For many years, I had the idea that La-Mulana was impossible. The internet has this idea that it's a true rage game, the kind that only comes around once in a decade, that pushes players to their absolute limits. During my original (unfinished) playthrough in 2016, I lost my appetite for the game's unfair puzzles and lack of information management. In March of this year, I returned to the game with a mission: Write down everything, draw a map, and finally beat the game without using a guide.

And... I failed.

That's kind of what this review is about. In the moment, with La-Mulana staring you directly in the face, it's easy to get swept up in this feeling that the game is an impossibly complex puzzle of ideas and mechanics. Stepping away for a few months and looking back at it, I think I can definitively say that La-Mulana isn't 100% bullshit. The puzzles do work. The game is, in many divisive ways, intuitive. In hindsight, it feels much more like a game about information than it is a puzzle platformer. After playing the game for more than 70 hours over both playthroughs, about 40 of those hours were spent gathering information about the game instead of playing it. That kind of time really puts a game into perspective.

The most important thing is this: La-Mulana is a game that deserves an answer sheet rather than a walkthrough. The word "guide" is and has always been a little bit too vague to suit video games' informative style. A walkthrough, where the player is told exactly what to do and exactly what they need, would ruin La-Mulana. On this point I agree. On the other hand, I know from experience that playing La-Mulana without any sort of helping hand is a nightmarish proposition. So, an answer sheet. Someone or something to compare answers with once you've already completed the quiz. That's the kind of helping hand that this game truly needs to be accessible to players and not waste their time.

Ultimately, that's what I did when I played the game. Keeping as much information gathered as physically possible, I checked in with a friend and pored over a "spoiler-free" walkthrough once I had come up with my own solution to a puzzle. This was in stark contrast to not using a walkthrough, where every attempt at solving a puzzle (and doing it incorrectly) left me with a sense of frustration bordering on rage. In many cases, when I furiously opened the walkthrough, I had done the puzzle correctly all along— but I had done it in the wrong place, or I had not yet found my reward for solving it. It's cases like these where La-Mulana falls apart for me. Here is a game that is fair in its gameplay and daring with its puzzles that simply cannot stick the landing. My original criticism of La-Mulana still stands: It is a game that knows how to present a puzzle but does not know how to present its logic. And that makes it a very difficult "puzzle game" to recommend, even if I adore the difficult platforming and tense combat.

Sitting here, with La-Mulana five months behind me, I think that the game is great. It makes a strong case for itself, with how tight and rewarding the gameplay loop is. However, with how much work (and how many years!) I had to invest into the game to get anything out of it, I can't help but feel like my experience with La-Mulana is the same as finally squeezing blood out of a stone. It's not for everybody. In fact, it's probably not even for you. But it is a game that I will hold dear to my heart for a very long time, at least until I stir up enough courage to play through the sequel.

And before you ask, no, I didn't 100% the game.

La-Mulana Score - 11/15