What's La-Mulana? That's a question I found myself asking at the end of last year. I saw the first couple video's of a full play through on Youtube and instantly I was interested in playing the game myself before I continued to view the rest of the play through. I downloaded the game and the needed English language patch and I was ready to dive in. Fast forward about a year and I finally finished La-Mulana, I did everything. Found all the collectibles, all items and earlier this very night I beat the ridiculously difficult Hell Temple.
La-Mulana was released for the PC in 2005 developed by the then known as Gr3 Project who I believe go by the name Nigoro. La-Mulana was created to be a tribute to the mainly Japanese MSX computer system and especially the game Maze of Galious. The MSX came out in 1983 and didn't really catch on outside of Japan. Konami was a big supporter of the MSX releasing many of their most famous franchises on the system. Metal Gear, Castlevania, Gradius, the list goes on and on. La-Mulana is a throwback to that time in gaming, a time when games didn't hold your hand and you had to have the skill and the know how to figure out the puzzles in the game you're trying to finish.
You play as Lemeza Kosugi and Archeologist out to one up his father by getting to the treasure of the ancient city of La-Mulana. You arrive at a small village on the outskirts of the ruins and as you enter the madness starts. The play style is similar to a Castlevania game, as Lemeza uses a whip with various subweapons. He also behaves a lot like Simon Belmont as he suffers from the infamous Castlevania/Ninja Gaiden jump back when he gets hit. And yeah it's as frustrating in this game as it was in the other's I mentioned. It also has the feel of Metroid or the many Metroidvanias out there, you hunt items to get to places in zones you couldn't get to before.
From a mechanic standpoint La-Mulana is a well made game. The controls are tight and feel great with the way this game is made. The one thing that's a pain to deal with is the grapple claw item which let's you wall jump. That can be tricky at times but once you master it you can pull it off no problem.
The graphics aren't the best I've ever seen but with GR3 wanting the game to look like a MSX game they did an amazing job of making it look like that. I like the overall look of the game and it's great to play a game that leaves something to your imagination in the age of graphics of substance that we live in now.
But the one area La-Mulana excels at is the music! The music in this game is AMAZING! Every song is memorable, I find myself humming some random song from this game almost all the time. I downloaded the sound track and I listen to it any chance I get. I'm even listening to it as I write this, it's so good. The only music I grew tired of was the Hell Temple music and that's probably because Hell Temple was agony and the music was just bothering me after awhile. The core game took me 24 in game hours to finish and that entire time I wanted to hear every song as often as I could. I may be going on and on about this but I can't stress enough how good the music is in this game.
Speaking of the Hell Temple, this game is very hard. Some of the puzzles are very devious and you'll pull out some hairs trying to figure out what to do. Added to that at the beginning of the game Lemeza is very fragile and a few hits can kill you. As you power up death is really only an option against bosses but some of them are brutal to fight and can take multiple tries to get by. A saving grace in the ruins are the monuments or gravestones. Every solution is on a monument somewhere in the ruins, they're not always in the same zone as the puzzle and you may find some solutions way before you even encounter the puzzle so you absolutely need to pay attention or use a walkthrough. I can level with you here and say I eventually caved in and started using a walkthrough. Some parts of this game are insane to figure out and I would love to meet someone who made it through this one without some sort of a hint guide or anything like that. Even with the guide the game is still a ton of fun as the story and such are interesting and the game is just plain fun to play, that is until Hell Temple.
Hell Temple is the extra zone at the end of the game. After you have everything you can unlock Hell Temple and try to get through it. Hell Temple is one of the most difficult things I've ever done in a game ever. I made it a good way in without help but I eventually had to consult the La-Mulana Wiki and watch some videos on Youtube to help get through it. But when I did I felt a great sense of accomplishment and I was glad I took that challenge but it's something I will never do again, even if I replay La-Mulana the Hell Temple can stay locked up and it's treasures can stay hidden.
Right now La-Mulana is a freeware PC game but sometime next year it's suppose to be coming out on Wiiware. The graphics have been improved greatly and the game looks amazing. They are having to remove the MSX references due to copywrites and all that jazz. It looks like they're adding in substitute ROMS to replace all the MSX games you find in the ruins but we'll see how that works. I've heard they're going so far to make Hell Temple even harder than the current games version of it and that's not what I want to hear but I say bring it on! It's been confirmed that Hell Temple will not be in the base game download due to Nintendo's Wiiware game size limitation but it will be released as free DLC I think the day the game comes out or shortly after it's released.
Either way La-Mulana is a game that should be played by anyone who enjoys old school 2D games. If you download the PC version or wait for the Wiiware version you should seriously play it.
La-Mulana - 10 out 10
Link to the La-Mulana wiki, you can find information about the game and where to download it.
http://lamulana.super-turbo.net/wiki/index.php5?title=Main_Page
Showing posts with label Wiiware. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wiiware. Show all posts
Friday, December 24, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Super Meat Boy
Another game I've been spending a lot of time with recently is the PC release of Super Meat Boy. Let me tell you this right now, this game is AMAZING! I've played a lot of newer 2D platformers in the last few years and I don't think anyone has nailed the feeling of them like Team Meat in this game.
I had played the original Meat Boy over on Newgrounds and was eagerly awaiting the release of Super Meat Boy.
You can play the original Meat Boy here...
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/463241
Anyway what makes Super Meat Boy so good? It's pretty much everything it does, first off the controls. The game has some of the tightest controls I've felt in a game for a long time, especially a PC 2D platformer. I started out using my keyboard completely ignoring the game straight up telling me to use a controller. After getting my ass handed to me I dug out my wired 360 controller and was back to playing in no time. Even with the crap 360 D-pad this game controls flawlessly. Meat Boy does exactly what you want him to when you want him to do it. It feels great when you jump and weave your way through a particularly tough section only to survive and move on to the next level. There isn't ever a time when you're fighting with the controls, I can't stress this enough, they're great.
The game looks and sounds good as well. The graphics are nice 2D and the cutscenes are done in what I call the Flash Cartoon format. They also do a lot of shout outs to old games. The intros to each chapter are taken from old school games and it's really cool when you notice and remember the game they're imitating.
Super Meat Boy also has some of the best music I've heard in a long time. I'd consider it up there with Cave Story in how good the music is. I still think Cave Story has this game beat in great music but SMB is a close second. I really like that the music doesn't restart when you die it just keeps on going. With many hard games it can be annoying when the music restarts when you die, even to a point of grating on you.
The main thing Super Meat Boy has going both for and against it is the difficulty. This game is crazy hard! It hates you and everything you stand for. Super Meat Boy wants you to suffer, it will never be nice to you, it would kill your pets if it could and laugh about all of it. Now this will turn some people off but if you're like me and hate seeing games hold your hand then this is the game for you. I still haven't finished it but I keep plugging away at it making a little progress each time I play. Another thing about death in SMB is that when you die you are almost instantly back to try again, there is a slight moment before you respawn but it's so short it's never an issue. When you're in a warp zone on the other hand there is a wait as it shows a screen with your lives and you have to wait a bit before trying again. Think of it like the original Super Mario Brothers, but it only happens in the hidden Warp Zone levels and Glitch levels, not in the main game.
SMB offers around 300 levels to try and get through. The main path, darkside versions of those levels which offer more of a challenge, and hidden Warp Zones. The Warp Zones can be throwbacks to old school games, either looking like an Atari 2600 or a Game Boy among other graphical looks. Warp Zones can also offer other characters to play as. Team Meat reached out to their Indie dev friends to bring in all kinds of characters from other games. The 360 and PC version share some of the same characters but they each have a different set of Bandage characters, these are characters you unlock as you collect the often difficult to grab bandages in the levels. The only character from the 360 version I would of liked to see in the PC version is the guy from Spelunky as I'm a huge fan of that game but with Spelunky coming out on the XBLA it makes since he's in that version.
I want to also mention the support for this game. When SMB came out on the PC it has some bugs on release. I only saw the crash on exit bug but some people couldn't even play the game. Team Meat has done an amazing job of patching this game in the short amount of time it's been out. From what I understand it's just one dude doing all the code and they're churning out patches like mad. Most major developers take ages to patch a game and these guys are on it all the time. I commend Team Meat for this and even with the buggy (for some) release of SMB they have earned my money for anything they put out! Huzzah! To them!
At the time of this writing I have not finished SMB as I'm stuck on World 4 and it's really kicking my butt. But I can safely say this game is really high up there for being my game of the year and in a year of a lot of disappointing releases it's awesome to see this one come out and rise to the top.
Super Meat Boy - 10 out 10, Play it! Even if you just play the demo everyone needs to try it out. See how two guys can make a game that's better than most big studios.
I had played the original Meat Boy over on Newgrounds and was eagerly awaiting the release of Super Meat Boy.
You can play the original Meat Boy here...
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/463241
Anyway what makes Super Meat Boy so good? It's pretty much everything it does, first off the controls. The game has some of the tightest controls I've felt in a game for a long time, especially a PC 2D platformer. I started out using my keyboard completely ignoring the game straight up telling me to use a controller. After getting my ass handed to me I dug out my wired 360 controller and was back to playing in no time. Even with the crap 360 D-pad this game controls flawlessly. Meat Boy does exactly what you want him to when you want him to do it. It feels great when you jump and weave your way through a particularly tough section only to survive and move on to the next level. There isn't ever a time when you're fighting with the controls, I can't stress this enough, they're great.
The game looks and sounds good as well. The graphics are nice 2D and the cutscenes are done in what I call the Flash Cartoon format. They also do a lot of shout outs to old games. The intros to each chapter are taken from old school games and it's really cool when you notice and remember the game they're imitating.
Super Meat Boy also has some of the best music I've heard in a long time. I'd consider it up there with Cave Story in how good the music is. I still think Cave Story has this game beat in great music but SMB is a close second. I really like that the music doesn't restart when you die it just keeps on going. With many hard games it can be annoying when the music restarts when you die, even to a point of grating on you.
The main thing Super Meat Boy has going both for and against it is the difficulty. This game is crazy hard! It hates you and everything you stand for. Super Meat Boy wants you to suffer, it will never be nice to you, it would kill your pets if it could and laugh about all of it. Now this will turn some people off but if you're like me and hate seeing games hold your hand then this is the game for you. I still haven't finished it but I keep plugging away at it making a little progress each time I play. Another thing about death in SMB is that when you die you are almost instantly back to try again, there is a slight moment before you respawn but it's so short it's never an issue. When you're in a warp zone on the other hand there is a wait as it shows a screen with your lives and you have to wait a bit before trying again. Think of it like the original Super Mario Brothers, but it only happens in the hidden Warp Zone levels and Glitch levels, not in the main game.
SMB offers around 300 levels to try and get through. The main path, darkside versions of those levels which offer more of a challenge, and hidden Warp Zones. The Warp Zones can be throwbacks to old school games, either looking like an Atari 2600 or a Game Boy among other graphical looks. Warp Zones can also offer other characters to play as. Team Meat reached out to their Indie dev friends to bring in all kinds of characters from other games. The 360 and PC version share some of the same characters but they each have a different set of Bandage characters, these are characters you unlock as you collect the often difficult to grab bandages in the levels. The only character from the 360 version I would of liked to see in the PC version is the guy from Spelunky as I'm a huge fan of that game but with Spelunky coming out on the XBLA it makes since he's in that version.
I want to also mention the support for this game. When SMB came out on the PC it has some bugs on release. I only saw the crash on exit bug but some people couldn't even play the game. Team Meat has done an amazing job of patching this game in the short amount of time it's been out. From what I understand it's just one dude doing all the code and they're churning out patches like mad. Most major developers take ages to patch a game and these guys are on it all the time. I commend Team Meat for this and even with the buggy (for some) release of SMB they have earned my money for anything they put out! Huzzah! To them!
At the time of this writing I have not finished SMB as I'm stuck on World 4 and it's really kicking my butt. But I can safely say this game is really high up there for being my game of the year and in a year of a lot of disappointing releases it's awesome to see this one come out and rise to the top.
Super Meat Boy - 10 out 10, Play it! Even if you just play the demo everyone needs to try it out. See how two guys can make a game that's better than most big studios.
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