I did the Maneki-neko Statue side quest in Control today. It ended up taking all evening but it was fun tracking them all down. The first statue i found was actually the last one i was supposed to go to (the secret door). I ended up getting this screenshot too of the the final group photo for the cats:
there was also this one of the council(?) of cats:
There was ominous chanting the entire time and it was kind of creepy, but i also really liked the room because the Maneki-neko statues were so cool to me growing up.
I ended up wearing the ears because i put all that effort into finding and you bet i'm going to wear it:
I also stumbled into the Astral Bathroom on accident before i was supposed to do the puzzle. It was a bit surprising because i wasn't expecting it. I just rounded the corner and bam. Bathroom's gone abstract.
I've been playing Control on and off since 2019... I finally completed it this week.
There was always something that halted my progress... Frustration with the map, boredom with progression, unfixable crashing. Decided to give it one more go on a new gpu and finally it clicked :)
Now I'm doing all the awesome post game content.
It really does kinda feel like a game that needs that click to get through fully. I think I might revisit it, considering how glowing a lot of the reviews are from those who really liked it.
I was in exactly the same boat. It took me a while to “get” control. I think once I did playing through it became way easier