La-Mulana > Cave Story!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg-WFkkKOaU

Good lord! There’s a new arsecast for me to listen to once I return home from food shopping!

Cave Story > La-Mulana

I concur. La-Mulana IS nice, but Cave Story has more atmosphere (imo) and is more accessible (fact).

La Mulana is an excellent title. It’s not as easy to jump into as cave story. As there is no hand to guide you from the beginning. You mus figure out where you’re going, how the weight system works, how to save, and what exactly the plot is. This all comes over pretty easy in the instruction manual. BUT provides no real point of direction in the game. You get a not so warm welcome from the village elder and then a swift kick in the ass into the game, where you will probably curse repeatedly, die over and over, and swear never to play this game again.

Scratch that, i am an idiot.

Once invoked, the curse cannot be uncast without the blood of a virgin.

probably a fair few selfharmers too.

No Blasphemy. La Mulana is “Raiders of the Lost Ark” to Cave story’s “Jurassic Park”. Sure, Jurassic Park has better effects and equally deep plot and mechanics, but you just can’t beat that gruff, gut punching feeling you get from old Indy.

are you seriously arguing about whether cave story or la-mulana is a better game i mean come on now

Although the controls of LA-MULANA took a little getting used to, I eventually realized that they are totally deterministic and fair. Also, the atmosphere and story totally had me hooked when I saw…
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maidens jumping to their gooey, splattery death in order that their blood feed a big sub-boss.

Really, though, comparing La Mulana and Cave Story only works on some levels. There are some very different dynamics, like how Cave Story has a loose control scheme and all of it’s weapons are ranged, whereas La Mulana has a more rigid sytem, and many weapons are melee. These things may seem minor, but they affect alot of the game. (Also, there may be ranged weapons in La Mulana, but I don’t play the game that much, because the patch won’t work, so there are probably tons of ranged weapons I haven’t seen.) Still, they are both good games in their own way, but it really is like comparing Gradius and Starfox 64, they may both feature space fighting on a set path, but seemingly little core mechanics seperate them greatly.

Civilization IV > Tetris

…and yes, today when I started playing La-Mulana, I saw the 2nd UP option. Dualshock2 + La-Mulana = Dualshock2 + every other game.