La-Mulana

Genre: Metroidvania

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in La-Mulana 1 & 2 Bundle, along with La-Mulana 2.)

La-Mulana is a Metroidvania originally released in 2006 only in Japan on PC. The game received a full remake in 2012 on the Wii, with ports of this remake going to PC in 2013, PlayStation Portable in 2015, to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2020, and to Nintendo Switch in 2023. This game has players taking the role of Lemeza, an Indiana Jones-style character exploring the titular La-Mulana, an ancient underground ruin filled with secrets, monsters, secrets, magical relics, secrets, strange denizens, and even more secrets.

Yes, while La-Mulana has a lot of the exploration, monster-slaying, special items and such things that tend to be staples of Metroidvanias, it’s the secrets more than anything that this game is most notorious for. The game’s mazelike areas are explored screen-by-screen rather than scrolling, and most screens contain at least one tablet with ancient (and usually obtuse) writing, a skeleton who can be “scanned” for (maybe) helpful advice, or some other oddity seeming to hide some deeper meaning.

These puzzles are a large part of the reason La-Mulana is not a game for newcomers to the genre. The hints that many of the tablets offer are nebulous, or refer to in-game lore you’re apparently meant to memorize, and may or may not be puzzles at all. Skeletons may offer help if you scan them, or you might just be wasting your time on a pile of bones that doesn’t have anything to tell you, or may even be an enemy. And even if you do get a vital puzzle piece in one of these hints, you may not recognize it as such, or it may be a piece to a puzzle in a completely different part of the map, or you may need an item you don’t have, or need to use it in a way that isn’t clear.

Some players will absolutely lap up that sort of challenge, while others will find it makes this a major deterrent. However, apart from whether obscure and possibly inscrutable puzzles appeal to you, the platforming may not. Controls for jumping are stiff and unforgiving, with this being the sort of old-school style of Platformer where mid-air enemies knock you off trajectory in ways you cannot correct for. What’s more, level design frequently doesn’t account for the game’s screen-by-screen world design, where going from one screen to the next can see you slam face-first into an enemy with barely any time to react.

That’s not to say there’s all bad news here. La-Mulana has some really clever game design elements as well. You start the game with a “laptop” that you can load helpful computer programs onto, such as a map, a translator, a chime sound when a hidden shop is nearby, and so on. Some of these programs are absolutely vital, while some are simply nice to have, but your laptop can only have so many active at any given time. And to be clear, this game was originally released over a decade before Hollow Knight would include a similar feature.

Another nice feature is an item you can get fairly early on that will let you warp to any save point you have discovered at any time, something the game makes absolutely vital by making the only convenient full health recovery a hot springs not far from the game’s first save point on the starting screen. While that latter fact may seem a bit inconvenient, it does introduce a nice risk-reward factor, as any time you’re out exploring and your health begins to dwindle, you’ll have a little voice inside your head reminding you that saving all your progress is as easy as pausing the game and warping away… but then you’ll have to trudge all the way back here if you want to keep going…

The presentation here is good but nothing truly remarkable, with decent 2D pixel art visuals with a fair amount of detail and a decent chiptune soundtrack with a few memorable themes like Mr. Explorer, Fearless Challenger, and Inferno. Overall, this game’s presentation holds up fairly well, even if it doesn’t impress.

In the end, La-Mulana is a great Metroidvania, but it’s great in a way that will thrill some players and frustrate and infuriate others. Traipsing about a labyrinthine map trying to puzzle out odd clues while dealing with awkward Platforming just isn’t going to be something everyone will appreciate. However, those who find this game’s style of puzzles engaging and who aren’t dissuaded by the frustrations present here will thoroughly enjoy this game.

tl;dr – La-Mulana is a Metroidvania about an Indiana Jones-style character exploring an ancient ruin, and this game has some really clever ideas and mechanics, as well as some difficult to parse puzzles and clunky platforming. For the sort of player who thrills in unravelling clues to solve puzzles, this game may well prove thrilling, but other players will find it extremely frustrating. Suffice it to say, while some will love La-Mulana, this isn’t a game for everyone.

Grade: B

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