a sadistic exercise in problem-solving and masochism

i can't sing enough praise about this game's exploration. so instead i'll post a warning: take notes meticulously, and do not slack. i started thinking the difficulty was overhyped, and began writing fewer notes. that came back to bite me in the ass during the last third, and i needed to look up hints just to understand where to go next. don't let up or these ruins will fucking eat you alive

what i won't applaud so much is the combat side of la mulana. the bosses are all fair, but not all that fun or memorable in many cases. there's exceptions (mostly in the endgame) but generally i found myself just blowing them away with expensive pistol rounds to save the hassle

looking forward to running the sequel with no external help. my notes will be unparalleled. those ruins are fucking mine

Reviewed on Oct 26, 2022


2 Comments


1 year ago

Not sure what people are talking about, this game is fully beatable by absolutely anyone willing to make a complete set of hand-drawn maps on graph paper accounting for every screen of every area, notating every single dead end, mysterious object, possibly important background element, and text box in each, and treat them as running checklists of individual mandatory riddles to solve, committing themselves to poring over stacks of documents riffling back and forth for hours on end, desperately trying to crack something, anything. Pretty basic stuff really.

1 year ago

eh truthfully it's not quite that overbearing. the individual maps are fairly small and i had no trouble documenting them on lined paper with thin and bold vertical lines (indicating screen scrolls and walls respectively). where i really fucked up was not documenting each tablet after a while. i thought, "eh i'll remember that" (spoilers: i did not remember)

i'd say the cruelty in la mulana lays in some areas being especially cryptic and it not being clear whether or not you need hints from other areas to complete them. that's where i really stumbled