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La-Mulana on Steam
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LA-MULANA is an “Archaeological Ruin Exploration Action Game,” bringing the classic appeal of adventure with the punishing difficulty of retro-inspired gaming. Search inside ancient ruins, seeking out the “Secret Treasure of Life” – which sleeps in the sprawling ruins of “LA-MULANA” and is said to be the beginning of all civilization.
La-Mulana is a metroidvania, difficult and platformer game
developed by NIGORO
and published by PLAYISM.
Released on April 15th 2013 is available on Windows, MacOS, Linux, Steam Deck and Steam Machine.
It has received 2,475 reviews of which 1,971 were positive and 504 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.7 out of 10. 😊
The game is currently priced at 14.99€ on Steam, but you can find it for 5.81€ on G2A.
The Steam community has classified La-Mulana into these genres:
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System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS *:Windows XP
- Processor:Intel® Pentium 4 / 2.0GHz
- Memory:1 GB RAM
- Graphics:DirectX 9.0c compatible card, 128MB of VRAM
- DirectX®:9.0c
- Hard Drive:500 MB HD space
- Sound:DirectX 9.0c compatible card
MacOS
- OS:OS X 10.7(Lion)
- Processor:Intel® Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Hard Drive: 500 MB available space
Linux
- Processor:Intel® Pentium 4 / 2.0GHz
- Memory:1 GB RAM
- Graphics:DirectX 9.0c compatible card, 128MB of VRAM
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User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
This is a legendary game, and I feel that anyone who plays a lot of different games and has a lot of gaming experience has to give this a serious go at least once or twice. La Mulana has been on my radar for over a decade and I am glad I have finally gotten around to it. Before I get into any other details, I do have one piece of advice for new players. I am spoiler tagging it as it would impact how one goes about playing the game, but what I say doesn't really provide any specific information about any particular puzzle in the game. So obviously you will want to take notes -- my advice after going through multiple ways of trying to organize my notes is to keep written record of the text you encounter and critically designate one section for "text I have not yet used or understood fully". . I think a lot of people say to play this game with a guide, I don't think that is necessary but if it makes the difference between playing the game and not playing, sure whatever (at least stick to a hint-based guide and try to figure stuff out on your own). I'd actually recommend installing a fan translation (I'm sure there's a trusted one somewhere) over using a guide. Anyway, my actual review for this game comes from the angle of "this would be the best game of all time if not for". There is way too much to cover all the good things about the game, though I'll shout out the amazing music, theming/visual aesthetic, and several really good and cleverly designed bosses -- though not all of them are and that's okay. The following is my wishlist (that I may update as I remember things) for what I would prefer to be different: * The translation: You can tell there are inconsistencies in how "same" Japanese text is treated in different locations. For example there are three adjoining rooms with two called Babel and one is called Baberu. The example is not a big deal, but this really comes through with puzzles or even basic instructions that the game tries to provide you. * Visual clarity: The pixelated graphics are generally fine, but then you'll randomly have some piece of scaffolding that is climbable or some drawing on a tablet (or on an in-game object) that is just really hard to parse visually. Also weird that e.g. there are multiple depictions of the same thing that are inconsistent (e.g. dais depictions in tablets are vaguely similar, but definitely distinct from each other. why?) * "The game that doesn't want to be played": my first impression playing was that the game just didn't want to be played -- not in a "hostile design" way, in a "literally press every button on the keyboard to figure out how to pause or do anything" way. Would it kill to give the player any kind of instructions on how to play the game at all? Okay sure there's the "additional content" section in steam that I eventually noticed that links to a manual, but the manual also gives you arguably too much info. * In-game map improvement: I think this would be a controversial idea among La Mulana fans, but after having seen how Emuurom handles it's map, I wish we had some similar features in La Mulana. Obviously multiple tablets per room changes the UI a bit, but still it would be really nice to be able to scroll the map and re-read your tablets from within Lemeza's computer. Bonus points for being able to mark tablets (even just like put a star or a checkmark or a heart or whatever, a preset list of symbols you can attach). * Holy grail: I didn't have any issues because of the way I played, but IMO the game should at some point tell you that you're playing it wrong if you've accessed a bunch of areas without finishing the first one. Xelpud is already making jokes all the time, it would fit his character to laugh at you for not having the grail. (yeah yeah, the manual... this isn't the 1950s people aren't reading the manual and arguably it is spoilery anyway!) * The scanner: This is my by-far biggest proposal and would require a monumental amount of work, but just imagine. Imagine if using the scanner actually showed you higher res (even if only in the sense of "zoomed in") the part of the screen you're scanning. If you've played blue prince, imagine something like the magnifying glass. I think this would be way better for immersion, and would also improve a lot of puzzles (like [gate of illusion] the random spot on the wall you scan and research mode tells you that you see some mechanism and hear a sound... imagine instead that you actually get to scan the walls and personally spot the mechanism, maybe click on it and then the whirring happens. ) The example puzzle goes from "arbitrary action was coded by developers to let you move forward" to "you've figured out a secret of an ancient ruin". anyway, that's just some thoughts I accumulated. I think there's also some minor missed opportunities like palenque being a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ boss despite the cool theming, and amphisboena being boring as ♥♥♥♥ , or also I think it is a pacing issue just how much of a cliff the game drops you off after 4 guardians, and that the twin labyrinth is mostly useless the whole game despite several insinuations that you could make progress in it . I think it contributes to the pacing issue that some of the easiest puzzles (or even nonpuzzles) have multiple text explanations and its just something you'd have thought to do either way (given the translation, probably before you understood the action is related to the text) -- and then things that are much harder will just have 1 mention. I also don't love the emails, I did use them pretty effectively for the "first half" of the game as signposts its not like the information in them doesn't help, but it is kind of immersion breaking (same goes for the goofy jokes about xelpud being a gamer) and then the emails just like vanish all of a sudden lol. There's also I think too much of "here's a minor inconvenience for you cause why not" -- oh this elevator doesn't work but you turn it on two rooms left if you happened to go there first, but otherwise you just have to walk a little bit more; oh you only get one shot at this puzzle aka to reset the puzzle instead of walking in and out of the room you have to quit and reload; oh you wanted to close the game we have made it entirely non-obvious how to open the pause menu and which option in the pause menu lets you do this. I don't think having all these attributes meaningfully contribute or are required to the identity of the game (and many players would probably gripe about the control scheme regardless, even though it suits the game quite well). anyway, I'll stop the stream of consciousness there :)
tldr : review is mixed. this game is incredibly punishing and difficult, yet euphorically rewarding. take with a grain of salt. i yap a lot --- i have a personal rule of "i won't write a review unless i finish a game." this game is one of many exceptions i've made. i liked this game a lot, like, a whole whole lot. like..... i won't stop shilling this game for its puzzles, music (shout out Michael Jackson), world, lore/story, etc. this game is absolutely incredible in what it does and feels like a must-play for anyone who's even a little interested in solving puzzles or exploration but MAN it's difficult to recommend this game on one particular notion: it is INCREDIBLY punishing. there were multiple points in the game where i felt like i was walking on eggshells and feeling more stressed than i was having fun. even with the intention of "with great risk comes great reward" you're gonna be feeling like you're save scumming more than actually playing and progressing through the game, and i think half the reason it's so punishing in the first place is how dated it is. it does NOT hold your hand at all, less so than Noita (which is another game i've noted for being punishingly difficult). this is a puzzle game first, and an 'everything else' after. it'll take you a few hours or so to even get used to the movement/combat. that said however, if you manage to STILL push through this masochistic experience of a game, the reward you get is absolutely euphoric. you'll feel like the smartest person alive, at least i definitely did. or even seeing a new unsolved mystery, and slowly gathering the pieces to solve it, or getting to a new area, uncovering how big the game's worldmap truly is, or the daunting, aching feeling you get in your stomach when you realise that this game truly expects the very best of you if you want to see it to the end. it does this with varying degrees of "oh this is so f#$king cool" to "oh God ANOTHER potential hint of a puzzle i haven't found yet." some good, some bad. the game doesn't give you any hint of whether it's a vague hint, or a fun lore drop. either way, expect to take note of every single line of dialogue and background detail... you won't really understand the reputation a game has unless you've played it yourself. i thought the game would be good just from how much people have praised its puzzles, but i certainly didn't expect any of this at all. this game scares me! live laugh la mulana i WILL finish this game eventually i swear on it
After playing Hollow Knight, it's really impressive looking back on this game and realizing just how holistic its entire design is. There isn't a single wasted pixel in this game. Everything has intention, everything has meaning. Now this is a crowning example of a Metroidvania that qualifies as art. I first played this over 10 years ago and it stuck with me since. It wasn't until 2018 that I bought it on Steam and played it to completion. Despite the absurdingly hostile design of the game, this is still one of the greatest games I've played and, dare I say, one of the greatest ever made. There is nothing quite like it out there. I especially love the "PS1-era 2D" style.
First off, let me get this out of the way: I liked La Mulana. I liked it a lot. I've told my friends to buy it. It's definitely one of the most impressive indie efforts I've ever played, with a massive world, great art, excellent soundtrack, some truly great boss battles, and intensely enjoyable action/platforming gameplay. I even got into the story, for crying out loud. But oh boy, this game has issues. Some games are designed for people who like a challenge, and I respect that. But La Mulana was designed for people who like to be /punished/ - people who like to go through brutal ordeals just so that they can brag about having survived them. If that's you, then you can stop reading right now and go buy the game. But I figure the rest of you could do with a bit of advance warning. The issue is not so much with the gameplay - while the bosses are definitely challenging, most of them are quite manageable once you figure out their patterns, and I only once got "stuck" on a boss for any length of time. No, where La Mulana gets absolutely silly is with the /puzzles/. Some of La Mulana's puzzles are merely "very hard". You will encounter hundreds of stone tablets, murals, funny little background designs, etc, and they are nearly always a clue to something - but often you won't encounter that "something" until you're six hours further and three levels deeper into the game. This basically leaves you with only three options: 1) write down /everything/ you see - every scrap of text, the location of every oddly-coloured brick, /everything/; 2) be prepared to waste a lot of time running around trying to find things again; or 3) use a walkthrough. If you don't mind spending hours scribbling endless notes, then maybe option 1 won't bother you, but personally I find that more appropriate to a point-and-click adventure than to what is ostensibly an action game. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that La Mulana gives you a lot of freedom to explore areas that you might not be properly equipped for, so it often won't be clear to you whether you're failing to solve a puzzle because you haven't thought about it enough, or whether it's because you just don't have the item you need yet. But on top of the "very hard" puzzles, La Mulana also has a number of puzzles that are just downright unfair. For example, there is one particular boss in the game who will open up several previously inaccessible areas once defeated. However, as far as I can tell, nothing in the game /tells/ you that these areas are now opened up, and there's no logical reason why defeating that particular boss would open them, and several of them are tucked away in fairly hard-to-reach corners of the game that you have no reason to go back to. So you pretty much have to just keep making special trips to what were previously dead ends, just to /see/ if anything's changed yet. And that, ultimately, is why I'm leaving this game mixed ratings from this otherwise very impressive game - it too frequently discards logic and simply demands pointless busy work in order to progress. If you honestly miss the days when you had to try to attack Every. Single. Brick. in the game, just in case it turned out to be a secret passage, then this game will fill your heart with nostalgic joy. But if, like me, you think that some of those conventions were discarded for good reason (because they reward a tolerance for repetitive boredom rather than reasoning skills or reflexes), well... La Mulana is still a great game, and I'm still recommending it, but with the caution that you should know what you're getting yourself into.
Full stop one of the best metroidvanias ever made. It's brutally cruel, not in the precision platformer sense but in the sense that it expects you to pay very close attention to absolutely everything. Go in with a notebook and a lot of patience and you'll be rewarded with a game that respects your intelligence and trusts you to work out some of the hardest puzzles in gaming and will make you feel like a genius when you do it. There are many people this game won't be For, but for the right person this will instantly become a personal favourite. It's certainly one of mine. Oh, and make sure to read the manual thoroughly.
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Frequently Asked Questions
La-Mulana is currently priced at 14.99€ on Steam.
No, La-Mulana is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 14.99€ on Steam.
Yes, La-Mulana received 1,971 positive votes out of a total of 2,475 achieving a rating of 7.68.
😊
La-Mulana was developed by NIGORO and published by PLAYISM.
Yes, La-Mulana is playable and fully supported on Windows.
Yes, La-Mulana is playable and fully supported on MacOS.
Yes, La-Mulana is playable and fully supported on Linux.
Yes, La-Mulana is playable and fully supported on Steam Deck.
Yes, La-Mulana is playable and fully supported on Steam Machine.
No, La-Mulana does not support VR.
La-Mulana is a single-player game.
Yes, there is a DLC available for La-Mulana. Explore additional content available for La-Mulana on Steam.
No, La-Mulana does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
No, La-Mulana does not support Steam Remote Play.
Yes, La-Mulana is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for La-Mulana.
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Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 20 September 2026 12:30 UTC |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 27 October 2026 20:15 UTC |
| Steam price | 28 October 2026 04:02 UTC |
| Steam reviews | 21 October 2026 06:11 UTC |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about La-Mulana, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about La-Mulana
- SteamCharts - Analysis of La-Mulana concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck La-Mulana compatibility
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Game modes
Features
Online players
15
Developer
NIGORO
Publisher
PLAYISM
Release
15 Apr 2013
Platforms
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