LA-MULANA 2: No Guides, No Hints, No Help

!!WARNING -- SPOILERS ABOUND!!
This is my La-Mulana 2 story. Once again I ventured into this cosmic ruin with the intent of beating this game without a guide, just like when I played La-Mulana 1. Because I was frequently stuck in that first game, it took me 260 hours. La-Mulana 2 however was a lot more breezy but make no mistake, I had my frustrations with the sequel as well.
Also shout out to that Kero cameo!
Here you can watch the video on my 260 hour journey with the first La-Mulana game: • A 260 Hour Trial: La-M...
Follow me on Twitter at: / robinson_nox

[@gustavolobo4314]

I AM STUCK. You: "Never assume the order of progression" I start whipping the puzzle and dies of eye statues thunder

[@hekirb3382]

12:48 I love this. developpers screwing around with fans of the serie is just the best way to get trolled in a game.

[@Deekman]

Just watched your 2 la-mulana vids back to back. They deserve more views these are great!

[@robinsonnox9980]

Thanks a bunch!

[@FuryousD]

i just did the same and i absolutely agree

[@Wyrdwad]

Very cool to see your journey charted out like this. I wanted to comment and let you know that, in a way, La-Mulana sort of IS a genre unto itself -- I call it the "Galiouslike" genre, though no one else seems to like that name. ;) But yeah, Nigoro's primary source of inspiration for creating La-Mulana was a Konami classic game for the MSX computer system (also released on Famicom, but that version was VERY different) called "The Maze of Galious." It's nowhere near as polished as La-Mulana, but when you play it, it becomes IMMEDIATELY obvious that it was the inspiration for this series, as the puzzles are very similar and the general look and feel was virtually carried over to La-Mulana verbatim (Lemeza's entire control scheme was pretty much lifted directly from Galious). The puzzles in Galious ARE a bit more BS than the ones in La-Mulana, though -- playing the game without a guide maaaay be impossible, as the game's own instruction manual was specifically meant to be consulted to solve some of its puzzles (and even then, it didn't quite do enough to make this possible). Maze of Galious was a big enough game, however, that it inspired a number of other indie titles as well, with the most notable being Unepic. Now THAT'S a game you can DEFINITELY play without a guide, as the puzzles never get tooooo obtuse -- but don't let that stop you, as Unepic's puzzles and world design are simply outstanding, and most every puzzle in the game has multiple solutions depending on how you choose to play. It's a remarkably well-balanced game, and while the crude plot and dialogue (literally crude) can get a bit tiresome, the game itself is an absolute gem that's every bit as good as La-Mulana in its own right. Unepic also got a spiritual sequel, of sorts, called Ghost 1.0. Ghost 1.0 plays out like a sci-fi Galiouslike, and while it's much more combat-centric than any of the other Galiouslikes, it still has its fair share of puzzles, aided by the game's gimmicky mechanic that allows you to possess enemies in order to use their abilities (thus the name Ghost!). Ghost 1.0 also got an 8-bit prequel made for actual MSX hardware, which is available as an MSX cartridge just called "Ghost," or available on Steam (for 2 bucks!) under the name "Mini Ghost." Mini Ghost is, simply put, outstanding. it's EXTREMELY short -- your play clock won't even pass the 10-hour mark, no matter how hard you try -- but man is it ever sweet while it lasts. There was also another freeware indie game directly inspired by Maze of Galious called "Hydra Castle Labyrinth" that, while not as good as any of the other games I just listed, is in some ways an improvement upon its source material. The puzzles are less interesting, but gameplay-wise, it really does feel like a more modernized take on the original Galious that's a little less player-hostile. Worth checking out. And finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention another proper MSX title that was clearly inspired by Maze of Galious -- another sci-fi romp, this time with some pretty intricate puzzles that occasionally border on the BS but are never TOO out there -- called "A Life M36 Planet: Motherbrain has been aliving" (no, seriously, that's its name). I actually fan-translated this game myself, so if you look around, you can find the fan-translated rom patch for it, which also fixes a major bug that would almost certainly halt your progress AND corrupt your save if left unchecked. It's a virtually unknown game, but a really good one that I think any fan of Galiouslikes would really enjoy, and I recommend it very highly. Hopefully, this helps give you some ideas for future titles to tackle, as I'd love to see more videos like this from you in the future!

[@robinsonnox9980]

I knew of Maze of Galious and even tried the freeware version of the game but didn't like it too much. I tried Unepic a while back and as you might expect, the dialogue and story were a huge turnoff so I dropped it but your comparisons to Galious/La-Mulana means I'll give it another go. Maybe even Ghost as well! As for the other two games, I will likely give them a glance sometime in the future. Maybe I'll do another video on them!

[@Wyrdwad]

@@robinsonnox9980 Unepic's story and dialogue can indeed be a HUGE turnoff, and represent a blemish on what I otherwise consider to be an absolutely brilliant game (in all seriousness, I think one of the bosses in that game may be conceptually my favorite boss I've EVER encountered in any game I've ever played; it's frustrating as all hell to play, but the solution to beating it is just so outside-the-box, it kind of blew my mind), but FWIW, Ghost 1.0's story and dialogue is actually quite good. It's a bit of a shame, as Unepic is definitely the better game in terms of gameplay, world design, and puzzles, but Ghost 1.0 is FAR superior when it comes to its writing, characters, and narrative. I actually LIKE the characters in Ghost 1.0 (even the obnoxious hacker dudes who constantly crack jokes are actually fairly likable and relatable), and feel for their struggles, whereas I think everyone in Unepic is kind of an ass. ;) Ghost/Mini-Ghost, then, has barely any story at all, with just a brief intro and a brief ending (if you play the MSX cartridge, both are just a single screen of text with some still pictures!), but as a result, there's no sense of shame over playing something so embarrassingly written as with Unepic. And the game itself is just DAMN good. I definitely 100% recommend Mini-Ghost, if only as a weekend diversion, as it's an absolutely perfect little Galiouslike experience. Really, its only flaw is its obscenely short length; everything else about it is superb. As for Galious, it is indeed hard to go back to it after La-Mulana, but I do think it's worth persevering -- especially if you can put the game in the context of when it was made. For its time, it's a really cool little game that would've been super fun to play through when I was a kid.

[@Anderson_101]

To me, Metroidvanias had always been: Galiousvanias.

[@treehann]

Just came across this while looking for La Mulana 2 content and i loved your video! I’m someone who finds this series endlessly fascinating from a game design perspective but I don’t think I’ll ever finish the sequel. I only beat the first one by following DeceasedCrab’s Let’s Plays and i don’t have the time to devote anymore to the series. But i’m obsessed nonetheless.

[@mysterypersonthing8885]

The limitless text taking software lulled me into a false sense of security- so while I was trying to figure out how to pray to Anu I restarted the game on my laptop to gather things I may have missed. I can't tell for sure, but the game *might* run four or five frames faster there, on average....

[@tiagogoncalves3985]

Never played La Mulana but I was in a Metroidvania mood and decided to look up stuff about the infamous series. Not reviews, but something more personal. And I found your videos and absolutely loved it! It's a sub for me!

[@ellpherd9139]

saw someone mention la-mulana in an interview about game development and found this video, you have just earned yourself your 250th subscriber :)

[@robinsonnox9980]

Thanks a lot!

[@evanmagolor1812]

I'm surprised there was nothing on the Pyramid Crystal: Unless this was before the patch that made bum-rushing the wall the *only* way to solve it.

[@reggieisnotadog4841]

Just watched this. I know it's been a while but well done doing it without a guide! I'm always so blown away by the art in this game.

[@chucklebutt4470]

Great videos about La Mulana, dude! Also, love the My Blood Valentine profile picture, definitely a man of refined taste! lol

[@BigJinfinity]

Having finished the game recently I definitely feel that part about Jormungandr's ankh Though i figured out how to operate the corridor of blood, so i made it even further, all the way to the eternal prison, before i ended up fighting him A key fairy finally showed me the solution It's also funny to me that you figured out the "buried fortress" puzzle without any hints, cause i was stuck on that for probably around 10 hours, due to me not remembering that Svipdagr was a miniboss

[@FlaskFlash]

I couldn't completely finish this games without looking at a guide. Altho I can understand everything thats written in the leads, the fact that the game uses not only some obscure puzles but obscure english as well made it ten times harder for me. Not only do I have to infer what the game is trying to say, but to mentally translate those ridles all the time breaks you. I supose it has to do with how we manage information in our brains, but i'd be a lot easier if I was able to read it in spanish. PS: The SAME thing happened to me with the gloves, the exact same man x'DDD In fact! Something similar happened with the anchor, to the point to resolved every puzle related to weights under water using the clay doll outfit BEFORE getting the anchor.

[@Nat_the_Chicken]

Yeah I also got stuck on the beherit feather thing for ages until I went to talk to Gerd lol. Luckily I figured out the underworld thing not long after, was messing around in corridor of blood and noticed the kotoamatsu symbol on the seal so I went to ask them about it lol

[@lukaerd6258]

I just recently beat La-Mulana 2 and boy, making my own map was definitely the best thing I've done for both games, most of the time i spent just browsing through my maps made from screenshots frankensteined together in Paint Tool SAI, complete with all the tablets too. But yeah making assumptions definitely was what hurt my progress the most. There were some puzzles that i just had completely backwards (mainly the Footprints) and i needed hints to get me on the correct train of thought. Although that one puzzle about the colossal dragon and infernal fiend was total bull, i had no idea what the hell the colossal dragon was supposed to be and the game never hints about it. Although i guess if I had payed attention to the images Brahma shows you then i may have figured it out then.

[@darkarchonisme]

the dragon is the takamagahara shrine and that is hinted at in a couple of places - it's the constellation shape for it in the annunaki charts of eg-lana, and the puzzle about a mantra to opena drop into the one chamber of the snake twins in the ancient chaos references it as well iirc

[@lukaerd6258]

@@darkarchonisme Yeah you just said what i already had said and known for a while.

[@darkarchonisme]

well, sorry? I couldn't have known that from the video and the one comment. wasn't trying to be rude, just helpfully informative my bad.@@lukaerd6258

[@SpeedfreakUK]

6:20 Exact same thing happened to me. I took the tablet in the same room as the glove that essentially tells you precisely how to open the chest as general life advice.

[@bitterbatterdog]

I read the tablet and thought "The solution is to push that block off the left side" and noted the chest down as "needs gloves" so imagine my surprise when I found out

[@MaurycyZarzycki]

I made the same mistake in both of my playthroughs. I really pushed what you can get without the gloves to its limit and am amused by how I somehow managed to remember I got stuck without glove the first time and proceeded to do it again.

[@CS-uu2km]

that was a well put together video man. very well spoken guy too

[@robinsonnox9980]

Thanks!

[@mastergame1311]

It's a nice thing to see how others handle my (possibly) favourite game. I do also believe that La-Mulana 2 is more accessible without compromising on the challenge (I got all of the achievements, the challenge is still there, I promise).

[@STANNco]

I'm playing it now, and the most frustrating thing about the game is how long you can go exploring without having some specific item, so when you go looking for that item you have 7 different worlds you need to scour through

[@STANNco]

I've bit the bullet several times and searched for help finding some item, and it's infuriating how 1 statue in a room out of 500 is a roadblock to progressing with nearly or no hints

[@FransLebin]

I ended up fighting Anu before Jormungand. Going through Ancient Chaos without the double jump is pretty wild. I also didn't find Gate of the Dead until after getting the double jump

[@Nat_the_Chicken]

Yeah I'm kinda glad it's so hard to figure out how to get the feather, it makes the ancient chaos tower so much more challenging and punishing. (It also helped that I had context, i.e. what skuld's tower was like in lm classic.)

[@eredkaiser]

I remember my first playthrough when I spmehow just completely blacked out the entrance to ancient chaos and spent 15 hours wandering around lost.

[@davidnishball660]

I wouldn't worry about "cheating" for the ancient battery. The room is named "Chamber of Elements", which is a big hint.

[@legrandliseurtri7495]

6:05 Oh shit. I'm playing the game for the first time and I think I'm falling in the same trap. I have not idea how to access Kujata, but I did just beat Jorgunmand and got access to new areas. Well, so be it, I'm gonna continue the same way and hope that I figure out what's going with Kujata later on.

[@MisterHeroman]

Surprised you (seemingly) didn't have any issues with the puzzles in the Prisons. My own roadblock was being unable to find the moon mantra. In hindsight though, I should have been able to find it.

[@robinsonnox9980]

I might have had a little bit of an issue but not as bad as some places

[@jibster5903]

20:10 there is also another tablet in the ruins that says using all mantras is an excessive force and will kill the unprepared!

[@mysterypersonthing8885]

Hey there! Just figured out the last of the Alfr Seeress' hints, so I'll be putting the 9th child to bed later this afternoon. You had slowdown, too? Darn... It's especially disappointing for those few times when it speeds up again and you see what you're missing...

[@hekirb3382]

Nice video! I did got stuck at the glove puzzle too, but for a completely different reason... I tried not looking at the chest, but I was too impatient and after 2 seconds i assumed it wasn't the solution >< Turns out if I waited just one more second I could've saved about one hour of not knowing what to do :(

[@robinsonnox9980]

Whenever it's those "wait X amount of seconds" puzzle I recall a puzzle from the first La-Mulana where you had to pray under an eye for what seems like 3 seconds which set the expected duration of any kinds of those puzzles, so whenever I'm trying to do a puzzle and I believe I have to wait or do something for X time, 3 seconds was my guess on how long if that was the solution.

[@hekirb3382]

@@robinsonnox9980 Same, that's why I had to look at a walkthrough to find out how to turn the woman statue into the maternity statue, there's no way I would've found out you have to wait... 1 minute?

[@robinsonnox9980]

@@hekirb3382 oh yah, I forgot that didn't take me too long to figure out because once I got to that part, tried waiting a few seconds, and not understanding what to do, I went with my first guess on how to do it but waited the full minute or whatever.

[@minusp895]

I planned to finish this game without using a guide, but at about the 60% mark I really got stuck. The cause was the block behind the boss where you push ice blocks onto his head. So, I killed the boss and ditched to save...and wasted several hours wandering in circles. I too over thought that glove puzzle and wasted time doing pretty much the same things. Thankfully nothing tripped me up with the serpent doll door and getting to that boss in the Immortal Battlefield. After that ice block boss, I did pretty well without using a guide until the last quarter of the game. Then I just caved and used a guide. I play in a dark room on a console most nights, so note taking wasn't optimal. Tbh, the only flaw in this series is limited save space in game for tablets. If I didn't have to keep juggling my in game notes, I never would have had that issue. Here's hoping La-Mulana 3, if there even is a part 3, includes unlimited slots for saving tablet clues. 10/10 games, even though they were challenging. I pumped almost 160 hours into both games total and would happily dive back in to play both on hard mode.

[@robinsonnox9980]

Not sure if I'll ever do Hard Mode. Those hard modes emphasize the combat and platforming of La-Mulana and I'm here for the puzzles

[@minusp895]

Robinson Nox Sorry for all the typos. Stupid phone.... For me, I enjoyed the combat as well so hard mode is a no brainier for me. I'm bummed that I got locked out of getting Frey's Pendant. Access to it is cut off after Freya moves to her brother's location. Funnily enough, I didn't speak to her brother before she arrived so I never heard what he had to say. I also never figured out what the deal is with that sarcophagus in that room with the spotlight trained on it in the Immortal Battlefield.

[@jwebber86]

They really should make the TextTrax software like the Glossary. It's unlimited, automatic, and separates the tablets according to zone. I don't see how that ruins any aspect of the puzzles, and just takes away most of the busy work of having to document tablets yourself. It'd also be nice to have a way to mark each of those entries as important or not. In this way, it'd be like a less hand-holding version of what Outer Wilds does. The mystery is still there in Outer Wilds, even though it tells you specifically what you have and have not solved, and in which area. You don't need to go that far with La-Mulana, but something closer to it would help.

[@costby1105]

Fun Fact: During the development of the La Mulana Remake Nigoro did an April Fools day trailer Lumisa appears during it. Nigoro likely started getting ideas for a sequel when working on the remake. By the way are you going to try the original freeware version from 2005?

[@pepekong]

Beat this one last night. First game took me 155 hours to beat and I must suck really bad because this one took me 115. I got stuck quite a few times, and honestly I didn't pay attention to most tablets until I got really stuck for the first time.

[@robinsonnox9980]

155 hours and 115 are pretty good times if you ask me!

[@pepekong]

@@robinsonnox9980 thanks! It was a hell of a ride, but I am so glad I got in, these are two of the best games I've ever played, especially the first one. That feeling of figuring something out after hours or days of being stuck is unreal, rarely has any other game made me feel that.

[@PaulSmith-qs1es]

I don't like that the hints aren't in the same area as the puzzle they hint about in these games. I think hints should only be for things outside of their area if it's for a puzzle that spans multiple areas.

[@FuryousD]

huh i thought i had seem all of the Land Before Time movies but i certainly dont remember one with aliens in it

[@carljones982]

Heyo, so I saw the original of these videos a while back, and I was like "man, sure hope he does LM2", and lo and behold, you did but I just didn't think to check your channel when I saw the original. So, I did the opposite of what you did. I still went guideless, but I also went noteless. No papers, no screenshots, no maps. Clocked in at 45 hours. Comparing our time is unfair as you seem like you were running at like 2/3 speeds most of the time due to FPS, plus screenshotting/writing/drawing time is time not actually hitting buttons, and I back-to-backed LM1 and LM2 in the same approach, guideless, so I had very recent experience on my side and was in the right mindset. I reckon if you didn't spend time organising notes and had the FPS I was getting, we might've come in very close to each other in time. So, to give you an impression of how it ended up rolling for me... [note; do not read ahead if you want to remain unspoiled, anyone else looking here] 1) You said never assume the order of progression, which for you caused you to venture off into newer areas in order to find new gear which might be useful. My approach ended up going contrary to yours in that I tended to stick to areas for as long as I could until I ran out of puzzles I believed I could solve, and it seemed like I was generally correct to do this for LM2 (LM1 was much more difficult doing this). Part of the reason for doing this was to keep complexity down, because every new zone would add new elements I had to figure out and remember to solve. I accidentally discovered a lot of things early because of this. My first run in with the corridoor of blood had me discover the nature of it rotating, and then I guessed the Behelit door due to knowledge of certain other Behelit in another franchise. It was too hard to not put 1 and 1 together for me on that one. I also guessed the room where you have to use a combo of mantra elements, but I didn't guess it like you did, with your natural and informed guess. I just happened to see the eye, exhausted a ton of ideas, and then loaded up some mantras and took a shot in the dark and struck lucky. This had the unintended consequence of me finding the intended hint for it later in the game, and not realising it was for a puzzle I had solved already, causing me to run around a bit for no reason. It also... well... caused this... 2) It got me trapped in the Hall of Malice. Literally trapped. I got the Cog of Antiquity before you did due to guessing the above puzzle, and was unaware of the bug with the boss in Heaven's Labyrinth. That bug, on top of stopping you getting the Perfume, also prevented you from going into Hall of Malice through intended the front door, and I didn't know the two zones were connected. So, I entered Malice through the backdoor in the Corridoor of Blood, trecked through and saw the door in the room most players would enter from Labyrinth. It was closed and the room has a cog space, and assumed the cog was the solution to opening the door. Oh, how wrong I was. This locked me in the Hall of Malice, significantly underequipped for the war ahead of me. The door didn't open, and it disabled teleports, as well as spawning all of the bosses in. I had barely any of my subweapons in stock. I had to make what was basically a perfect run down the line which took me to the crab boss, an exercise which took me something in the region of two hours to master getting to that boss with what little I had available, and then another hour to figure out how to optimise the preceding bosses to get through with as many subweapons as possible. This was by far the most difficult part of the game for me, and something which when I told friends about after the fact they found hilarious and crazy. 3) My lack of notes and mindlessness caused me to die to a single box that moves with the gravity in the Gate of the Dead more than any other entity in the game. Had to be somewhere in the region of like 20 times over the whole run. I had some friends watching as I streamed a bit of it because they wanted to see what madness looked like, and they were killing themselves laughing every time it happened. Gate was by far my least favourite zone in the game, just because it was so awkward to navigate. Even with notes, I firmly believe I would have disliked this zone. My dislike was so strong that I would explore other areas befre this one even if I thought there might be something of use there still to get. Thankfully, it isn't a super important zone, with mostly items of convenience rather than necessity. 4) Without maps, I found myself frequently revisiting rooms if I didn't think I had the full picture yet. This meant I would continually return to zones I had completed and waste my time, but it also meant that I would re-analyse rooms constantly and did a lot to dispel complacency. There were so many times that a revisit of a room caused me to reapproach it with a fresh mind. It also meant I was living the lore, just looking for ways to connect things together in my head with a thousand different jigsaw pieces. This allowed me to figure some things like the clay doll suit pretty early for the reason you point out in the vid, but it also meant I was chasing a fair few bits of flavour text like they were the lost eleventh commandment. My determination to attempt to solve things as I saw them due to my approach of keeping complexity and possibilities down just tunnel visioned me like this on some lore, especially in Eternal Prison. 5) I also got stuck looking for Mjolnir, so no need to kick yourself over that one. This was probably my second biggest sticking point in the game, leaving me stuck and unsure where to go for a while. Caused me to think I just hadn't approached the puzzles I had left outside of Immortal Battlefield with the right mindset yet, that I hadn't tried something obvious. I didn't go as deep into the game as you seemed to before figuring it out, due to my stubborn approach of not leaving zones until I felt ready, but I spent a looong time just wandering looking for it.

[@robinsonnox9980]

Not taking notes sounds pretty brutal. As for maps, I think La-Mulana 2 had a more complete mapping system so that doesn't seem as crucial as the first game. This was a while ago so I don't remember clearly, but Gate of the Dead was grating for me as well. It just so happens that there were other fields that were way worse, so Gate of the Dead doesn't standout.

[@doommoose4343]

Late to the party, but did you ever try doing the Brahma puzzles in Ancient Chaos? I thought it was interesting that there was a set of completely optional puzzles who's reward were basically hints.

[@robinsonnox9980]

I thiiiiink I did It's been a long time so I can't quite remember

[@VorpalTiger]

@@robinsonnox9980 the brahma puzzle is very involved long and complicated dealing with finding out what age each of the symbols are from (the wheels you see strewn about the game with a symbol in the center, and to even activate the puzzle you need to use the ancient battery and use the egg of creation on the five gods of creation (the background statues) the reward from doing the puzzle is that it will mark every crystal skull on your map along with all the mantras

[@Bobstew68]

And now the DLC is out! Are you going to do the Tower of Oannes?

[@robinsonnox9980]

I might eventually. I haven't played La-Mulana in four years or so and I still feel burnt out by it

[@nebula159]

There’s a dlc now

[@mysterypersonthing8885]

Didn't watch the video because I'm not NEARLY done with the game yet- and that got me wondering--- do you get paid for playing games, is our free time different, are you that smart, or am I that stupid? Steam says my total playtime is 73 hours but a lot of that time is letting it run in the background (it is right now), and all my computers only let the game run at around 30 or forty frames per second, so the in game time of my furthest file is around 20 hours. I've discovered many areas, but only defeated four guardians thus far (I've got seven mantras).

[@robinsonnox9980]

I dunno, I didn't let it turn in the background a whole lot and the thing is I did a lot of resetting if I wasted resources on trying something that didn't work. There was also a lot of dying. This game was done completely on my spare time but from the game's launch til me completing it I played the thing almost completely exclusively, even letting other hobbies fall to the wayside.

[@mysterypersonthing8885]

Ah. I've been splitting LM between serious girlfriend drama, the new Hollow Knight DLC (just gave up on that title today), making a deck of Tarot cards, and various other pursuits.... college starting on Tuesday will be rough... I did get stuck on the glove puzzle for an embarrassingly large amount of time, and Kujata was my bane. The game counts your time spent between death-resets, I think? I'm pretty sure a recent kickstarter update said so.

[@robinsonnox9980]

As for Kujata, I think a recent patch buffed him recently. It seems like the Glove puzzle is something that is just so obvious yet I know many people who have gotten stuck there. During my play session of LM2 I spent most of my free time on it including faking a sick day to have an extra day to just play the game, although not a lot got accomplished on that day.