La Mulana (6Mb)
This is an extraordinarily good 2D action adventure (side-scrolling) platform game with an RPG flavour. It was first posted without images in Week 51 by WR HERE, using Caiman Games description.
It has a huge area to explore (Caiman posts 21 maps!) for free exploration, along with a plethora of downright difficult puzzles to solve. It doesn’t hold back the punches puzzle-wise and you might need to really, as in really get thinking, just to get through the first level. And the further you get into the game, the more difficult and diabolical the traps become! It does have some similarities in gameplay and appearance to 'Maze of Galious' posted HERE, and which are sometimes more than superficial, but the settings of course do differ greatly between the two games.
La Mulana are a set of ancient ruins, that you as an archaeologist, have to explore, looking for treasure, Indie Jones whip-cracking style. It’s a very long game that might easily take you 26 hours or more to complete, even as an experienced and expert action-puzzle platformer (60 hours of gameplay is not unknown!). Even if you knew answers to all of the puzzles first, it would still take 10-12 hours to complete. The game is very much inventory and exploration based, but with a very good action base also thrown in for good measure. The main puzzle items (30 in total) need to be collected in a set order just to make things even more difficult! There are walkthroughs if you get completely stuck!
You’ll need to find the Hand Scanner and translation software for the portable MSX PC that you have brought along with you for the adventure, in the first place to be able to read the tablet inscriptions found at various points in the game, but also for other equally as worthy tasks. Your Hand Scanner will allow you to find items and search the bones of other and particularly ‘less fortunate’ (!) adventurers (hopefully not yours!).
While some items in the game give you extra abilities (you start with just your whip and a small amount of vitality), others allow you to access new areas in the game, or to take further items. Most of the non-boss enemies will only cause you minor damage, though this will slow your progress and as there are few ways to restore life and your vitality, you can’t afford to take too many hits, even from ‘minor’ enemies. As well as some most terrible traps, there also several notorious dead-ends from which there is no escape. The traps have been set to protect the ancient ruins and the secrets they hold. There are 8 Guardian bosses to defeat, and various characters you will meet or spot during the game. Each guardian is unlocked by by both unlocking the Ankh and finding the respective Ankh Jewel to put in it.
La Mulana is very much non-linear. You can virtually go anywhere when the game starts, and you have to ‘turn every stone’ to find the abilities and new areas required to make progress. Then you have to figure out where and how you should use these abilities. If you play it without reference to a walkthrough, you’ll find it leaves you very much to your own devices, and where you might expect some games to give you a clue or gentle hint, in La Mulana, you really do have to figure things out for yourself. It’s almost certainly best at first, to give the game a try as is, before resorting to walkthrough hints, when and if you have to.
Your first challenge is getting to the ruins entrance! It’s easy to attempt, yet so, so much more difficult to master! A good few attempts should eventually have you ‘breezing your way’ through the ruins! But getting past the 8 guardians will really, as in really test your mettle! The huge labyrinth is colorful and varied. The controls take some getting used to, but once you get the hang of how jumping works you’ll be well on your way to starting to explore the ruins. But can you get past the gatekeeper?
You can read more about the game’s plot, the Guardians and the game’s characters at Wiki HERE, and a written Intro HERE.
As well as the freeware PC version, there’s a soon to be available reworked pay-for version for the Wii (that will also have extra downloadable content), which has in part prompted this repost. Fortunately for us all, the PC version is free. Nintendo haven’t watered down the Wii version as it won’t have an ‘easy mode’. This is well and true to the spirit of the game and it just goes to show how a game that looks, sounds and plays like very retro games from twenty or so years ago can beat most modern ‘blockbusters’ hands down every time! Nintendo certainly think so! A huge amount of work is being put into the remastered Wii version for when it comes out.
The game uses the ‘F’ keys and two action keys. Do read the game manual in the extracted folder for details of the controls, and the story behind the game. In La Mulana, you are unable to save your game until you get enough money to buy a save card. Even then, you can’t save without returning to the beginning of the game. And don’t think you will always get killed before you advance further through the game. It may be likely, but it isn’t inevitable, and a fresh try sometime later might well get you past that awkward or really difficult bit! Until the next difficult encounter or extra difficult puzzle! Like a real archaeologist, some days you’ll make progress, other days you just keep trying that bit harder each time! And there’s a rival archaeologist hot on the quest, just to get that competitive edge in you out into the open!
It’s a traditional action-adventure game, reminiscent of the Castlevania and Metroid games. It was originally only available in Japanese, but is now translated by an English translation patch. This game is in many ways far superior to the ever popular Cave Story or Akuji The Demon, as well as being almost impossibly difficult (without help!) in places.
La Mulana is a fantastic platform game where difficult really does mean difficult! If you want a game that has a classic very retro look and feel, great music, and is a great challenge that you can come back to over and over again, then this is for you! It’s also easy enough to get into, and can give you plenty of action-filled puzzling gameplay before you encounter really troublesome enemies or some really brain scratching puzzles!
Throw away all your next-gen devices, and see if you can uncover and reveal an ancient mystery in this magnificent game!
Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZqZQkLqkN4
(Search for ‘Let’s Play La Mulana’ in YouTube for video part walkthroughs)
Maps and More Info http://www.caiman.us/scripts/fw/f3393.html
Download HERE or HERE ---- (Scroll down to La Mulana for the second download link that I've posted)----
