Hello again. This time, we venture beyond the Guidance Gate. But first: last time I had an idea about one of the clues:
Yimothy:So I stood in place in a few rooms, without success.
"Deliver a stone on high" I think refers to the dais at the top of 0/-2 (the path of Angels). "Silent and alone", though... maybe I need to kill all the enemies in a room to become alone, then stand around silently for a while?
I also head down to the armoury and try this puzzle again. The clue is "Steal the sword, Steal the Shield, Crush the helmet, Crush the armor." I try hitting the sword and shield once each to steal them, and the helmet and armour twice each to crush them. Doesn't work.
And I try falling in the hole of sacrifices, which one of the steles warned to avoid doing. It turns out something does happen, but not anything good. Sometimes, when La-Mulana says don't do something, the correct move is to not do it.
While I'm failing to solve puzzles I also pick up some cash. I head back to town and pick up the Buckler for 80 coins. Alternatively, I could have gotten the waterproof case for the same amount. But I'm sure I won't need it. I stop by the Elder's place to save while I'm there. As I'm putting the Game Master cart in the MSX so I can save, I accidentally hit F4, bringing up the MSX run screen. This was previously blank, but now that I've fixed the text bug I can read it. I'm sure this will look familiar to at least some readers.
Here's the Buckler in action.
User's Manual:I like that Lemeza holds it in his left hand, whichever way he's facing. Actually, I've just had a look and it turns out he has different sprites for different facings for lots of actions. The whip is always in his right hand. When he grabs his hat while falling, that's his left hand. I even pointed out the hat grab earlier using a shot of him facing right, where you can barely see his hand, whereas when he faces left you see the whole arm. How did I miss it?
Buckler: Can block weak enemy shots.
So much for closely observing the game. Anyway, I love that sort of detail. Nice to see it here.
I head back into the ruins and take the ladder with the Death symbol. What could possibly go wrong? The new area looks very different. And very wet.
Like the ladders between fields in the Guidance Gate, the path back has a symbol next to it. It's the Conception Seal:
In the room itself, the stele by the entrance gives a clue. Lemeza can't currently swim, so I'm not sure I want to increase the flow of water, but I'll add it to my clue list. I don't dare try to reach the submerged skeleton yet, so I'll have to come back to it later. For now, I kill the enemies and get some coins from a pot, and a floating platform comes into view. Let's take a ride!
The platform moves up and down over three screens. I ride it to the top and then jump down.
There's a couple of pretty impressive Fishman images in the background here.
User's Manual:The iron pipe thing is pretty strange. You might remember back in the first proper update of this LP a couple of the Elder's rants about other MSX games mentioned iron pipes in the crotch, one of them calling it "Ashguine's curse". This seem to be a reference to the three Ashguine Story games for MSX, the hero of which wears some odd underwear. On the cover of the second game it looks like a pipe sticking out.
FISHMAN FAMILY
Monsters that are fish with legs. It can move on land but soon starts convulsing due to difficulty breathing. Warrior-types have an iron pipe filled with oxygen in their crotch. But the lord of the fishpeople is a proud fish. It is said there is some good in his heart, but whether this is true is unknown.
Anyways, the door at the lower left leads to either a statue or someone very taciturn. I wait there for a while, but it doesn't say anything, so I hop back on the floating platform to head up again.
My first attempt at this room doesn't go well.
The second isn't great either, but at least I don't fall down. I put a Shuriken to good use to clear the room of enemies, and the treasure chest opens to reveal a Life Jewel. Sadly, I can't get to it. There's a Birth Lock on this screen, presumably once I have the Birth Seal I'll be able to reach the top.
I head over to the other side and check out the skeleton. I don't know who Migera is at the moment, but I'm sure I'll find out. I'm calling this area the Waterworks for now, but I think it has a different official name that I'll start using once the game tells me it.
I head back to the entrance and this time go right. I have to use a weight to cross the upper platform. The skeleton on the left is silent, but the one at the top right gives a clue about getting past the waterfalls. But hey, how bad could they be?
I take a brief shot at the right waterfall and get away without incident.
Then I push my luck, this time with incident. Where will I wind up?
Nowhere good, although this room does feature some interesting elements: on the left there's an altar that will allow me to teleport back to this area once I can reach it, and on the right there's the same star with a symbol in it that I've seen in the hole of sacrifices in the Guidance Gate. Maybe if I went into the waterfall holding left I might make it onto the central platform, but is reaching the stele there worth it? Incidentally, although I didn't try, I believe you can't access the MSX while underwater until you get the Waterproof Case, which means if you're drowning like I am here you can't teleport away. Maybe I bought the wrong thing with my 80 coins.
La-Mulana is the kind of game where death means going back to your last save and losing all progress since then. One thing to note while I have the save select on screen: Xelpud isn't giving me a choice of save files when I'm saving. I don't know how to access the other save slots while playing. Outside of the game, though, there's a file called lamulana.sa0 in the game directory. Change that to lamulana.sa1 and it'll show up in the 1 slot instead of the 0.
I go back to the waterworks and go right instead of down the waterfall. This leads to some kind of clockwork. The broken stele gives a blank MSX screen and the skeleton doesn't scan, but the other stele has a clue. Presumably the tower that gets operated is the one depicted to the right of the stele. Since the waterworks are currently not operational, I guess the tower isn't either? This screen also has a couple of round objects, one at the top left and the other at the lower right. I don't know what they're for, but I'll add getting to them to my to-do list.
I climb the ladder to 2/1 and break a pot for some coins. The scan in the fourth image here is not from the stele (which was blank), but is a composite of two broken stele in the Guardian Gate. I include it here because I'm pretty sure this is the room it depicts, although the waterfall isn't flowing like it is in the picture. Also what I took for a dragon at the upper right is just a bat. Anyway, if I read this right I need to get up through the water here in order to stop dying whenever I get wet. Let's give it a go!
It doesn't go so well.
If I'd gone in with full health, if I'd not screwed up the first jump, maybe I could have made it through. The clue from the Gate suggests that I need to make it through to get water resistance. For now, though, I think I've done what I can in this area. I might get further with higher maximum VIT.
I reload again, and having reached an apparent dead end beyond the Death seal, I head for the Birth one. It takes me to a new area. The broken stele has no message, but the skeleton talks about a race of giants. One of the clues in the Gate mentioned giants, too. When it says the ruins are those from a race of giants, does that mean the whole of La-Mulana, or just this Field? Anyways, I guess I'll be deciphering their legend while I'm here.
There's a new enemy type here. I see them as giant worms. They tend to jump above where your whip hits, making them hard to attack, as seen here.
I take the low path, which requires a weight to open but leads to an apparent dead end. I could drop down the hole, but I don't know where that would get me yet, so I had back around and take the higher path. The skeleton doesn't scan, but the stele has a sad message.
The dais underneath spikes is a pretty obvious trap, in retrospect.
The next screen has an image of a giant next to a tower. The stele message about the size of the Giants doesn't seem like a clue so much as flavour text. The one at the upper right I believe is something I remember from the Wii version: read it again and the game switches to hard mode. No thanks!
The third potential text on this screen, the skeleton, is silent, so I head down to the next screen and take a hit getting off the ladder. Now, I'll just go left a little:
Gah! I drop through the platform onto a section of floor that starts to collapse. I manage to get off it, but am knocked down by a skeleton and punched by a free-floating fist.
I jump to the upper level and learn that the eye block is a background element. I wonder if it signifies something? Probably. Then I head down to take on the fist, but on seeing Lemeza it rushes him, landing a hit before I take it out. I assume I tried to scan the skeleton but got nothing. There's also something at the upper left of the room that I'm sure does something, and an impressive statue of a giant.
In the next room I find this area's altar, and activate it with my Hand Scanner. This would be a great time to warp back to town and save. Just saying.
Instead of doing that, I carry on. The stele in this room tells me about Zi. Great. I head up and to the left, to the top of the room I was just in.
The stele here gives another clue. I've read a message from Abt, and another describing Zi. I think these names are those of the giants whose mausoleum this is.
I head back up to the room I fell down from before, and having forgotten about the trick floor, I fall down again. Man, my health is getting low. I should really warp out and save.
Instead, I decide to try to take on this giant with my whip. Fortunately, it doesn't work. I do like how these statues double as platforms. A lot of games would have done something to make the platform sections more obvious, but not La-Mulana.
I head back up, this time remembering to jump over the hole, and read the stele in this room (the broken one is blank). It talks about another giant. And the weather.
I damage boost into the next room, where there are some new enemies. Actually, there's a lot going on here: a stele down below, a skeleton in the middle, a chest up top, a barrier under Lemeza and a footswitch on the platform at middle-left. But before I look at any of that:
I die. Again. Without having saved. Again.
I took a break after the last death. When I loaded up La-Mulana again, I'd realised I was getting struck by lightning in the armoury because I was breaking items in the wrong order. Here's the clue again: "Steal the sword, Steal the Shield, Crush the helmet, Crush the armor." I thought that it saying some things should be stolen and others crushed meant I had to interact differently with them. Instead:
I just had to break them all in the order listed. Nothing seems to have changed, though. What have I won?
I head to the right, and a ladder has appeared leading to the footswitch. Neat! I climb up and press it. Again, the Shell Horn sounds, but what has happened isn't clear. I head up to the tunnel under the hole of sacrifice, thinking perhaps the barrier would have opened, but no such luck.
I spend quite a while criss-crossing the Guidance Gate looking for something that has changed, but I don't find it. Maybe it's in another Field? That'd be kind of annoying if so, because I won't be able to identify it as having been changed by the switch. On the plus side, while wandering around I found this message on one of the skeletons in the hole of sacrifice. I think I missed it before. Unless that's what gets activated by the switch? Seems unlikely.
I head down to the Mausoleum and start retracing my steps.
I even activate this trap again, though I manage to dodge it this time. Then something odd happens: a bit of wall disappears. When I was playing the game, I thought it happened in response to the trap missing, but rewatching the video I notice that I hit the wall three times with the backswing of the whip, and it disappeared on the third. Does this mean I need to add "Strike every wall three times" to my to-do list? Ugh.
I head back around to scan the skeleton but get knocked down a hole by a worm on the way. This drops me straight onto some spikes, but fortunately I'm still flashing from the worm and don't take any more damage.
The broken stele here has another broken message. It mentions ghosts and knights, and doesn't seem to fit with any of the broken messages from earlier. The skeleton on the left doesn't scan and the one at the bottom I can't reach, so I head right, back to the room I just died in. Hey, the guys with shields here could be two knights! I don't see any ghosts though, unless you count the sludge lizard.
I step on the switch, but once again nothing obvious happens.
I think the shield guys can only be struck from behind. I make a half-hearted attempt and then decide not to mess with them right now and head to the right to get back up to the skeleton I exposed earlier.
I make my way back around, and this time use a Shuriken to get rid of the worm before weighting the dais to pass the barrier and reach the skeleton. I get Game Collection 3 for my troubles. It's a 1988 compilation release featuring Twin Bee, Super Cobra, Sky Jaguar, Time Pilot, and Nemesis (i.e. Gradius). Sounds pretty good! I like the cover, too.
I drop down, which of course lands me directly on spikes. Don't ever change, La-Mulana. I also confirm that you can take out a shield guy from behind.
Then I head straight for the altar, scan it, and warp out.
Xelpud talks a little about the giants. I wonder if he's got something new to say for each Field? Then I save my game. Time to call it a day! But first:
I head back in and to this stele, which I believe activates hard mode if scanned again. Let's find out for sure:
Yep. The stele sinks into the ground, and there's now three heads spewing sludge lizards instead of two. But fortunately, I went on to die and quit without saving, so this never happened.
Maps:
Waterworks:
Mausoleum of Giants:
Clues:
Village:
"The Algol with the blue body and the many eyes. Legend has it he is weak to the Serpent Staff."
Guidance Gate:
"Eight souls rest in this land. The souls are those of the Guardians that protect these lands. When the Ankhs holding the souls shatter from a shining red light, the souls will awaken. The Ankh in this land is beyond the path of Angels, and the Jewel is at the foot of a long wall."
""There is a path where the angels face each other" I found an invisible floor!"
"Offer three sacrifices to the heavens."
"The sad tale of the giants. Their history is recorded therein."
"If thou dost cross the ocean of the inferno, thou shouldst take the top path."
"
"Apparently there are shops in these ruins."
"
"In the temple of the Sun, a new trap fills a hole and conceals a trigger."
""Twin Guards" "Silent and alone" "Deliver a stone on high""
Waterworks:
"If I tried to go under the waterfalls I'd just get swept away. If I had some sort of helmet I might be able to get by them..."
"The water that operates the tower. It flows here and is converted to energy."
Mausoleum of Giants:
"So these ruins are those from a race of giants... I was just about to decipher their legend too..."
"We could not grant the Great Mother's wish. I am the only one to remain, and here I go to my long, final rest. Abt"
"Zi started praying to the Earth on a moonlight night."
"Abt, Zi, Riv, and Sakit wanted the Mother to remain here on Earth."
"On a day when the sun was bright, Led fell in battle. A large hole torn in his chest, he went into his long, final rest."
To-Do:
Village:
-Kill the blue Algol at -5/1, probably with the Serpent Staff.
-Explore beyond the waterfall at 3/4
-Purchase:
--
--MSX2 (0/0) 150 Coins
--Waterproof case (0/0) 80 Coins
Guidance Gate:
-Open treasure chests at -2/-2, 2/-1
-Get past barriers at 0/-2, 0/-4
-Climb upper ladder at 0/-2
-Get past holy rock at 1/-2
-Do something with the apparent hidden holy rock at 1/-4
-Climb narrow shaft at 4/-1
-Take ladders to other Fields at
-Put weights on daises at -1/-2, 0/-2 (upper)
-Reach and press floor switches at -2/-2,
-Do something at 2/-4
-
-Use Hand Scanner with Glyph Reader on:
--Steles: -1/-2, 4/-1
--Skeletons: 4/-1
-Push the grey block at 1/-4
-Get the Jewel in the mouth of the face on 0/-3
-Get the Jewel in the star at 0/-4
-Find the Ankh
--"Beyond the path of Angels"
-Find the Jewel
--"At the foot of a long wall"
-Awaken the Guardian
Waterworks:
-Activate the waterworks
-Get the key from the blue flying one to open the floodgate
-Scan skeletons: 0/0
-Get the statue in the room at 0/1 to say or do something
-Reach the Life Jewel in the treasure chest at 0/2
-Reach the altar at 1/-1
-Reach the two circular objects in 2/0
-Learn to swim and/or breathe underwater
-Cross the waterfalls in 1/0
--Get a helmet of some sort
-Climb against the flow of the water in 2/1 as depicted on the stele in Guidance Gate 0/-3
-Open the chests in 1/0, 2/1
Mausoleum of Giants:
-Decipher the legend of the giants
-Do something at the upper left of 2/-2
-
-Open chests: 1/-1
-Scan steles: 1/-1
-Scan skeletons: 0/-2 (lower), 2/-1, 3/-2 (lower)
-Pass barrier: 1/-1
Conception Locks:
-Guidance Gate -2/-5
Birth Locks:
-Guidance Gate 2/-1
-Waterworks 0/2
Life Locks:
-Village -4/1
Next Time:
Part 07: The Stars Align
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