Posted on: October 5, 2012
DCT
Verified ownerGames: 1309 Reviews: 10
Worth the asking price
Now I know this is one of those "commercial" remakes of what was a free game like Cave Story+ and you can still get the original for free but unlike Cave Story+ which was really the original game with update graphics,a optional remixed soundtrack and two new modes and not much else this version of La Mulana is more of a proper remake. The guys who did this version did more then just updated the graphics they did improvements to the controls(well they feel tighter to me), the jumping, added a few hints through "e-mails" for the early part of the adventure, the MSX roms have been changed to flash games(yeah not that much of a change but still), quite a few of the bosses have been altered from just minor changes like the twin dragons now being on separate sides of the screen as opposed to being connected and sliding down one side of the screen to the other and the "devil" boss(can't remember the boss's actual name) to having a second form to complete revamps like Tiamat who's form and attacks is completly diffrent from her orginal counterpart, and there is also more save points which is a bit of a blessing where in the orginal you had to buy a save rom for your "MSX" place it in the system and then talk to the village elder now you just simply go to the save stone which you can find at least one off in every level. So in short while the game is quite faithful to the original there are some noticeable differences. So okay how does it actually play? It plays like a dream, a very hard dream but a dream none the less. If you ever played any post Synthony of the night Castlevania, the MSX Castelvania Vampire Killer, or Metriod you will be familiar with how this game plays if not then this game is a non linear exploration based action platformer. Where you can explore the game world as you please but the catch is you can't access certain areas or gain certain items until you find a certain power up, item, ability or solve a certain puzzle but while the gameplay itself is similar to Symphony of the night or Metriod the puzzles are more along the lines of a Zelda game and that is a good thing, puzzles can range from simply whipping a block in the "mouth" of a stone face which will activate a platform allowing you to access a certain area to more intricate affairs but never do you feel like the game is cheap or the puzzles mind numbing convoluted plus there are hints that can be found often on the remains of unlucky explorers, on stone tablets or even npc that can be found in various levels though the hints in this version are not as plain as they are in the fan translated version of the orginal, for example there is a puzzle where you have to whip four objects in a set order this order is found on the body of a skeleton close by, in the original it told you plainly hit this first, then this,this and then that in the remake it's done in a form of a fable about certain elements destroying the sun or something to that effect so you have to think about it a bit more so make sure you read the hints very carefully. Then there is the music the new remade tunes are just as catchy and well done as the orginals in some cases even more catchier. Now the only thing I didn't like was the fact that the game is in windowed mode by default and it can be easy to enter areas that you may not be ready for with little chance of escape until you find the holy grail which allows you to warp through areas you have already "marked" but these are minor complaints. All in all this is a amazing game and a great example of how to do a proper remake, take what made the original so great and improve on what needs to be improves on.
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