It seems forever ago now that I’ve first played and fell in love with the original (technically, the remake) La-Mulana, even though it’s only been 5 years. The original “Archaeological Ruin Exploration Action Game” was a very unique, even for today, approach to exploration-focused platformer titles, borrowing heavily from unknown in the west The Maze of Galious. Despite having a lot of similarities to the “metroidvania” games, it focused much more heavily on puzzles that could go from covering just the room you are in to the entire game world and required you to pay close attention to the details you see. It had a lot of unique and fun elements to it, but it was also often infuriatingly obtuse with puzzle design, sometimes requiring you to not just think outside the box, but realize that you might be in the box, visualize it on paper, then translate it into some invented language and then find a way how to think outside of it.
When the Kickstarter project for La-Mulana 2 appeared in 2014 one of the biggest promises was to keep all the excitement of the exploration, puzzles, challenge and sense of adventure intact, but also improve on those frustrating elements, that were originally intentionally done in such an annoying manner to emulate the design of games from the MSX. After throwing my money at the screen and waiting for 4 years, I’ve decided to wait a few more months until the first few patches were released to iron out most of the issues. And finally, I was able to get into La-Mulana 2. 42 hours later…
I can say right now that NIGORO have delivered on their promise 100%. La-Mulana 2 feels like La-Mulana, the remake, did, except if designed as a modern game with fun in mind, without sacrificing any of the excitement and challenge of the original. Improvements are in absolutely everything. The opening hour or so of the game is a smartly designed tutorial that covers pretty much everything a player must know to not get lost while also being a fun and funny sequence to play through. A lot of simple but very important changes were made to the basics of gameplay: you can slightly adjust the arc of your jump instead of being locked into one, you can crouch and crawl, you can jump onto a ladder, applications (that add functionality to your in-game system, like maps, text saving and etc.) are now easier to manage and most of the key things that improve your life immensely are given to you almost from the start and are nigh impossible to miss. Some of the original game restrictions also do not apply, so, for example, you no longer care about falling water or opening the laptop when in water or lava (though being in water or lave will still hurt until you get upgrades). Game looks and feels more fluid in general, more like you remember La-Mulana playing at its best, than how it actually played like.
And this quality continues throughout the game. There are still some global puzzles that might be hard to understand at first glance, but it’s now much harder to get to the “okay, now what” point or aimlessly wonder on the maps without knowing what else you can do. Hints are given in a mostly timely manner, in good places and you get the ability to record them for reference from the very start, so just remember to record anything that sounds or looks even remotely helpful (especially if it has any words in a different colour) and keeping that until you solve the related puzzle. Only a few times have I been completely stumped and that was because I didn’t realize that I could already explore more than I thought I could and once I did everything became very clear.
It’s so much more fun to explore too. Despite some of the themes and locations being somewhat reminiscent of the original game (which has a story explanation), all of the main locations in the game feel unique in general, with their own distinct looks, distinct focus, fantastic music theme and its own storyline. Game looks fantastic as well, managing to keep that original pixelated feel, yet adding in a lot of 3D elements in a natural looking way. It’s still designed to be closer to 4:3 in playfield size with letterboxing on the sides, but it’s wider than the original game and scales nicer to higher resolutions. As with the original, the game feels like a huge project, despite being made by a small indie team.
There are some familiar issues, however. For one thing, some of the boss fights still feel like you win either because you are cheesing them with a particularly useful sub-weapon or a strategy, or because of sheer luck, as instead of challenging they feel chaotic and infuriating. For another, there are still occasional moments or puzzles that are a bit too hard to understand, especially if you feel like you’re going to a location too early since it’s kicking your butt, but the game actually wants that. And additionally, even in the current state there are still occasional bugs, few of which might even look like part of the puzzle, but they’re not. Luckily, the game is still getting updates and even in its current state, a lot of things have been fixed and rebalanced since the release. Hopefully, the updates will also fix some of the strange references to elements that were seemingly cut from the game, as there are a few of these that seem to indicate some area/items becoming available at some point, but they never do. Also, hopefully, some moments when the progress is locked behind a talk with an NPC will become more clear in the future, as right now there are a few moments, where going to some arbitrary room to talk to someone can be what’s preventing you from progressing.
During the 42 hours of me playing I went through a lot of emotions. There were moments of me just being extremely upset at the game, particularly due to some boss fight or a frustrating section, or a less clear mechanic or puzzle. There were moments where the game felt a bit laggy and a missed/delayed jump meant replaying a section. But at the same time, I always felt excited to get back to the game, every time a puzzle has been solved, a trap avoided, a new area opened, a new checkpoint or shortcut unlocked and another boss defeated I was ecstatic. And it’s not something a lot of games can achieve. While I loved La-Mulana (the remake) a lot, I did finish it with occasional walkthrough usage, and would suggest anyone to do the same, because while amazing, it was also an intentionally flawed game. La-Mulana 2 doesn’t do that. It’s a game that can be enjoyed from start to finish on your own while having lots of fun.
La-Mulana 2 isn’t just a modern re-imagining of Maze of Galious, or an ode to an old era of games done well anymore. It’s a truly amazing, unforgettable, incredibly smart exploration focused action advent– archaeological ruin exploration action game. It builds on top of all of the experiences and inspirations La-Mulana 1 was built from, and outgrows them, becomes a thing of its own. While I would still suggest checking La-Mulana remake as well, if you had to choose, this is the game you absolutely must play.