La-Mulana 2 Confirmed For Nintendo Switch Release Next Year

I wish there were more men in the lead roles of video games.

Looks really good! Whether I'll buy it or not though depends on the difficulty level. I found the original to be brutally tough to the point it just wasn't fun for me. It's been a long time since I played it though,perhaps I'd fare better at it now since my indie platforming skills have been sharpened on Switch.

I never played the original. Maybe I should try it sometime.

@OorWullie
I get you, I was stuck in a small area in the first game for a LONG time before realizing that I was indeed stuck, with little opportunity of ever getting out. I had no save from before entering the place.

The game is relentlessly punishing both in terms of sheer mechanical difficulty, but also in way of not giving you much information ever, and allowing you to trap yourself. Feels a bit like playing one of the (not very) good old adventure games, when you went to a new place without picking up that one ruby/scarab/rope/rose/mirror you needed.
Bad luck, sport.
Only in LaMulana you can't speed-run a new game to the spot where you fumbled. It's teethgrittingly hard the second time as well. And the third.

I hear the sequel is pretty brutal too. Looking forward to hearing a Nintendo player's take on that in a review.

Good news. Bought the previous game on Vita, and what I've tried of it so far was a quality experience. And this one has a female protagonist in an adventure fiction piece to boot - something I've been a sucker for since elementary school, if not longer.

@Ooyah
I never made it all the way through either. I'm not in the habit of resorting to guides, but if I ever pick this game back up, I just might want to be alerted of the worst traps.

Sort of surprised it took this long for them to announce the other consoles. Not that I'm complaining, but it's just surprising.

Anyway, can't wait to play it!

@OorWullie @Pod @Ooyah

I gave up halfway through the second dungeon. Not only is Ooyah absolutely spot on about allowing you to enter an area you have no business being in yet without any warning or indication, but I found out that some of the hints and puzzles you can solve in one dungeon may actually affect things in another dungeon in a different part of the game's world...

That, and the game flat out permanently punished me for exploring, with only a very vague and cryptic warning. In the second dungeon, entering a certain room permanently activates Hard Mode for the rest of the game (as if the game isn't brutal and unforgiving enough), and it can't be turned off. And the game's hints just bait you right into it. After that, I gave a middle finger to this game and decided that I'll leave my Metroidvanias to Metroid and Castlevania, and their countless followers.

Not a bad game at all. I like difficult, but not to the point where I don't feel any sense of accomplishment or satisfaction when I make things happen, only confusion and bewilderment at wondering what just happened somewhere.

The first game is fiendishly difficult, not just combat-wise but the puzzles too. It was actually extremely engaging trying to solve the various mysteries in the game and gradually getting more powerful.

Therefore, the sequel intrigues me.

Nice! Enjoyed the first one!

@Ooyah
I went through a one-way door that took me to a pleasant seeming marble gardens area. The only two ways out were each guarded by a boss I had no tools for defeating.

I spent a long time trying to level up by re-killing the few mobs in the area before I realized the futility of my endeavor.

And man, thanks for dropping the mention of Rick Dangerous. Those were pretty difficult too, but not that crazy.

Can we get the original too? Please? I've never played La-Mulana, but I've been wanting to for ages now!

La-Mulana was one of only 5 WiiWare games that I reviewed with a 10/10. For a Metroidvania it's on the same level as Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night. In some ways it even tops them, in others it comes very close.

La Mulana on the Wii, I planned to play it to the end and thoroughly enjoying it. But sadly it did end pretty quickly for me since its GIGANTICALLY difficult. May be on "Souls" level. Also with very obscure puzzles. The journey ended pretty quick for me.

Awesome! How about bringing a port of the original over too?

flame shields up for DARING to bring up the 4-letter p-word for a Switch game... or 7-letter, in this case

YES! YES! YES!
La Mulana might be the best WiiWare title, full stop. I'm definitely picking this up.

I put 50 hours into the first game and had a blast with it. I eventually gave up, though, when my notebook began to fill with all the hints I'd been writing and the game world sprawled further and further. I'd still recommend it, though.

Really thinking of playing the 2nd one without having to pay for Switch version. Thanks NL for posting the Twitter link to the game sharing website GOG games article with a link back to free games yesterday.

https://goggames.goodolddownloads.com/game/la_mulana_2

@burninmylight @Pod @OorWullie I know this is hardly an ideal solution but it’s the type of game you likely need a guide for (unless you wanna take dozens of hours with a pen and paper writing down every little detail you see and every bit of text you find and deciphering it all). The complexity of the puzzles are incredible... but it’s not a casual experience. It’s not the type of game you ever would really want to replay and it’s intentionally designed for you to just get lost and spend hours trying to figure out your next goal... or to use other people’s guides when needed, after all archaeologists don’t work alone!

Not that I’m arguing whether it’s good design or not, this is a game, it should probably cater to your average gamer and not wannabe archaeologists. But I did admittedly start to enjoy the game more when I kept a guide handy to give me a general idea of where to go next. And a pen and paper becomes a must because, while the game allows you to copy texts to view later, it gives you a fraction of the space you need at any given moment. And worth noting is the seemingly obscure texts do give more direction than you’d think (they’re easy to brush off as lore but EVERY one is more of a riddle) but, at least in my opinion, quite a few felt near impossible to decipher (even when I looked up what they meant, I couldn’t always understand how they were saying that).

Nonetheless, as long as the first one took me, I’m glad I wanted for 2 because I’d rather have it on the go, this is just too long of an adventure to play in front of the TV. I look forward to playing it precisely one time.

Metroidvania and not procedural? I'll get it!

The first one was insanely hard but I really really enjoyed it. Im sure this one will be awesome too. Although I hope that the first one gets a re-release for Switch as well. But Im thinkin theres a pretty good chance of that now

This is great news!!!!! I loved La-Mulana on Wii and i bought La-Mulana EX on Vita. Mysbe they should release La-Mulana EX on Switch before they release La-Mulana 2??!!?!? 👀👀👀👀👀

Nigoro’s logo (at start of preview) uses Pick Axe Pete, from the old Odyssey2 - google it, its true!

Yesss. This news pleases me greatly.

@ShadJV Yes, I agree. La Mulana is the kind of game where there's no shame in using a guide. I think I made it about three fourths of the way through before resorting to guides, and I don't regret that because some of the puzzles I would never have solved on my own, and I had fun playing it through to the end.

It's funny what others are saying though, about entering an area and being literally stuck because they lacked an item needed to progress and couldn't back track either. I never encountered anything like this, and I freely explored everywhere. It's possible to enter areas woefully unprepared in terms of health and weapons, but I was never literally trapped to the point of having to start the whole game over.

But this is definitely a game that requires serious persistence.

I supported La Mulana 2 on Kickstarter, one of only two games where I've done that, because I believe in the developers. The game took a lot longer than expected to finish but I never doubted that they would create something special. There's something I find really compelling about the look and feel of La Mulana.

So I've got La Mulana 2 on my laptop already, but I will probably get it on switch when that version comes out. My laptop is really old and overheats and struggles to run even a relatively undemanding game such as this, so I haven't played too much of it yet.

Sounds like I'll wait for review and/or announcement of easy mode... 😊

I backed this one on Kickstarter and played it pretty much non-stop on PC for a whole week after it released, almost exactly a month ago now. I'd say it's not quite as good as the first due to a number of things (endgame that feels a bit rushed, a couple of disappointing bosses, rehashed ideas and a few small bugs) but it's still very much worth playing, IF you've played the original - it relies heavily on knowledge from that game, both in terms of gameplay and story. The game's slightly more user-friendly overall but the riddles are still just as devious as before.

A few of the issues have also been getting patched, though some of them seem like they'd be hard to fix without some massive changes that I'm not sure Nigoro would be willing to make.

Oh, and of course, if you play it, take notes. Lots and lots of notes.

At least developers are starting to move away from full-blown 8-bit crap a bit more these days. This one still looks retro, but not hardcore 8-bit retro. It's safe to say people were getting sick and tired of that.

YES!!