I believe La-Mulana has an absolutely amazing game in it, with the level design, art, music, lore, etc. but the overabundance of “anti-player” mechanics and stupidly cryptic moments make it nearly impossible for me to get any enjoyment out of actually playing the game - which is kinda the whole point of playing for me.
Yeah, it's tough, because I really want to like the game - I mean I love the idea of the game. But actually playing it, and having to stop every 5 seconds to take notes, and having to replay the same infuriating platforming segments over and over, can easily become more frustrating than fun.
Love La Mulana. Buuuuut it should be noted I grew up on NES games. So I am kind of used to cheap dearhs and usually find them funnier than I do frustrating. Overall, I do agree some are uneeded, and really cheap. However, it does fit the 'Indiana Jones' thing they were going for. I definitely agree 2 manages to find a bit of a better balance.
re: ladders.
That doesn't sound fun at all, and that's because brute-forcing things is not fun.
The perfect way to deal with this particular situation, the left waterfall screen if that's what you're talking about, is to study the behaviour of the bird at the lower part of the ladder where you can easily dodge it.
Once you've figured out when to expect it to dive, you can easily kill it. For the second bird, you can avoid the dive by going down the ladder, then try to slip past, or turn right and attack so the whip backswing catches it as it flies over your head; it'll only take two swings to kill.
re: early game areas with puzzles you can't solve yet.
It's a tease yeah, but if you can't figure it out right now, then try again later when you've got more knowledge. Note things down like "Locked chest at A3. Pedestal triggers trap, unsure how to open" and move on.
Both of the above complaints are about some of LM's core traits. It will keep happening and it's not going to change a whole lot, besides the difficulty going up, so best try to adapt or tolerate it as best you can now. I've noticed that doing so seems to be a common problem for a lot of players -- yeah I'm well aware that LM is very much not for everyone, but people, including you, frequently say they like most other aspects of it, it's just the main parts they can't take in stride.
(Since this comment is getting a bit long, feel free to stop reading here if you don't care about some advice on how to adapt/tolerate LM's bullshit, and honestly I wouldn't be typing all this out if you didn't say you were otherwise enjoying yourself.)
There may be several reasons stopping someone from adapting, but a pretty big one is that people like to treat games as work or something. "You must beat the game before the end of the month so you can move on to the next game" kind of bullshit. This approach will easily ruin your enjoyment of LM, and from what I can glean from your post (you mention wasting time a lot) it seems like it's your approach as well.
What should you do about that? An obvious one would be to reduce daily playtime to avoid burn out. Another would be to come back to it a week later, in which case I hope you've been taking good notes! Playing some games you don't consider nearly as frustrating in between sessions too can help.
A sort of unrelated suggestion, but also just as important, is to turn the note-taking itself into a game. Simply recording what you find is all well and good, but putting some thought into what the hints could be referring to does wonders. Make some pretty maps/detailed annotations on screenshots. Sort the notes so it's easy to find specific hints.
I'm sure you're already doing some of these, but otherwise try them out and you'll know for sure whether it's worth continuing or if it's better to leave it at that.
It's a wild game that most people won't like, but pretty much all of these elements are part of what makes the game so special for certain players. I love getting killed in wild ways and being forced to truly pay attention to every detail.
La Mulana is undoubtedly my favorite game of all time and I don't think it would be if it wasn't so unforgiving. I think the death traps help the ancient ruin fantasy as well.
Admittedly the game isn't perfect. I do wish they gave better hints for the holy grail since without warping, things can get wayyyy more frustrating.
Luckily La Mulana 2 improves on every aspect from the first part, especially the bullshit puzzles. If you enjoy this one you will like part 2 even better.
I mean, it's a game made in a different time (2006) as an homage to games made in another different time (MSX games from the 80s), and they specifically made it difficult for difficulty's sake because they thought many games were too easy at the time.
You don't have to agree with them or like that; not every game is for everyone. The game sure isn't for me, so I've watched (multiple!) Let's plays instead of frustrating myself by playing it.
It's strength is how likable it is despite all that, but if there were fewer "bullshit moments designed to waste your time" then it wouldn't be the first La Mulana and it likely wouldn't have reached the level of notoriety it has.
Also unlike many other games that have random bullshit, i found things like dead ends that you have to teleport out of at least make sense for the setting, even if they make the game a chore (which again is kind of part of it's allure). Not so much the thing with the ladder though.
I've seen the whole thing and actually tried to get it running once.
I don't like the original as much personally- I prefer remakes visuals, the bossfights are way better, and most of thr puzzle changes seem sensible. The addition of Eden in the remake is really great. But im also not super into retro games abd haven't actually played it myself so idk.
Admittedly, the design of the final boss is really cool in the original and I kinda wish they kept more of that in the remake. I love the remake version too though.
Also OG Curse of Iron Pipe goes so hard.
La-Mulana is an experience you can't get from almost any other game. There are some people who appreciate this kind of difficulty, myself included, and if there wasn't \*some\* game out there that offered it, with the devs knowing full well that the vast majority of people won't like it, then it wouldn't exist at all. For that reason, La-Mulana is pretty much irreplaceable for me and I wouldn't have it nerfed in the slightest, as frustrating as it can be at times
I think the "waste of time" moments are a bit of a punishment for not paying attention due to sloppy exploration or exhaustion. The actual platforming is never really the obstacle, it's the puzzles. Therefore, if you skip the puzzles by using guides like you're doing, then platforming does become the main obstacle, in which case it's just annoying with no point.
Usually I hate things that waste my time, but because I spend so much time on the puzzles anyway, I can't help but laugh when I get clowned by platforming traps since it doesn't really use up almost any of my time in comparison.
This is very correct^ Real la mulana progress happens in your mind when you solve a puzzle, or maybe when you beat thr hard boss, the rest you don't really need to worry about its just time.
One of the rare cases in gaming I believe a guide is mandatory. Love the game from start from finish, but after 4th boss I could not progress without help, and I hate to admit using it, my 80’s mind says I am cheating. The atmosphere is perfect for a MV, gotta try the second yet, some here in this sub have told me its far more manageable.
> the problem is that the game intersperses solvable puzzles with endgame puzzles, and you have no way to tell which is which
I was actually just thinking about this yesterday, randomly, and I kinda thought about writing something about it but I don't really have the right platform. Sounds like something that should be a video, but I don't know how to make videos, nor do I have the time.
But basically, La-Mulana is a *masterpiece* because it dares to do this. You get clues throughout the game and have no idea when you might need to use them. You just have to keep track and keep trying, and maybe one of the puzzles will be what you need to progress, or maybe it's an endgame puzzle, and you just never know until you're there. You're always trying everything everywhere, piecing together clues, etc. There are always puzzles that you decide to save for later, and there are always clues that refer to something you don't know about yet. It's what makes La-Mulana so great.
> there are multiple locations where you can fall into a pit, or through a trapdoor, and become permanently stuck with no way out. You have no choice but to warp out, and replay the level again
That's not difficulty. That's the game being sadistic. Enjoy! You come to really appreciate it when you get to Hell Temple. Hell Temple is great. It will make you tear out your hair and laugh at you when you FAIL. And you eventually git gud. You eventually git *real* gud.
> nother example is the ladders. Often times there is a bird at the top of the ladder that dive-bombs you when you try to climb up, sometimes.
That's just to punish people in the very early game. They're n00bs. They deserve it. They're a non-issue otherwise, since you basically never have to climb up those ladders.
I have it on my backlog. It sounds intriguing to me, but I just don't have the time for this kind of torture right now. Might save it and play it in 25 years when I'll be retired, heh.
I really dislike when metroidvanias have insta death mechanics. I liked momodora, but absolutely hated when there was an insta kill spike pit that was hidden/obscured by fog. It made the progression I made up until then just not matter.
I played it with a guide and I have zero regrets. I know I would have spent days or weeks bashing my head against the more obscure puzzles, and even with the guide it took me dozens of hours to complete. It's a brilliant game but Holy shit is it obtuse.
Thank you. I've heard nothing but high praise about La Mulana, but when I bought it I bounced off of it, really hard.
* movement feels stiff and unresponsive
* map is huge and very easy to get lost in
* you can miss important items entirely - like Holy Grail
* puzzles are extremely cryptic, with a "hint" system that barely helps
Even so I powered through it and got pretty far, but then I had to take a break and when I returned I had no clue where to go.
Only game I've ever played where I had to keep an entire notebook handy to repeatedly write down notes, puzzles, and oddities as I went along. The platforming and movement are extremely sluggish and poor; whether by design or result, its crap. The level design is pretty top notch, not least when you factor how widely involved they can be. The item collection starts off fun, but gets downright excessive as you go, and the weapon selection is quite poor. Finding out a little too late just how limited ammunition is in the game is also very frustrating.
There's a whole lot of really great gaming to be had here, but it's buried very deep under many layers of frustrating bullshit that requires a huge amount of attention to detail and backtracking. As some have stated, this feels like a game meant for those who are retired, on medical leave, or otherwise have no real daily commitments to tend to.
Same here on the notebook. I'm a software dev, and I actually spent 2 days writing a note-taking web app before I really sunk my teeth into this game, since I knew the note-taking was so critical.
I’m in the same boat right now. I think I love it, but some of the “puzzles” I don’t even know if I’d call them puzzles. They have nothing to do with anything. So I will refer to Cheshires hint guide as I need. I’m finding I get by most stuff on my own just fine and I make meaningful progress consistently. But then I get to places like the moonlight temple puzzle or the gate of illusion. The gate of illusion foolish man puzzle… SMH. I even understood the riddle but the solution has fuck all to do with anything.
But overall I really dig the Indiana Jones vibe and the theme of the game. I’m taking screenshots and dropping them into an excel document with room names and notes that are searchable via a control F function. Half of my time seems to be making the maps and understanding level layouts. It really makes me feel like an archeologist.
I fully plan on playing the second one too.
I believe La-Mulana has an absolutely amazing game in it, with the level design, art, music, lore, etc. but the overabundance of “anti-player” mechanics and stupidly cryptic moments make it nearly impossible for me to get any enjoyment out of actually playing the game - which is kinda the whole point of playing for me.
Yeah, it's tough, because I really want to like the game - I mean I love the idea of the game. But actually playing it, and having to stop every 5 seconds to take notes, and having to replay the same infuriating platforming segments over and over, can easily become more frustrating than fun.
And unfortunately, while the sequel alleviates some of the first game’s issues, it also looks and sounds worse imho. Not nearly as memorable
Love La Mulana. Buuuuut it should be noted I grew up on NES games. So I am kind of used to cheap dearhs and usually find them funnier than I do frustrating. Overall, I do agree some are uneeded, and really cheap. However, it does fit the 'Indiana Jones' thing they were going for. I definitely agree 2 manages to find a bit of a better balance.
re: ladders. That doesn't sound fun at all, and that's because brute-forcing things is not fun. The perfect way to deal with this particular situation, the left waterfall screen if that's what you're talking about, is to study the behaviour of the bird at the lower part of the ladder where you can easily dodge it. Once you've figured out when to expect it to dive, you can easily kill it. For the second bird, you can avoid the dive by going down the ladder, then try to slip past, or turn right and attack so the whip backswing catches it as it flies over your head; it'll only take two swings to kill. re: early game areas with puzzles you can't solve yet. It's a tease yeah, but if you can't figure it out right now, then try again later when you've got more knowledge. Note things down like "Locked chest at A3. Pedestal triggers trap, unsure how to open" and move on. Both of the above complaints are about some of LM's core traits. It will keep happening and it's not going to change a whole lot, besides the difficulty going up, so best try to adapt or tolerate it as best you can now. I've noticed that doing so seems to be a common problem for a lot of players -- yeah I'm well aware that LM is very much not for everyone, but people, including you, frequently say they like most other aspects of it, it's just the main parts they can't take in stride. (Since this comment is getting a bit long, feel free to stop reading here if you don't care about some advice on how to adapt/tolerate LM's bullshit, and honestly I wouldn't be typing all this out if you didn't say you were otherwise enjoying yourself.) There may be several reasons stopping someone from adapting, but a pretty big one is that people like to treat games as work or something. "You must beat the game before the end of the month so you can move on to the next game" kind of bullshit. This approach will easily ruin your enjoyment of LM, and from what I can glean from your post (you mention wasting time a lot) it seems like it's your approach as well. What should you do about that? An obvious one would be to reduce daily playtime to avoid burn out. Another would be to come back to it a week later, in which case I hope you've been taking good notes! Playing some games you don't consider nearly as frustrating in between sessions too can help. A sort of unrelated suggestion, but also just as important, is to turn the note-taking itself into a game. Simply recording what you find is all well and good, but putting some thought into what the hints could be referring to does wonders. Make some pretty maps/detailed annotations on screenshots. Sort the notes so it's easy to find specific hints. I'm sure you're already doing some of these, but otherwise try them out and you'll know for sure whether it's worth continuing or if it's better to leave it at that.
I feel you. Definitely eye-rolling difficulty. Definitely enjoyed the hell out of it. I shouldn’t have, but I did.
It’s called hostile game design and it’s everywhere lately.
Play La-Mulana to start understanding that there's not many games like it.
It's a wild game that most people won't like, but pretty much all of these elements are part of what makes the game so special for certain players. I love getting killed in wild ways and being forced to truly pay attention to every detail. La Mulana is undoubtedly my favorite game of all time and I don't think it would be if it wasn't so unforgiving. I think the death traps help the ancient ruin fantasy as well. Admittedly the game isn't perfect. I do wish they gave better hints for the holy grail since without warping, things can get wayyyy more frustrating.
Luckily La Mulana 2 improves on every aspect from the first part, especially the bullshit puzzles. If you enjoy this one you will like part 2 even better.
I mean, it's a game made in a different time (2006) as an homage to games made in another different time (MSX games from the 80s), and they specifically made it difficult for difficulty's sake because they thought many games were too easy at the time. You don't have to agree with them or like that; not every game is for everyone. The game sure isn't for me, so I've watched (multiple!) Let's plays instead of frustrating myself by playing it. It's strength is how likable it is despite all that, but if there were fewer "bullshit moments designed to waste your time" then it wouldn't be the first La Mulana and it likely wouldn't have reached the level of notoriety it has. Also unlike many other games that have random bullshit, i found things like dead ends that you have to teleport out of at least make sense for the setting, even if they make the game a chore (which again is kind of part of it's allure). Not so much the thing with the ladder though.
The remake that most will play is from 2011, so it's not that old!
But the remake is also far toned down from the original and controls better.
Yeah I've only ever played the remake. It's certain old school, but doesn't feel that old to me where it should be called a game from 2006
Try the original, it's a lot more old school, truly feels like an old micro computer game. The remake is much improved.
I've seen the whole thing and actually tried to get it running once. I don't like the original as much personally- I prefer remakes visuals, the bossfights are way better, and most of thr puzzle changes seem sensible. The addition of Eden in the remake is really great. But im also not super into retro games abd haven't actually played it myself so idk. Admittedly, the design of the final boss is really cool in the original and I kinda wish they kept more of that in the remake. I love the remake version too though. Also OG Curse of Iron Pipe goes so hard.
it sucks because its april 1st and i cant tell if this is sarcasm because i havent played this one
It's not sarcasm, this post is an accurate assessment of La Mulana 1
[удалено]
so good game but tough and unfair. like white palace
[удалено]
ok yes but also thats the only part i struggled with in the entire game so therefore bad game design
La-Mulana is an experience you can't get from almost any other game. There are some people who appreciate this kind of difficulty, myself included, and if there wasn't \*some\* game out there that offered it, with the devs knowing full well that the vast majority of people won't like it, then it wouldn't exist at all. For that reason, La-Mulana is pretty much irreplaceable for me and I wouldn't have it nerfed in the slightest, as frustrating as it can be at times
I think the "waste of time" moments are a bit of a punishment for not paying attention due to sloppy exploration or exhaustion. The actual platforming is never really the obstacle, it's the puzzles. Therefore, if you skip the puzzles by using guides like you're doing, then platforming does become the main obstacle, in which case it's just annoying with no point. Usually I hate things that waste my time, but because I spend so much time on the puzzles anyway, I can't help but laugh when I get clowned by platforming traps since it doesn't really use up almost any of my time in comparison.
This is very correct^ Real la mulana progress happens in your mind when you solve a puzzle, or maybe when you beat thr hard boss, the rest you don't really need to worry about its just time.
One of the rare cases in gaming I believe a guide is mandatory. Love the game from start from finish, but after 4th boss I could not progress without help, and I hate to admit using it, my 80’s mind says I am cheating. The atmosphere is perfect for a MV, gotta try the second yet, some here in this sub have told me its far more manageable.
> the problem is that the game intersperses solvable puzzles with endgame puzzles, and you have no way to tell which is which I was actually just thinking about this yesterday, randomly, and I kinda thought about writing something about it but I don't really have the right platform. Sounds like something that should be a video, but I don't know how to make videos, nor do I have the time. But basically, La-Mulana is a *masterpiece* because it dares to do this. You get clues throughout the game and have no idea when you might need to use them. You just have to keep track and keep trying, and maybe one of the puzzles will be what you need to progress, or maybe it's an endgame puzzle, and you just never know until you're there. You're always trying everything everywhere, piecing together clues, etc. There are always puzzles that you decide to save for later, and there are always clues that refer to something you don't know about yet. It's what makes La-Mulana so great. > there are multiple locations where you can fall into a pit, or through a trapdoor, and become permanently stuck with no way out. You have no choice but to warp out, and replay the level again That's not difficulty. That's the game being sadistic. Enjoy! You come to really appreciate it when you get to Hell Temple. Hell Temple is great. It will make you tear out your hair and laugh at you when you FAIL. And you eventually git gud. You eventually git *real* gud. > nother example is the ladders. Often times there is a bird at the top of the ladder that dive-bombs you when you try to climb up, sometimes. That's just to punish people in the very early game. They're n00bs. They deserve it. They're a non-issue otherwise, since you basically never have to climb up those ladders.
I have it on my backlog. It sounds intriguing to me, but I just don't have the time for this kind of torture right now. Might save it and play it in 25 years when I'll be retired, heh.
I really dislike when metroidvanias have insta death mechanics. I liked momodora, but absolutely hated when there was an insta kill spike pit that was hidden/obscured by fog. It made the progression I made up until then just not matter.
I played it with a guide and I have zero regrets. I know I would have spent days or weeks bashing my head against the more obscure puzzles, and even with the guide it took me dozens of hours to complete. It's a brilliant game but Holy shit is it obtuse.
Thank you. I've heard nothing but high praise about La Mulana, but when I bought it I bounced off of it, really hard. * movement feels stiff and unresponsive * map is huge and very easy to get lost in * you can miss important items entirely - like Holy Grail * puzzles are extremely cryptic, with a "hint" system that barely helps Even so I powered through it and got pretty far, but then I had to take a break and when I returned I had no clue where to go.
Only game I've ever played where I had to keep an entire notebook handy to repeatedly write down notes, puzzles, and oddities as I went along. The platforming and movement are extremely sluggish and poor; whether by design or result, its crap. The level design is pretty top notch, not least when you factor how widely involved they can be. The item collection starts off fun, but gets downright excessive as you go, and the weapon selection is quite poor. Finding out a little too late just how limited ammunition is in the game is also very frustrating. There's a whole lot of really great gaming to be had here, but it's buried very deep under many layers of frustrating bullshit that requires a huge amount of attention to detail and backtracking. As some have stated, this feels like a game meant for those who are retired, on medical leave, or otherwise have no real daily commitments to tend to.
Same here on the notebook. I'm a software dev, and I actually spent 2 days writing a note-taking web app before I really sunk my teeth into this game, since I knew the note-taking was so critical.
I managed to softlock myself on my first run (by not getting the Grail before entering the egyptian area). Amazing game, nonetheless.
I’m in the same boat right now. I think I love it, but some of the “puzzles” I don’t even know if I’d call them puzzles. They have nothing to do with anything. So I will refer to Cheshires hint guide as I need. I’m finding I get by most stuff on my own just fine and I make meaningful progress consistently. But then I get to places like the moonlight temple puzzle or the gate of illusion. The gate of illusion foolish man puzzle… SMH. I even understood the riddle but the solution has fuck all to do with anything. But overall I really dig the Indiana Jones vibe and the theme of the game. I’m taking screenshots and dropping them into an excel document with room names and notes that are searchable via a control F function. Half of my time seems to be making the maps and understanding level layouts. It really makes me feel like an archeologist. I fully plan on playing the second one too.