La-Mulana EX

La-Mulana EX brings back great feelings of previous iterations, ongoing challenges and complex level design. This title is a must have for all 8-bit era fans.

Challenging, ridiculously old-school platforming with puzzles that challenge your brain as well as your hands – I like it.

A little tomb raiding may sound fun. But there's nobody here to hold your hand, you dig? [May 2015, p77]

If you're a brave soul hunting a hard game to treasure, you'll find what you seek in La-Mulana. [May 2015, p.87]

La-Mulana EX is a frustratingly difficult action/adventure that mixes The Legend of Zelda with Castlevania. Unfortunately, many will be scared away by the obtuse puzzles and confusing level designs, but those that stick with it will discover a lengthy adventure that is full of hidden treasures.

La Mulana EX is a fantastic throwback designed by a team with an intense passion for the retro games. It captures the spirit of old-school NES platformers, right down to the “Nintendo hard” difficulty, but also manages to forge its own identity.

Like Fez and others of same type, La-Mulana is something more than an exercise of retro-pixel-love. It's a beast of the exploration and puzzles, taking the concept of Metroidvania to a challenging level of difficulty. Not just your typical Indiana Jones 2D clone, but one game that really make us feeling like explorers resolving cryptic clues in a gigantic meta-puzzle scenario. And with a soundtrack totally MIDI that could be signed by Chris Huelsbeck himself.

It still is a great mix of platforming and adventure, challenging and deep, and this is probably the best opportunity to try it.

La-Mulana is a brilliant title. Pure gameplay based on exploration and old-school action.

I recognize, of course, that criticizing a game that sells itself as a tough as nails platformer for being too tough as nails is the very definition of missing the point. La-Mulana EX never pretends to be anything other than that, so whatever dislike I have for the game comes down entirely to my own gaming failings, not any failure on the part of the game itself.

Overall, there’s no denying that La Mulana is both an excellent platform game and a great addition to the Vita’s catalogue. However, it is very tough and obscure at times.

If you want a hard-as-nails adventure that'll have you swearing at random people on the street, then this might just be the game for you. La-Mulana EX is a quality recreation of the titles from yesteryear, but perhaps lacks a little soul of its own as a result.

La-Mulana EX has the unusual problem of being too smart for its own good—it's too wearying to enjoy, but difficult to shrug off as a poor project. Let's split the difference and call it a six out of ten, and hope that anyone else brave enough to venture into these ruins has a higher mental capacity for this sort of thing than I do.

I would happily recommend something like Rogue Legacy to anyone, because it's a game that transcends its genre to become something special. La-Mulana never quite achieves that, so it's only ever going to be a cult favourite.