La Mulana
Pulse
To create, to create and escape. Join Date: 2002-08-29 Member: 1248Members, Constellation
To create, to create and escape. Join Date: 2002-08-29 Member: 1248Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">Indiana Jones + Metroidvania = ???</div><b>La-Mulana</b>
<img src="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y218/logicow/lamulana3.png" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
<!--QuoteBegin-"AGTP"+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE("AGTP")</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
La-Mulana is a freeware free-roaming platformer game designed to look, sound, and play like a classic MSX game. It's heavily influenced by the classic Konami MSX game "The Maze of Galious" and anyone who has played that title will probably recognize the similarities very quickly. You play the whip-wielding Indiana Jones-esque archaeologist Lemeza Kosugi as he investigates the ancient ruins of La-Mulana in an attempt to find its treasure and one-up his father, who is trying to get the same treasure as well.
The game is huge, with many different areas to explore and dozens of items and weapons to find. Each area has a large variety of puzzles and traps (many of them quite fiendish) and you need to solve the puzzles in each area to discover the Ankhs and Ankh Jewels, which allow you to fight the eight Guardians of the ruins. To solve the puzzles you'll need to be able to read the tablets scattered throughout the ruins, which will require a Hand Scanner and translation software for the portable MSX that Lemeza has brought along on the adventure. Your Hand Scanner will also allow you to find items and search the bones of less fortunate adventurers.
La-Mulana is one of the longest freeware games I've played in quite some time--my first playthrough took me 26 hours, and even if you knew exactly what to do for each puzzle in advance I'd still bet the game would take at least 10-12 hours to complete, not counting the bonus dungeon.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href="http://pulsaris.googlepages.com/la-mulana_manual.zip" target="_blank">The manual</a> which absolutely MUST be given at least a quick skim through before you play the game. Don't say I didn't warn you.
<a href="http://agtp.romhack.net/lamulana.html" target="_blank">Game and translation</a> - Did I mention that this game was Japanese only up until last month? The patch says it doesn't install correctly for some reason, but the only thing it seems to miss is the manual, which you've already downloaded separately (right? <i>right?</i>). If you try to read a tablet without the translation software you'll see a bunch of gibberish, but don't worry - it's supposed to be like that.
I recently stumbled across this game and I think it's pretty neat. It is also, however, extremely large, confusing and unapologetically old school. I think the best way to get through it would be to tackle it as a group project with multiple minds to explore every possibility solve the more insane puzzles.
Enjoy.
Starter tip: Before you do anything else, go one screen left and break the pot for 10 gold. Use the money to buy the "Game master" cartridge in the MSX shop (on the same screen as the pot). Equip the cartridge and enter the elder's house (on the starting screen) to save. Saving and restoring is the only reasonable way of restoring your health at first, so don't forget to return to town and save if you find anything important.
To get into the ruins: Go into the elder's house without the save cartridge equipped and then go right until you see some pillars. You can get in from above.
<img src="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y218/logicow/lamulana3.png" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
<!--QuoteBegin-"AGTP"+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE("AGTP")</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
La-Mulana is a freeware free-roaming platformer game designed to look, sound, and play like a classic MSX game. It's heavily influenced by the classic Konami MSX game "The Maze of Galious" and anyone who has played that title will probably recognize the similarities very quickly. You play the whip-wielding Indiana Jones-esque archaeologist Lemeza Kosugi as he investigates the ancient ruins of La-Mulana in an attempt to find its treasure and one-up his father, who is trying to get the same treasure as well.
The game is huge, with many different areas to explore and dozens of items and weapons to find. Each area has a large variety of puzzles and traps (many of them quite fiendish) and you need to solve the puzzles in each area to discover the Ankhs and Ankh Jewels, which allow you to fight the eight Guardians of the ruins. To solve the puzzles you'll need to be able to read the tablets scattered throughout the ruins, which will require a Hand Scanner and translation software for the portable MSX that Lemeza has brought along on the adventure. Your Hand Scanner will also allow you to find items and search the bones of less fortunate adventurers.
La-Mulana is one of the longest freeware games I've played in quite some time--my first playthrough took me 26 hours, and even if you knew exactly what to do for each puzzle in advance I'd still bet the game would take at least 10-12 hours to complete, not counting the bonus dungeon.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href="http://pulsaris.googlepages.com/la-mulana_manual.zip" target="_blank">The manual</a> which absolutely MUST be given at least a quick skim through before you play the game. Don't say I didn't warn you.
<a href="http://agtp.romhack.net/lamulana.html" target="_blank">Game and translation</a> - Did I mention that this game was Japanese only up until last month? The patch says it doesn't install correctly for some reason, but the only thing it seems to miss is the manual, which you've already downloaded separately (right? <i>right?</i>). If you try to read a tablet without the translation software you'll see a bunch of gibberish, but don't worry - it's supposed to be like that.
I recently stumbled across this game and I think it's pretty neat. It is also, however, extremely large, confusing and unapologetically old school. I think the best way to get through it would be to tackle it as a group project with multiple minds to explore every possibility solve the more insane puzzles.
Enjoy.
Starter tip: Before you do anything else, go one screen left and break the pot for 10 gold. Use the money to buy the "Game master" cartridge in the MSX shop (on the same screen as the pot). Equip the cartridge and enter the elder's house (on the starting screen) to save. Saving and restoring is the only reasonable way of restoring your health at first, so don't forget to return to town and save if you find anything important.
To get into the ruins: Go into the elder's house without the save cartridge equipped and then go right until you see some pillars. You can get in from above.
Comments
<a href="http://pulsaris.googlepages.com/la-mulana_manual.zip" target="_blank">The manual</a> which absolutely MUST be given at least a quick skim through before you play the game. Don't say I didn't warn you.
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Press F5 to open the options menu, which allows you to reconfigure the controls if you need to.
I had the grey squares problem as well, but I ignored and played for a while and eventually it just went away on its own.
Fun music though.
This game is ###### hard, in a non-challenging bullish way. Just like the good ol' days.
I stopped playing after getting bored of going through 2-3 important events and not surviving the trek back to save-point.
No interaction with people, sorry.
This game is ###### hard, in a non-challenging bullish way. Just like the good ol' days.
I stopped playing after getting bored of going through 2-3 important events and not surviving the trek back to save-point.
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So maybe you should've saved after the first 1 or 2 important events? Or at least when you started running out of health? Regardless, there's an item not too far from the entrance of the ruins that allows you to instantly teleport to town or to a number of waypoints within the ruins (which must be found and scanned first).
Spoiler:<!--coloro:#003333--><span style="color:#003333"><!--/coloro-->From the entrance, go 1 screen to the right, 3 screens down and one screen right. The wall by the corpse on the right side of the room is fake. On the other side, push the block onto the whitish platform and grab the grail that shows up<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
If you have the grail, open the inventory screen and press 0 to teleport to town, 1-9 for the waypoints.
Exploring doesn't do it for me.