La-Mulana - Wishbringer

[Voltgloss]

Yeah even knowing the solution and how you're supposed to solve the one time puzzle, I feel absolutely no shame in saying that I save-scummed the crap out of that puzzle and eventually said "screw it" and looked up the answer. That puzzle is incredibly stupid and solving it is a ridiculous 20-step process.

While I agree that the "reading the tablet starts your one chance" aspect is unnecessarily rude, I disagree wholeheartedly about the puzzle being stupid. I think it's brilliant.

We'll be better equipped to discuss once raocow learns more about it in the game.

[repairmanman]

The puzzle itself is fine, the tablet starting the puzzle isn't. This is that one chest in the temple of the sun all over again.

Didn't raocow, literally in the same episode as the TotS chest, reload a save because he messed up a puzzle? Admittedly it was a while back, but I do remember that happening.

[Voltgloss]

Didn't raocow, literally in the same episode as the TotS chest, reload a save because he messed up a puzzle? Admittedly it was a while back, but I do remember that happening.

The Wedjet puzzle. Though I think it was one episode later.

[KobaBeach]

the thing with wedjet is that raocow deliberately fucked up to test what would happen, i.e. a science

the map puzzle was a matter of him being a himbo as usual

[Le Neveu de Rameau]

"Noo-wah"? Gosh darn it, raocow, you know how to pronounce "ü".

[Crow]

welp

[raocow]

"Noo-wah"? Gosh darn it, raocow, you know how to pronounce "ü".

look
I was in the moment :(

[Zummorr]

Yeah even knowing the solution and how you're supposed to solve the one time puzzle, I feel absolutely no shame in saying that I save-scummed the crap out of that puzzle and eventually said "screw it" and looked up the answer. That puzzle is incredibly stupid and solving it is a ridiculous 20-step process.

Regarding this puzzle. I don't think it's that stupid. Each hint tablet involved is pretty clear it alludes to this puzzle.

There are a few significant leaps but I don't think it's outrageous and outside all of this it is optional anyways.

But outside of the "You read this tablet now solve the puzzle!" and then locking the player out. It's a fair puzzle.

Although why raocow didn't just commit Karoshi on a goddess statue to access his quick-save that he got when he warped into the tower of the goddess, I'll never know.

[Sebby19]

I think a lot of us were expecting rao to try and fail miserably at the puzzle, and then learn from his mistakes when he makes his 2nd attempt.
Instead, rao smartly decided 'I'm not ready', put had no way of knowing he already opened pandora's box. Le sigh.

And the reset fairy is a one time deal, so if rao decides to not redo what he did today, he really only has one real shot at the scales. Not cool, not fair.

[Draexzhan]

I think my previous post came out harsher than I meant it to be.

To be clear, most of my disdain for this puzzle stems from the fact that it's a combination of a one-try puzzle, the hints are scattered throughout all of La-Mulana, and a large majority of them require translating ancient La-Mulanese. If it was just two of these things, it'd be a lot better in my eyes. If you have all the information with you, it's honestly a pretty cool puzzle, but if you don't it's a real mess.

[Alice]

One thing I should mention is that guiding the lizard guy to the light in the original was a lot more annoying, because you couldn't. The original lizard's movement was completely random, didn't track Lemeza at all.

It's still an enormous pain in the ass in the remake. raocow lucked out more than anything. It's not totally random but the lizardman is still difficult to actually manipulate. Most people seem to get him stuck in a loop of turning around just short of the light and walking back and forth to its left or getting him somewhere to the right stuck in a loop of jumping between platforms.

While I agree that the "reading the tablet starts your one chance" aspect is unnecessarily rude, I disagree wholeheartedly about the puzzle being stupid. I think it's brilliant.

Activating it like that by pure accident when the player is almost certainly not ready to even attempt it is a serious bullshit move though. I already knew it was a one time puzzle before I ever unlocked it and knew more or less what it involved so I've never run into that problem thankfully. If I had I probably would've dropped the game right then and there like I did with the sequel over similar completely bullshit design decisions. I'm find with the game being hard but the game outright being a dick to the player is unacceptable and seems to be an issue Nigoro really struggles with. (See: Them apparently taking

Hell Temple

as seemingly the entire inspiration for the sequel for some reason making much of the game frustrating instead of enjoyable.)

[maou shoujo]

I commend you for reaching me, chosen one.

"Wise Men Who Halts" (awakened Philosophers' theme)

This track is new in Remake. Classic had only one theme for the Philosophers, asleep or awake, called Wise Men. It was just a short 23 second loop.

Wise Men Who Halts as you can hear is extended to be almost 2 minutes long per loop. (This YT link cuts out midway through the 2nd loop, which is weird?) The extended portion is so ominous, and it really fits well with how the Philosophers and their lore reveals change the story.

In particular there's a leitmotif at 1:13, which is shared with Fearless Challenger (Long Version). The long version of Fearless Challenger plays only once, the first time you enter the Gate of Guidance, so this musical callback could easily be missed without listening to the soundtrack as a whole. I think there are other leitmotifs in the extension as well, but I don't recognize them offhand.

For even more fun, the official release of the OST has SSCC versions of the new songs from Remake! Here's Wise Men Who Halts in 8-bit! (Honestly, I've listened to the Classic soundtrack so much that when the extension kicks in it feels like a High Quality Rip to me.)

[Voltgloss]

(See: Them apparently taking

Hell Temple

as seemingly the entire inspiration for the sequel for some reason making much of the game frustrating instead of enjoyable.)

Maybe we should discuss this in PMs, but I don't understand at all what you're saying here. To be clear, I'm not saying the sequel is perfect; I'm just saying I don't understand this comment about it.

Major spoilers for the sequel:

There is only one area in the sequel inspired by Hell Temple, and it was made much easier than the original. Including the spike drop, thanks to vertical scrolling allowing you to get enemies out of the way first before making the drop (without them respawning) and no hateful fireball horse.

[ZephyrBurst]

The puzzle itself is good, but the one time aspect is only slightly annoying when you've got a quicksave on every teleport. The puzzle 'starting' on reading the tablet is really silly though.

Maybe we should discuss this in PMs, but I don't understand at all what you're saying here. To be clear, I'm not saying the sequel is perfect; I'm just saying I don't understand this comment about it.

I've seen this reasoning before about the sequel and it's almost always about the mid to late game enemy spam. It definitely could use slightly less enemy spawns.

The other are the acrobatics required in the game, which I feel are a natural occurrence of having better control of the character. Other than one segment of Icefire that you can cheese past anyway, it all felt acceptable.

[repairmanman]

raocow keeps missing the map, oh and he didn't dance the dance of life either, which surprised me because he did it all over the tower of ruin

Figuring out the dimensional key puzzle by accident is pretty raocow not gonna lie

[AweStriker]

Good job! You got the Dimensional Key!

Right about now is when being able to read Ancient La-Mulanese is going to be not just useful but practically necessary, it seems...

[Voltgloss]

raocow keeps missing the map, oh and he didn't dance the dance of life either, which surprised me because he did it all over the tower of ruin

I think the map puzzle solve has a good chance of being noticed by editorcow. And as soon as he learns ancient La-Mulanese and goes on a tablet reading tour, he'll know exactly what to do about dancing.

Figuring out the dimensional key puzzle by accident is pretty raocow not gonna lie

Triggering the lightning by accident with the key was indeed very raocow. From there on out it was a straight-up well-done puzzle solve. And correctly predicting the puzzle's finale was a true flash of intuition. Well done, raocow. Well done indeed.

[Zummorr]

Regarding warp shimmering. I was aware of them but I can't see it at all when I watch the videos at 480p, I can barely see it shimmering at 720p.

raocow mentioned that the steam time is 22 hours, but the in game time today is ~14 hours. Steam counts any time the game is running at all. So it tends to overestimate how much one has actually played. Of course the ingame time won't count all the time that is lost due to deaths and resets.

Pretty sure that steam just tracks how long the program is open while steam is online.

[maou shoujo]

Pretty sure that steam just tracks how long the program is open while steam is online.

It does. I've had issues with the .exe not properly ending when the window is closed, causing Steam to think I was still playing it, resulting in me having 151 hours logged on Steam. I've played this game a lot, but not that much!

[Sebby19]

So rao, how do you like dem 15 save files?

In the original, the rom that was required to save was one of the many starting supplies you had to buy at the beginning. Then, equip the rom when talking to Xelpud, and you can use 1 save slot.

About halfway through the game, you can find another rom that gives 4 more save slots.

[FPzero]

So rao, how do you like dem 15 save files?

In the original, the rom that was required to save was one of the many starting supplies you had to buy at the beginning. Then, equip the rom when talking to Xelpud, and you can use 1 save slot.

About halfway through the game, you can find another rom that gives 4 more save slots.

I forgot about that particular aspect of Classic. Very glad they not only didn't bring it back but increased the number of save files in total.

Nice job working your way through this part of the Chamber of Birth. It's really confusing!

I don't remember the map puzzle solution so I'll have to see it when it happens. The puzzle I'm wondering how he'll figure out is the shop with the Ankh Jewel in it. Pretty sure there's a tablet talking about one of the entrances being enterable though not sure where it is or if he needs La-Mulanese first. I think it was located in that final "pointless" part of the big warp maze before it puts you back at the skull trigger?

And man, when is Mulbruk gonna give that clue about numbers? Probably never at this point considering he's already way past when he should've needed it.

[Validon98]

Chamber of Birth progress occurring at a slow pace is honestly natural because this place is kinda garbage and extremely lousy with hidden walls and weird things you need to do to make progress. Finding Dimensional Key in particular's good stuff, congrats on getting it.

[Awoo]

raocow mentioned Klaymen! This makes me happy for reasons :3

though I know he was probably just referring to the homunculi throughout the level

it still makes me happy

that was not a haiku

[Crow]

the real la-mulana starts now!

[Awoo]

the real la-mulana starts now!