La-Mulana

LA-MULANA is an “Archaeological Ruin Exploration Action Game,” bringing the classic appeal of adventure with the punishing difficulty of retro-inspired gaming. Search inside ancient ruins, seeking out the “Secret Treasure of Life” – which sleeps in the sprawling ruins of “LA-MULANA” and is said to be the beginning of all civilization.

La-Mulana is a retro, difficult and metroidvania game developed by NIGORO and published by PLAYISM.
Released on April 15th 2013 is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux in 4 languages: English, Japanese, Russian and Spanish - Spain.

It has received 2,412 reviews of which 1,926 were positive and 486 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.7 out of 10. 😊

The game is currently priced at 3.74€ on Steam and has a 75% discount.

The Steam community has classified La-Mulana into these genres:

Retro Difficult Metroidvania Remake 2D Exploration Side Scroller Unforgiving Puzzle-Platformer Puzzle Platformer Pixel Graphics Controller Singleplayer Adventure Action Indie Action-Adventure 2D Platformer Ninja

Media & Screenshots

Get an in-depth look at La-Mulana through various videos and screenshots.

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Requirements

These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.

Windows

OS *:Windows XP
Processor:Intel® Pentium 4 / 2.0GHz
Memory:1 GB RAM
Graphics:DirectX 9.0c compatible card, 128MB of VRAM
DirectX®:9.0c
Hard Drive:500 MB HD space
Sound:DirectX 9.0c compatible card

MacOS

OS:OS X 10.7(Lion)
Processor:Intel® Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Hard Drive: 500 MB available space

Linux

Processor:Intel® Pentium 4 / 2.0GHz
Memory:1 GB RAM
Graphics:DirectX 9.0c compatible card, 128MB of VRAM

Reviews

Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.

Oct. 2024

This game is a beautiful nightmare. You WILL need to google some things. You WILL get frustrated. But when you figure out hard puzzles and the overarching story behind the game starts to click, it's incredibly satisfying.

Sept. 2024

La-Mulana exceeded a lot of my initial expectations. If you enjoy unforgiving Metroidvania games with puzzles all around, this game is for you! It also has an amazing soundtrack that you will likely not get tired of. Be prepared to take notes and go over them during the course of your playthrough, otherwise many things will not make sense and you will get stuck and frustrated later on. There is no shame in using a guide to get through tougher parts of the game! I'd argue going into more depth would be minor mechanic spoilers, so be wary: The game's scope just kept expanding on every new discovery, it was quite a joy! Some examples are "oh some areas have a backside" turning into "oh wait, ALL areas have a backside?" , or the sheer amount of bosses to fight in the game . Every item square in the inventory actually getting filled was also a surprise to me, since "there's no way the game has this many things" was how I viewed it.

Sept. 2024

Whoever decided to place that creature that spits fire in a circle in the vertical corridor in Hell Temple, I wish nothing but the worst for you. 10/10 game

Sept. 2024

I love this game a lot, you're a Japanese American archeologist and you really feel like you're unearthing something wild. I will say for a first time run try to not spoil yourself on puzzles because a lot also explains the story and world of why things are happening, there's some good spoiler free guides for the really tough puzzles if you need help and if you get really stuck then I would look things up but if you go at it with paper and pencil to make notes and track stuff it's so rewarding. Boss fights are not this games strong suit many have weird patterns or just awful combat designs but there's ways around it and I would love to see more people play this.

March 2024

This game is a tribute to a very specific type of game that never really caught on in the US, and quite the good one. Basically, on Japanese home computers, there were maze games, that were similar to Metroidvanias or the original Legend of Zelda, but more puzzle focused. The closest thing we ever got in the US was Simon's Quest, a game infamously marred by poor localization choices that made the game more cryptic than it already was. The defining characteristic of these games, was how cryptic they were compared to other contemporary games. The first game of this style, is likely Tower of Druaga, which itself takes heavy inspiration from Wizardry (which itself is based off of PLATO system games, that predate home computers) as to how the mazes are structured, with a Pac-Man style camera view and basic gameplay loop. However, Tower of Druaga was known for being cryptic, and puzzle themed, with the general idea being players would trade tips on how to beat the game at arcades. When home computers hit the scene in Japan, various other developers would try their hand at making similar styles of games, some of them as sidescrollers, such as Falcom's Dragon Slayer, and the follow up, Xanadu, a Japanese-only series that are frequently, and correctly, described as the first Metroidvanias by those in the know. More influential on La-Mulana, was "The Maze of Galious", which is also credited as the inspiration to Simon's Quest by that game's creator, which itself would later serve as the inspiration to Symphony of the Night, according to IGA. Dragon Slayer got many sequels, including but not limited to the entire turn based RPG series The Legend of Heroes, which started with Dragon Slayer 5, but Xanadu itself is also a franchise, although most of the games are Japan-only. Falcom would go on to make many other obscure mostly Japanese-only games before finally hitting the mainstream with their "Trails" series, a subseries of The Legend of Heroes, which is still ongoing to this day. Most notably in the Xanadu series, are Xanadu NEXT, an amazing gem of a game, and Tokyo Xanadu, which is a hybrid of Persona's aesthetic, Trails of Cold Steel 2's equipment system and engine, and Ys SEVEN's Combat, in one game. This kind of design would end up leading to the modern Metroidvania, as well as action adventure games in general. Hydelide for the NES is pretty infamously called a "Zelda-clone", but that's incorrect, it's a very early maze game as well, and it's PC-88 release predates the original The Legend of Zelda by two years. Hydelide was itself widely credited to be inspired by Tower of Druaga, but Hydelide is also generally considered an inspiration to The Legend of Zelda, and the Ys games by historians. Lesser known, is it's influence on Hideo Kojima, who apparently was inspired by Hidelide for Phantom Pain's overworld. The Ys games themselves being another series of Falcom games that was primarily only known in Japan until Ys 8 was mainstream. History lessons aside, La-Mulana is a near perfect recreation of the classic maze game style, as well as being a brilliant remake of a 2006 game of the same name and general premise, with new puzzles and mechanics. The original was supposed to be put on Steam as a kickstarter goal for La-Mulana 2, but that never happened, presumably because the kickstarter itself was very not well known even to series fans, and made after people stopped using kickstarter as much. La-Mulana 2 is here now, but suffered many delays because the game's director was seriously ill throughout the process, and was directing the game from the hospital. Like many maze games and dungeon crawlers, there are explicit sadistic design elements, because that's what is generally expected by the audience that plays these games, me included. This is not an accessible game, and will never be accessible to everyone, and that's fine, this game is made for a specific audience, and you are either apart of it, or not. What that audience craves, is devious traps, puzzles, and unforgiving gameplay. This game is tough as nails by design, but it is rarely unfair. There are explicit walls that expect you to learn mechanics or counterplay, and you will be punished if you do not learn. This game is a puzzle that needs to be unraveled in multiple ways, including how to actually use the game's mechanics themselves. Movement is rigid by design, because if you know how, you can use movement tricks to get to places you REALLY SHOULDN'T early on, such as getting the Axe and Knife prior to Amphisbaena, a solid two bosses before when you're supposed to find it in normal progression. You can do this by simply, paying attention to hints after going to the Temple of the Sun early. This game is loved for a reason, and that's because it's lack of linearity is truly staggering compared to other Metroidvanias. You can do anything and go almost anywhere with minimal railroading. You are still required to do everything to beat the game, but you don't have to do everything in any specific order, and can truly pick and choose where you want to go.

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Last Updates

Steam data	22 December 2024 00:30
SteamSpy data	18 December 2024 13:37
Steam price	23 December 2024 12:45
Steam reviews	22 December 2024 22:00

-75% 14.99€ 3.74€

7.7

1,926

486

Online players

Developer

NIGORO

Publisher

PLAYISM

Release 15 Apr 2013

Platforms