La-Mulana

La-Mulana is a PC side scrolling platformer released in 2005 that has an MSX style graphics and interface. The game is a traditional action-adventure game, reminiscent of the Castlevania and Metroid games. La-Mulana was developed by a group of three Japanese indie developers called "GR3" (now known as NIGORO). The name "La-Mulana" is derived from reversing the Japanese (effectively reversing the syllables) of the name of one of the developers, Naramura. This game was originally only available in Japanese, but an English translation patch has been produced by Ian Kelley of AGTP.



The game's plot starts an Indiana-Jones-esque archaeologist named Lemeza Kosugi who's quest it is to explore the set of ancient ruins known as the Ruins of La-Mulana, solving its numerous puzzles along the way.



One of the principles behind the game's design is difficulty: as described in the game's manual, the developers were disappointed in the lack of difficulty prevalent among many games of the current era (around 2005-2007), and sought to help create a sense of tension in the game--the example they gave was that, if one were a real-life archaeologist, one might think twice before jumping into a dark pit, but in many videogames, it is too easy to simply attempt the action, suffer the consequences, and reload. The tension is created by arming many features in the game with various traps that can easily befall reckless adventurers (as also noted by the wealth of skeletons in the dungeon), as well as several complete dead ends (notorious among well-versed players), from which, short of teleportation, there is no way out. These traps are explained in-game to exist in order to protect these sacred ruins.

 More screenshots

La-Mulana's style is loosely based on the MSX game Maze of Galious, and a good part of La-Mulana's content is a tribute to the MSX computer system in general. Also, all ROM items in the game are Konami games, and Konami ROM Combos can be done with them. In the game, the development team is refered to, sometimes, as "Kobami".


Link


Download La-Mulana here

La-Mulana comes with a folder called 'manual' which contain a set of html files that acts like an old videogame manual and if you plan on actually playing, then you should take the time to read it please. You will find some backstory, important tips, controls, list of items, and more.

Translation patch

Use this on the La-Mulana folder for a full English translation.

 My personal experience with the game

I first played La-Mulana about 6 months ago. I managed to get pretty far without any outside help, I defeated four area bosses in the time I played. For one reason or another I managed to get sidetracked by other things and quit playing, but now I'm going to start again from scratch. Puzzles and traps are numerous and sometimes unforgiving. It's a pretty open-ended game that doesn't tell you any particular order in which you should clear the different areas.

Edit: So is anyone actually playing La-Mulana? Since restarting I've beaten the first boss and I'm stuck on the second boss right now. I might just skip the second boss for now and go to some other area. Feel free to comment guys.

This seems like a pretty interesting game so I downloaded it. Not going to start playing it until I am done with a current playthrough of a game though.

I played Cave Story and a friend told me about this game, after playing the first two levels I just couldn't finish; it reminds me too much of the NES games I grew up on and could never finish due to fake difficulty.

I played Cave Story and a friend told me about this game, after playing the first two levels I just couldn't finish; it reminds me too much of the NES games I grew up on and could never finish due to fake difficulty.

Well, did you like Goonies II for the NES? If you liked that, then chances are you should enjoy this. Give it another shot please. :<



Oh by the way, here's some screenshots of me summoning and defeating the first boss. Don't look if you don't want to spoil it for yourself:

 Go grab your magnifying glass

I played Cave Story and a friend told me about this game, after playing the first two levels I just couldn't finish; it reminds me too much of the NES games I grew up on and could never finish due to fake difficulty.

Ahh, Cave Story. I have yet to get the best ending in that.

I'm tempted to try this, but I have several games I want to get through first. I'll play it for sure at some point though. ^_^

Hey, La-Mulanites!

Well, did you like Goonies II for the NES? If you liked that, then chances are you should enjoy this. Give it another shot please. :<

No, I meant that in a bad way. <_< I really did not like this game.

lol, I knew if I made a La-Mulana thread that someone would link to DeceasedCrab's Let's Play videos sooner or later. His videos are pretty decent, but I try to watch the parts for stuff I've already completed so I don't spoil the game for myself too much.

No, I meant that in a bad way. <_< I really did not like this game.

For some reason I really thought you'd be the type of guy who likes Nintendo Hard games. Was there anything in particular that made you dislike La-Mulana?

 Small update

I'm trying to get back all of the items that I can remember getting during my last play-through. I bought the helmet so I could go do some stuff over at area 4. I went over there mostly for the vitality upgrade so I'd have a better chance of surviving at area boss 2. I had to get a few other items in area 4 to get the vitality upgrade and now I'm going to head back to area 2.

Edit: Just letting you know I'm still playing. I was kind of hoping we'd get more people in here playing so we could have some discussion about the game and help each other out and stuff.

 More Update

I felt like stockpiling extra cash just for the sake of it, just thought it'd come in handy. I tried area boss 2 again, I didn't do so well. I know I could beat him if I had the patience to endure the battle. For now I skipped over the boss and went over to area 3. I went there because I wanted to get the knife so I could make area boss 2 considerably easier. I headed back to area 2 and beat the boss, the knife really does make it so much easier. After that I worked on area 3 and even finished off the area boss here, he's not as hard as area boss 2 was. Now I went back over to area 4 and I'm at the point where I can fight the boss there but I haven't yet attempted the battle.

Bumping this thread

I have just learned today that La-Mulana will be released as a WiiWare title, the estimated completion date is November 2009. It will feature updated graphics as well as some other new content.

Here is the promotional trailer:

[YOUTUBE]wAsDRIF25SE[/YOUTUBE]

Hey, I'd so get that. The graphics remind me of the old Win 3.1 or DOS games. Awesome.

Well, after three months I finally got around to playing and beating this game.

I have to say I rather enjoyed it even though there where some parts where it almost made me punch a hole in my monitor, but I am a video game masochist so I still enjoyed it even during those parts.

I wonder if the Wii version while have anything worthwhile.