Rosalia Rambles

Tag: reviews

  • Redundancy Review: Day 21, “Community”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: https://rosaliarambles.wordpress.com/2025/06/11/redundancy-review-day-1-a-new-beginning/)

    Good morning rebels and ruffians, welcome to Day 21 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Numbers are really getting up there now. Not only is it the three week milestone reached, it is now the month of July, a time where I was supposed to actually be off work to wait out the heat… funny how that turned out.

    I continue to be surprised with myself that I have made it this far as well. My redundancy has caused a lot of mental stress to occur which has had the knock-on effect of making certain habits slip some days, but each morning I still get on my laptop and start writing through the grogginess.

    My road trip yesterday had a lot of different conversation topics, but the most interesting of which was finding bits of inspiration for how my voice as a transgender woman can influence my writing and stories.

    Transitioning is… messy, to say the least. There is plenty of advice from elder trans who have come before you but ultimately anyone who walks that path is going to encounter some challenges along the way, and I think that is one of the main points that needs to be amplified in today’s world.

    It is a scary time to be trans, with rising negative sentiment amongst politicians and news media potentially intimidating others to remain in the closet whilst simultaneously making already out people feel uncomfortable in the world they reside in.

    For both parties, I have a message, and whilst I may just be one person, I want to use my voice for good:

    The world is better with you in it. Do not let the ruling class tell you otherwise. You are important, you are valued, and you are beautiful – however you present yourself, you are amazing for living your truth.

    Finding strength in community is what can get us through hard times, and community can take many different shapes. It can be a group of former colleagues banding together to offer each other support during a hard time, it can be a collection of trans people coming together to build everyone up to be their best selves, and it can even be your close group of friends – a found family through shared interests.

    If that impassioned speech resonated, you would be impressed what I can do on other live projects – why not consider hiring me? I put my heart and soul into my work every time, leaving an emotional impact on the reader, or using my inherent sense of logic to write clean, consistent copy for professional projects.

    With us reaching Day 21, and noticing a trend in my previous entries, it is time for another Hololive song review, one that ties in to the themes of community and found family.

    In case it is not already obvious from this being the second group song I am reviewing from them, Hololive English Generation 3 “Advent” are my favourite group within the organisation. Their style, theming, and group coherence made me fall in love from day one with that love never once dimming throughout.

    “Rebellion” is their debut song, released just under two years ago at time of writing. True to their lore of being fugitives the song talks a lot about breaking out of cycles & systems, being freed from cages, and lighting fires in their hearts to embrace new found freedom.

    The rhythm of the song also helps highlight the ever present theme of “dance”, with the word appearing several times during the chorus. With its heavy usage of synth it really does sound like a song that could be played in a club, dancing the night away to a song about breaking free.

    With each Hololive song review I tend to highlight a specific segment of the lyrics, and this time is no different, with me wanting to draw particular attention to the bridge before the final choruses:

    “I know that I can still be

    The future of this story

    I know that I can be free

    The one and the only

    They tell me that I’m crazy

    I’ll never let them stop me”

    It says something that I did not need to go back to the music video to get those lyrics right – this final part of the song before launching back into the chorus is slower than the rest but it is the part I always like to listen out for. 

    Advent’s declaration of wanting to be free in their own story and not wanting to listen to those that put them down resonate heavily with my own experience within life, never wanting to be told to stop. Hearing those words each time I revisit Rebellion brings me immense comfort, much like any time I engage in Advent’s content.

    One final thing, knowing that I need an image for the thumbnail…

    …god Shiori is so pretty, I can not wait to cosplay her.

    That brings us to the end for today. Thank you for sticking with me for three weeks thus far, take it easy whatever you do, and have a great day!

  • Redundancy Review: Day 17, “Sleepiness”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: https://rosaliarambles.wordpress.com/2025/06/11/redundancy-review-day-1-a-new-beginning/)

    Good morning duvets and pillows, welcome to Day 17 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    You would think with the fact I had a late night on Wednesday that a part of me would consider taking an early night yesterday to make up for it.

    Then the Capcom spotlight happened, where it took until the end for the Monster Hunter Wilds trailer to appear. It was definitely worth it though, and watching the entire showcase was actually rather enjoyable.

    However, this means I am absolutely knackered this morning – to the point I think I slept through all of my alarms without meaning to. It is always difficult to write these on nights where I might not have had as much sleep as I needed, though it is weird that today is one of those days when I slept in so hard.

    As I was drifting off last night I had ideas of a topic I might want to cover in these mental health check-in segments, but when I started plotting it out in my head it feels like it should get its own spotlight piece, so keep your eyes open for that. 

    Yesterday I also showed my mentor this website as we were catching up on the work search, and her advice to me outside of complimenting my work was “get that bloody book out there”. When we worked together we often chatted about the kind of life I have had, and how it would be interesting for me to write it in a semi-fictionalised way, marketing it as the slice-of-life story for this generation.

    (if you are reading this Gabi, hi!)

    It is something I have considered as I work on different projects throughout the day. My main area of interest has always been sci-fi & fantasy epics, telling tales of massive worlds and their conflicts or trials, but considering the amount of events I have lived through and maturing as a trans woman in recent years, it is a very valid idea.

    For anyone reading who might want to help make these ideas reality, consider getting in touch and hiring me – creative writing is in the forefront of my mind currently. I would love any and all opportunities to work on live projects which could help fund my other ventures.

    As most unemployed people do, I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. Looking for opportunities, using the job search tool, and lamenting the course my life has taken when I’m wading through AI-generated content that no one has bothered proofreading. 

    The one that always stands out in my mind is one that said “Avoid these 14 game design zombies!”, with the main content of the post then saying it was 15 game design zombies, but then the also AI-generated image does not count up to 15 and it is missing several numbers on the way to 14. LinkedIn is full of these posts now, with the only fringe benefit being that I am very good at spotting GPT-speak right now.

    Outside of job searching though, LinkedIn does actually have a series of five puzzle games currently, with my personal favourite being the subject of today’s review.

    Zip is an extremely simple puzzle game on the surface, but the amount of complexity that can be packed into each day’s offering always surprises me.

    The premise is straightforward: get from the number 1 dot to whatever the final dot is for that day. Today’s puzzle was getting to number 8 but on previous days it can go as high as number 24.

    There is always something satisfying in challenges that go from point A to point B for me, it ties in with my love of building infrastructure in video games – paths, roads, and other means of transport make my heart sing with joy, so a puzzle game that abstracts that to its most basic form was sure to be a success.

    It is so much fun that it is engrained as part of my routine now alongside writing these reviews, and it keeps me checking LinkedIn even when I might not feel up to wading through the mess of AI.

    With that, we come to the end of today’s review. Thank you for reading, I am going to go have some coffee and brunch – consider treating yourself to something similar, it is Friday after all.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 11, “Hot two? Damn”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: https://rosaliarambles.wordpress.com/2025/06/11/redundancy-review-day-1-a-new-beginning/) 

    Good morning risers and shiners, welcome to Day 11 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    It is currently a wondrous 23 degrees Celsius outside at 9:15am (73 degrees in Freedom units) with the humidity at 59%. Combine this with the clay oven construction of the flat I live in and we get a formula for it once again being too damn hot. Thankfully the temperature is supposed to go back down to reasonable levels with 20 degrees being the peak instead of the lower part of the curve.

    Outside of the supply run I did with my partner yesterday, my productivity was minimised despite my best efforts to try to keep doing tasks – after a while of just moving small distances across the living room I turned into a sweaty mess that needed to sit down.

    Hopefully once things cool down and the flat returns to a reasonable temperature I can keep on my domestic quest to finish all the outstanding housework and tidying.

    Caught up with a friend and colleague of mine yesterday who mentioned that Poncle had closed applications for the QA engineer role, so hopefully I get to hear back soon enough (also cause I sent him the link to this site, if you are reading, hi!).

    Due to meet with the Jobcentre on Monday as well, hopefully I can get things sorted out with them and start receiving some extra money to help out with things.

    If you would like to help me out with my money situation, then I am available to be hired for writing work. Reviewing video games, card games, and board games are options alongside commissioning me for fiction – I love expanding my horizons and I would love working with you on your next project.

    So as part of my housework list yesterday, I resumed sorting my Magic: the Gathering cards. For those unaware, I own… a lot of cards…

    …possibly even too many one might say… this is not even a full representation of the entire collection, considering the amount of binders and commander decks I own.

    Though with consideration to today’s review subject, pictured above, keeping the collection organised has become easier.

    Those cardboard boxes are called BulkBox QUADs, being able to hold 3600 cards across four channels. They do require some assembly before use, and I will admit to minorly fucking up the construction on one of them but that is not a fault of the video tutorial I followed – created by Bulkbox themselves.

    Before purchasing this product, my cards were stored in a Fenrir Games 5000 count longbox that I had owned since around 2019. It definitely served its purpose for the time I had it but in my current living situation, it was difficult to use it without struggling to find a home for it.

    That is where one of the features of the BulkBox really appealed to me – a set of three QUADs fit perfectly into one IKEA Kallax cube. Having a massive amount of Kallax cube space already in my flat made it the ideal upgrade for my card storage solution.

    Picture taken from BulkBox’s website

    Even with the amount of cards currently spread across all three of the boxes I bought, I do not feel them bowing or bending whenever I pick them up – something I often encountered when needing to move my old 5000 count longbox. Even considering the somewhat botched job I did on construction, the Bulkbox holds up fantastically to the amount of cards I am putting into it.

    That said, I would consider Bulkbox to be premium-priced storage solutions. For a bundle pack of three QUADS (with free UK shipping) cost me £35. I do consider it worth it for serious collectors of cards and Kallax enthusiasts (that Venn diagram is a circle), especially if you want to minimise the footprint your collection has.

    Taking into account the rest of the collection I need to sort, it is likely I will need to buy from BulkBox again, and I know I can be assured of their quality.

    I think that covers everything for today, I am going to go focus on staying cool with soft drinks, frappes, and ice cream. Thank you for reading today, please stay cool and treat yourself to anything that cools you down.

    For more information on BulkBox products, visit their website here: BulkBox the best trading card game storage boxes

  • Redundancy Review: Day 10, “Running Up That Hill”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: https://rosaliarambles.wordpress.com/2025/06/11/redundancy-review-day-1-a-new-beginning/) 

    Good morning climbers and divers, welcome to Day 10 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Might be a shorter one today as I have just come back from shopping at Asda to get supplies before a massive heatwave today and tomorrow. Plenty of drinks, snacks, and ice cream to get through a rough time – did involve walking up a very steep hill in quite humid weather all the same.

    Despite the heat though, I have been managing to keep busy domestically. It was a tough struggle but yesterday I managed to finally give the master bedroom a deep clean, picking up the floordrobe that had developed and giving the carpet a well deserved vacuuming. Being able to see the floor again and not have to walk around on eggshells is such a relieving feeling.

    I reconnected with an old friend yesterday as well. In the past we had helped each other get the multiplayer achievements on Borderlands 2 and he messaged me a few days back asking if I wanted help getting the ones on the original game as well (not the “Enhanced Edition” – quotation marks used quite literally there). He is in a similar situation to myself in terms of jobs so it was nice to shoot the shit for a bit about life.

    The job search continues, albeit very slowly right now. Got an official rejection from Jagex for the producer role I had applied for, which whilst it sucks to be rejected, I do appreciate them sending a proper rejection email. It says something that actually receiving one is a rare courtesy these days.

    Still waiting to hear back from Poncle, which is definitely the main cause of my waiting room syndrome right now. I think getting an answer one way or another from them would help me move on to applying at a great speed. 

    If you want to help me out in the interim, I am available for writing work as always. Doing these redundancy reviews have really helped me out in staying in the routine and always thinking how to improve my own work, being able to tell my story no matter what also helps. I have always liked to think of myself as a storyteller above all else and maintaining a public journal of sorts helps me feel like I am making myself a better one.

    So, initially I was going to cop out today and review one of my favourite Magic: the Gathering cards for today, but me emphasising the quotation marks on the Borderlands “Enhanced Edition” makes me want to cover that, especially with playing the original yesterday.

    Borderlands is a first-person looter shooter initially released in 2009, with the Enhanced Edition coming out in…

    …well that does not link up. Wikipedia is telling me the Enhanced Edition released in 2019 whilst the Steam Store page is saying 2023… 

    Oh well, moving on.

    For my thoughts on Borderlands across both versions, I can summarise it simply as “very successful tech demo”. Borderlands was the first game to bring the looter shooter genre into the public spotlight, previous attempts had been made but this game made it mainstream. That said, outside of the loot system I do not think the original has much going for it in today’s market.

    Especially when compared against the vastly superior Borderlands 2 released in 2012, which I personally think is where the franchise peaked and has been struggling to live up to it ever since, but that is a different story.

    The driving mechanics are passable, but feels more like a way to get from point A to point B quicker than anything else – especially prevalent in the third DLC which puts a heavy emphasis on needing to drive everywhere. 

    Whilst there are some funny moments with characters in the base game a lot of the humour is told in flavour text rather than character dialogue. This is rectified in the DLC, where the comedy and writing style of the sequel starts to take shape with each passing addition.

    In terms of thoughts on the Enhanced Edition… I do not want to be kind to it. The graphical improvements and expansion of graphical options is a very needed addition, as the original game does not have VSync or a Field-Of-View slider – noticeable omissions especially when playing that version at 4K

    But outside of that I have encountered a lot of issues in my playtime, including numerous crashes and issues with the minimap being retroactively added into the game. Its inclusion does help with navigating the world better compared to the pure compass system of the original, but in multiplayer I have seen several issues with waypoints not working for me as the joining player.

    Borderlands 1 Title Screen
    Borderlands 1 in Fyrestone
    Borderlands Enhanced Title Screen
    Borderlands Enhanced Outside Fyrestone

    When looking at texture quality as well, I think the visuals of the original look better. Both games have the cel-shaded look but the original has sharper lines, a more defined style, one that especially shines considering the era of brown modern military shooters it came out in. The lighting in the enhanced edition is better on a technical standpoint, but I feel it loses some of the edge the original had.

    I will end on a positive note, and highlight one thing that always brings a smile to my face whenever I have revisited the original: Mordecai.

    Mordecai is the “Hunter” class of the game, with skill trees focusing on his pet Bloodwing, the usage of pistols, and my preferred tree of choice: Sniping. Whilst the trees are much smaller compared to later entries; Mordecai’s sniping tree is beautifully simple in its execution, boosting damage, ammo capacity, and ending off on a capstone of bypassing shields once fully levelled up.

    Trespass is a hilariously broken skill in this game, especially considering the endgame Eridian Guardian enemies are all shields and no health. What is supposed to be a tough enemy to break through their defenses while they bombard you with attacks becomes trivial fodder that dies to a single headshot, only rarely needing a follow up shot to finish the job.

    Playing as Mordy was so fun that my initial playthrough of Borderlands 2 was done using Zer0 and trying to do a similar thing, but he could just not reach the expectations I had – though this was not a bad thing, as I then switched to Salvador who is stupid amounts of fun to play as.

    But rambling about the sequel needs to be another day, especially as I uh…

    …liked that game a lot more.

    That does it for today, what I initially thought was going to be a shorter review turned into an over three page rant. Thank you for reading if you made it this far, please stay cool wherever you are and remember to hydrate regularly throughout the day.

    To purchase both Borderlands and Borderlands Enhanced, visit the Steam Store here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/729040/Borderlands_Game_of_the_Year_Enhanced/ 

  • Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning”

    As of yesterday, 10th June 2025, I am redundant.

    Well, that is a question I have been asking myself for a fair few days after getting the initial news that the company I worked at was in trouble. Even if I saw it coming to some degree it was still a shocking thing to process, but weirdly enough now that I know the outcome I am… relaxed in a way?

    Obviously there is a tonne of stress still to come, from finding a new job to managing finances during this time, though the former is partially why I am writing this.

    One of the things I knew I needed after the axe dropped was a sense of routine, something to keep me getting up in the morning and not just rotting in bed as I would be so inclined to instead.

    That gave birth to this idea: “The Redundancy Review”…

    …I really do like alliteration with R words huh. Anyway, back on track.

    This blog of mine has been dormant for a while, partially because I was busy advancing my primary career of working in production and directing all of my writing energy towards proposals, scripts, and all other sorts of professional copy. Now it is time for me to make a comeback!

    I still have aspirations of being able to work as a copywriter in any industry, so I will be using this blog to build up a new portfolio of work alongside my job search. 

    The Redundancy Review will be a daily article series, written each morning as I eat breakfast and drink a delicious mocha, with the following structure:

    • A brief emotional check-in, talking about how I feel in regards to my situation and any stumbles I have encounter
    • Job search update, any fun roles I have applied for or any opportunities I think are cool
    • Finally, the real “review” part of the article, where I talk about something I enjoy at varying lengths

    I will also be including a call to action in each article, emphasising that I am available for all sorts of work. If you like what you are reading and want to inform me of an opportunity or offer me paid writing work, I would absolutely love to hear from you.

    With the introduction to the series out of the way, let me inaugurate it with the first Redundant Review of something I have been loving to play recently…

    Oh yeah, we are starting strong with this one.

    Beat Saber is a Virtual Reality (VR) rhythm game developed by Beat Games and released in 2019 for Playstation VR and PCVR platforms, and standalone mode for Meta Quest platforms.

    The main objective of the game is to smash blocks with various directional arrows (or dots for hitting them in any direction) in time with a song whilst walls and bombs fly by you, needing to keep your head and sabers away from them respectively.

    I got into it recently as a way of exercising within my home in a way that is more mentally stimulating to me – and it is certainly a workout. 

    Your centre of gravity gets time in by needing to lean your body side-to-side to avoid any walls, whilst your knees get their activity by needing to duck under the same obstacle. Specifically in my case as well, once I really get into a song I can feel my hips swaying and my feet bouncing, dancing along with my lower body whilst my upper body is twisting and turning to hit the blocks.

    My reaction time has also definitely improved from when I started out. Initially I would struggle to keep a good combo going on some “Normal” difficulty songs, even failing a handful of the custom levels I had installed – but now I am able to competently clear a good majority of “Hard” songs and even pushing myself towards “Expert” for some.

    As mentioned above, Beat Saber supports custom levels. These maps are designed by community members and uploaded on various sites, with my site of choice being BeatSaver – Home. My choice primarily includes original songs by Hololive talents and the RWBY OST, with a few mainstream songs in there as well.

    That said, custom levels are not needed to enjoy Beat Saber. Built into the base game is a wide array of original songs, including an entry by legendary power metal band Dragonforce, “Power of the Saber Blade”, one of my personal favourites to play due to its high-intensity note patterns and upbeat energy of the song.

    And even beyond what is already available, as of time of writing, there are 245 DLC songs across a massive range of artists and genres, including:

    • A full Linkin Park pack
    • A full Imagine Dragons pack
    • A full Lady Gaga pack
    • Various iconic internet culture songs, such as Sandstorm by Darude, and Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd

    There is something for everyone in Beat Saber, and with how easy it is to add custom levels on PC I can guarantee if my review has made you interested, something will be out there for you.

    Well, that’s Day 1 of the Redundancy Review in the bag. I hope you have enjoyed reading this today, and whatever you get up to today, I hope you have a good day. You definitely deserve it.

    You can purchase Beat Saber from the following locations:

    Steam: Beat Saber on Steam

    Playstation: Beat Saber – PS VR & PS VR2 Games | PlayStation (UK)

    Meta Quest: Beat Saber on Meta Quest | Quest VR games | Meta Store