade, then whisper "Figure it out."
That’s the gameplay of Mosa Lina in a nutshell: a chaotic, clever puzzle game that thrives on experimentation and improvisation. Oh and I forgot to mention—you can drag a friend into the madness. While local co-op shines, online play stumbles if connections are spotty. The game aggressively fights physics desync by pausing whenever packet loss occurs to let everything fall back in sync, which is smart for physics integrity but brutal for friends with stone age internet. It’s a shame, because the co-op design is otherwise brilliant: four items per level instead of three (two per player), shared objectives with some needing to be collected by both players, and requiring the kind of teamwork that either bonds you for life or ends life long friendships over one misplaced explosive. (I’ve crashed out more times than I’d care to admit.) If you care for your friendships, try the turn-based alternate mode—all the collaboration, none of the rage.
One last highlight: the May 2025 "Second Layer" update. This wasn’t just polish—it nearly doubled the game’s content, turning an already packed title into something sequel-worthy. Instead of charging for a new release, the devs expanded the original. Even at its new $8 price tag, it’s a steal for the sheer creativity on offer.
Technical Aspects:
Mosa Lina’s minimalist art style isn’t just charming—it’s efficient. The game runs flawlessly on everything from my aging PC to my Steam Deck, barely taxing the hardware. I did encounter occasional screen flickering in full-screen mode on PC (possibly due to vsync or an overlay), but the Steam Deck version ran perfectly. Its lightweight design makes it ideal for portable play, and while I haven’t tested the new Switch port myself, I’d expect similar performance given the hardware.
Conclusion:
So yeah, that’s Mosa Lina—a masterclass in reinventing an oversaturated genre. The team didn’t just iterate; they created something truly fresh, and that’s why I had to shout about it. At this price point, you’d be hard-pressed to find anything as clever or replayable. It’s criminal that a game this good only has around 2,000 reviews after over a year since release. If anything here sparked your curiosity, do yourself a favor and set aside the $8 you'd normally spend on a Big Mac and get this game instead. Let's get it the attention it truly deserves.
Obligatory Numerical Rating:
8.8/10.0
TLDR: Mosa Lina is a genre-blending masterpiece—a roguelike puzzle-platformer with immersive-sim depth. Its chaotic, randomized gameplay loop is brutally addictive. A rare gem that earns its difficulty. Prefer solo or local play to avoid annoyances with online co-op.
Similar Games:
- Baba is You: https://store.steampowered.com/app/736260/Baba_Is_You/
- Glass Cannon: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3325030/Glass_Cannon/
- Patrick's Parabox: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1260520/Patricks_Parabox/
Other Stuff:
Oh and before you go, thanks for reading my review! This is the first blurb going up on my blog over at Hyruli.net, so it means a lot to me that you made it all the way to the end. The template is also work in progress, so if there's anything you want me to cover in future reviews that wasn't covered here, feel free to let me know! I've got lots of ideas to make this blog better, so expect a lot of stuff from it in the future!
~ Hyrulian
This review was edited for grammar and pacing with the assistance of DeepSeek-V3. Yes AI sucks, but so does my writing. I'm a hypocrite what can I say?