Massive Platform-Adventure ‘La-Mulana’ Remake Hits PC July 13th via Playism

It’s been a long, long time coming, but we’re on the final stretch now. When the long-awaited La-Mulana remake for Wiiware finally passed Nintendo’s complex approval process and was released in Japan, it seemed a sure thing that we’d see it soon. A year later and after no shortage of conspicuous silence, English publisher Nicalis announce that a western release has been cancelled. Since then, developers Nigoro have made two decisions – firstly, to return to the platform that spawned the game, and secondly, to sign up with Playism, an indie localization and distribution firm that has (until now) been localizing western indie games for release in Japan. Now, they’re doing it the other way round. Everybody dance now:

Now that, there, is how you announce a release date. Playism and Nigoro have been kind enough to let me play around with a beta build of the remake, and I can safely say that it’s well worth the money already. Dropping the faux-MSX stylings of the original release, the new version looks to be somewhere in-between late 16-bit and early 32-bit console graphics, reminiscent of Castlevania: Symphony of The Night in many ways. Also like SoTN, the game is a sprawling, non-linear exploration platform puzzle adventure that is notable for taking new players easily 20+ hours to complete their first time through. The PC remake will be moddable, and also includes the DLC that had to be sold seperately on the Wii due to size limitations, which includes the infamously masocore Hell Temple level, and a remarkably extensive boss rush mode.

Fans of the original release don’t have to worry about the game being dumbed down. While the accessibility of the earlier sections of the game has gone up, the difficulty hasn’t changed one iota. Newcomers are advised to talk to Elder Xelpud, who’ll give you a new and useful piece of software for your dungeoneering laptop – a one-way e-mail client which allows him to send you regular hints and tips – but this is entirely optional, and you can play the whole game without using this new hint system. A few additional tweaks have been made to the game, including putting glaring ‘evil eyes’ in the backgrounds of rooms where randomly whipping the walls might bring the wrath of ancient deities upon you, so now you know when to tread lightly. Death still comes quickly until you’ve cleared the first couple of stages, but it feels fairer. Similarly, the puzzles are still very clever, but the cryptic hint messages feel just a tiny bit less obscure than they used to, although this may be due to a higher-quality translation overall.

The biggest change in the remake is the feel of the combat. It’s just smoother, snappier and a little faster-feeling. Enemies animate a lot smoother, and feel more solid when you fight them. The element to get the biggest overhaul is the bosses, though. Previously limited by the pointedly retro style of the game, they’re now exceptionally well animated and detailed. Some that were especially limited by the old sprite style are now completely re-envisioned, making the fights much more active and involved. I’ve not seen all of them in action yet (the game is huge, and I’m rusty), but I have a feeling this quality continues right up to the final battle. We’ll have a full review of the game by the new release date, but from what I’ve seen of this preview build so far, it’s all good.

Update: La-Mulana will cost $15 when it launches next week.