Ruins Exploration Archeological Action game (remake)

[Xionix]

I created this topic to talk about a game that really deserves some attention, is one of the HARDEST games ever, and the difficulty of the puzzles put any other game to shame. I'm talking about  La-Mulana (remake) and is available por PC and Wiiware. Does anyone have played the game yet?  If not, do yourself a favor if you are looking for a brain challenge.

[blueskirt]

WARNING: This rambly posts has no head nor tail thanks to all the emotions reminiscing about this game brings to me.

I played the original in 2008. We're talking four weeks spent exploring, mapping, sketching, taking notes, breaking four ballpoint pens, solving puzzles, headaches, torments, getting stuck on one puzzle, giving up...

Restarting from scratch six months later, rewriting everything because my original notes were a mess, two more week playing, solving that one puzzle that got me the first time around, getting stuck once more. Give up...

Fire it up again some weeks afterward, finish the game, for the first time, "Now where's that bonus dungeon?", torments, torments, torments...

A metroidvania with more than four hundred rooms to explore. An homage to the MSX (the original at least) and Maze Of Galious. A game whose challenge seems to be figuring how jumping works and how to kill dem stupid birds at the start, but quickly crushes you under a mountain of puzzles, each one more tormenting than the previous.

It's such a fantastic game, what every Indiana Jones action game should have been, should aspire to be. Ya know, every traps, every puzzles in the Indy movies, La-Mulana is that turned up to eleven, and solving it... I'm lacking words here, the game is so tormenting... finishing that game without any outside help is easily my biggest accomplishment as a gamer. The satisfaction for solving that game, I've never found anything quite like it with other games.

It's not a perfect game, the fun begins when you get inside the ruins, start reading glyphs and solve your first puzzles, but the beginning is plagued with useless gold grinding so you can buy the tools needed for that, and the bonus dungeon could have done away with that ginormous dick move ("120 000 here." if you've played the game), I've not played the remake yet, I don't know to what extend these two issues have been fixed.

If you like the game, there's also Joe Gunn, an homebrew C64 game which has the same type of gameplay (a metroidvania focusing on solving puzzles), but easier and on a much smaller scale, but still amazing nonetheless. I think I discussed the game on this forum a long time ago. I wrote reviews for both these games and Spelunky on the Fountain of Youth forum.

But yeah, if you think adventure games needs puzzles and exploration, or if you think it kind of sucks that today's designers don't challenge their players anymore, that game's for you. It's challenging, it's so damn challenging, and at the same time, it's not frustrating, for a game that's such a throw back to the Nintendo Hard era, it's extremely player friendly, I recall three instances where the game test your platforming and action gamer skills, and two of them are for optional stuff, and there's also no walking dead either, I believe there's one, but the manual warns you about it so it's easy to dodge. So, if you're always up for challenges as long they're friendly, you've got no excuse to skip on that game.

And keep a pad of quad paper and a bag of pens nearby, you will need it.
Edit - I just checked, twenty pages, 13" x 8" covered with notes and maps. That's the amount of notes I took during my second playthrough.

[Radiant]

If you like the game, there's also Joe Gunn, an homebrew C64 game which has the same type of gameplay (a metroidvania focusing on solving puzzles),

Got a link for that? Because the link in your article only goes to the sequel (dungeon ouverture).

[Xionix]

@blueskirt
Wow!! You should have done this thread lol, that's pretty good info, I forgot to tell I was talking to the new remake of La-Mulana that was released recently for Wiiware and PC with updated graphics. And I never heard of that Joe Gunn, maybe I will give it a try when I beat La-Mulana, (if I ever beat it)

@radiant
I did a google search its look like Joe Gunn is a commercial game.

Edit: I change the subject to specify I was talking about the remake.

[blueskirt]

I believe only the version on tape or floppy for real C64 is commercial. It appears Georg moved Joe Gunn to the C64 section of his site sometimes after I posted these reviews. Here's a working link for Joe Gunn:

http://www.georg-rottensteiner.de/files/joegunn_gold.zip

[Anian]

Beginner guide video, enjoy:
http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/4v2urw/la-mulana-beginner-s-guide

[Xionix]

@blueskirt
Those were very good reviews, for what I have heard the original La-Mulana is harder. So you must be a very good player (or very masochist lol) to have beaten that game.

@Anian
Thx for the video dude.

Oh, I also recommend for ppl that get interested in the game DO NOT watch let's play to see how is the game. It may ruin the experience by showing a tiny spoiler. I have been stuck for like 3 days now and I cannot be happier, I dont even remember a game that have done that to me in recent years. Just trust us and buy the game already.

[blueskirt]

Well, one of the things they changed in the remake is the introduction, which I believe is easier to get into. In the original you're just thrown into this giant enigma with no idea what you're supposed to do. The first ever time I played this game I think I was stuck outside the ruins for nearly an hour with no idea what I was doing wrong. I gave up and I only gave the game a proper second chance when I kept seeing it crops up in these Top list of indie video games. Plus there is the grindy beginning where you need to buy a ROM to save your game, the hand scanner and a ROM to translate the stone tablets, a grand total of one hundred thirty gold to grind in pots in the ruins, before the fun part begins, and in-game you're not told any of that stuff, heck, saving is kinda a puzzle in itself if you haven't read the manual.

With the original you've got to be really hyped, and keep telling yourself, "You're gonna love this game, you're gonna love this game, it sucks now, but later it will be awesome" until you can translate your first glyph, begin your grail diary and stumble on your first puzzles, that's where the fun begins. In the remake I heard the game holds your hand in the beginning, until you know the basics at least, to shorten the gap between when the game begins and when the fun begins.

And a second thing they fixed, at least judging from the trailers, is when you solve a puzzle, there will be an animation somewhere in the ruins to tells you what this puzzle you solved or this switch you flipped changed in the dungeon. In the original, if you solved a puzzle and nothing happened in your immediate surrounding, you had to visit every rooms in the current dungeon and keep a sharp eye open for any minor change since your last visit. In the remake you still have to revisit every rooms, but there will be an animation that tells you something happened.

That's why it's considered a bit easier. But to compensate for these two changes, I heard the secret bonus dungeon just got a whole lotta harder in the remake.

And yes, don't watch Let's Plays. Under it's platformer shapes, this game is really an adventure or puzzle game, and Let's Plays are bound to spoil you something. Interestingly enough, it's a test more than an adventure game, I can understand checking a walkthrough for a game like Secret Of Monkey Island, or Fate of Atlantis, because, there's an engrossing plot in these games, if you're stuck but you're hooked to the plot, the temptation to check a walkthrough to move forward and see how the plot unfolds is there.

In La-Mulana, the plot is so minimal, the ending so "A Winner Is You!", at least compared to what traditional adventure gamers are used to, that there should be no compulsion to check a walkthrough, it's mainly a test, a challenge, the only reward you get from this game is personal gratification, it's all these "Ah-HA!" moments when two seemingly unconnected bits of information finally connect together and a puzzle piece falls into place. Playing this game with a walkthrough is busy work.

It's somewhat a strange way to defeat the problem of walkthroughs prevalence on the internet.

[Xionix]

I see, as for the animations in the remake, its happens but only at the exact moment you go to that screen, so, if you solve a puzzle there is no way of the telling where the puzzle have been solved until you go to the location. Another game that is kinda the same way as puzzle go is Alundra, an RPG for the original Playstation (I never beat that game, I got it when I was a pre-teen), but I want to pick it up eventually. La-Mulana get me fire up for challenging games. I really hope the game sells very well so we can see future masterpieces from Nigoro. We are in a era of console games (PC got plenty of good indie games, like the AGS ones of course)where eye candy and big guns rules the world, and using your brain have become obsolete. We need more games like this.

[Radiant]

We need more games like this.

Yeah, I hope to write one eventually. Not this year, though.

[blueskirt]

Take my posts with a grain of salt if you're playing the remake. A friend who played the original just tried the remake and found the puzzles much easier thanks to the hint system. Said the platforming, monsters and bosses got a whole lotta harder, and some items switched places (some items found mid to late in the game can be found earlier and vice versa) and the remake also feature more insta death traps than the original.

Also the remake is now sold on GOG.com, in your face, Steam Greenlight!

[Xionix]

Well blueskirt, I think you have become my hero because you beated the original. I have been stuck for like 2 weeks now, and I REFUSE looks for hints or something online, but I don't know how much I can hold lol. Every little item I find, I get so full of joy, even if I don't know what I have to do with it. I will like to say one day "I beated La-Mulana without any help" let's see if that day ever comes.

[blueskirt]

All I can say is don't give up. Don't hesitate to re-read all your notes and revisit the entire place all over again when you're completely clueless, in case maybe one of these note will fall into place, in case you missed or forgot something the first time around or in case a puzzle you solved before changed something in the dungeon, that certainly helped me a several times when I played the original. Also you're certainly having it harder than I did with the added difficulty of more and harder monsters and insta-death traps everywhere in the remake.