History YMMV / LaMulana

* EvilIsSexy: Tiamat may be a horrifically powerful half-snake RealityWarper with eleven monstrous children, but man, she is hot. Also Girtablilu, the naked scorpion-woman in the Dimensional Corridor.

%%* EnsembleDarkhorse: [[FanNickname CAT]][[LetsPlay BAAAAAALLLLLLL!!]]

* DudeWheresMyReward: All of Time Attack is possible to beat, but most people would easily consider it on the impossible side. After beating the Mid-level in Expert (which included a boss with an extremely abstract strategy, a luck-based boss and a boss with very precise timing) you do not get any in-game reward. Thankfully, the first boss at High-level seems impossible to beat even with precise timing and luck and that level of challenge ends with two bosses that can easily beat you in Beginner difficulty. No in-game achievements or unlockables seem to be related to Time Attack. At least, you can get [[DudeWheresMyRespect respect]] because your times are shown. It can still be called out as a hack or image manipulation if you can not provide videos.
* EnsembleDarkhorse: [[FanNickname CAT]][[LetsPlay BAAAAAALLLLLLL!!]]

* DemonicSpiders: Especially early in the game, where anything that can knock you into water or lava is a Demonic Spider. In the second game, enemies that knock you into spikes also qualify, since MercyInvincibility no longer applies to spikes.

* GoddamnedBats: Pretty much everything. Of course, the bats themselves are ''particularly'' annoying, especially when they blend in with the background. Which they do much more often than you'd think, as a surprising number of areas in the game have blue backgrounds, including Hell Temple. This may have been deliberate. But almost everything eventually becomes a goddamned bat.

* ThatOneBoss: Several. The final boss counts, given that you have to fight a five-form boss, with a final dungeon beforehand, with said dungeon also including a boss of its own. In addition, almost every boss has a weakness to a particular weapon or subweapon; if you haven't got said item yet, it's almost guaranteed to be a tough fight.

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: If the number of comments on [[http://la-mulana.com/ the official blog]] are any indication, the game has larger English-speaking and [[http://la-mulana.com/en/blog/de-espana.html Spanish-speaking]] fanbases than it has Japanese-speaking. And the PC original is a tribute to the MSX, whose fanbase was mainly centered in Japan. Oh, the irony.

** [[Curse of IRON PIPE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXWNcvz9k-k]], from the original, has sections that sound so similar to music from [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flspAofUIIQ Ashguine 2]] that it was rewritten into [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym2jSsvtQcE Curse of Ocean]] in the remake.

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The encounter with Yomar is...strange, to say the least.

** Consider Xelpud's [[TakeThat comments about the NES]]. Now ''La Mulana'' is released on its distant descendant, the UsefulNotes/{{Wii}}.

* ItsHardSoItSucks: This game does ''not'' hold back at all; there's lots of instant death traps, difficult platforming, and hordes of [[GoddamnedBats cheap]] and [[DemonicSpider brutal]] [[ThatOneBoss monsters]] ready to mop the floor with you. The hardest parts though are perhaps not the levels and enemies, but the utterly diabolical puzzles. [[MoonLogicPuzzle They are frequently obtuse]] and the you are given [[GuideDangit next to no hints]], making even those who can handle the games' monstrous physical challenges tear out their hair and give up. The remake balances out the difficulty and gives you a plethora of items to make the game easier, though even then a lot of people just can’t get used to the game and the puzzles unfortunately remain just as confusing.

* ItsHardSoItSucks: These games do ''not'' hold back at all; there's lots of instant death traps, difficult platforming, and hordes of [[GoddamnedBats cheap]] and [[DemonicSpider brutal]] [[ThatOneBoss monsters]] ready to mop the floor with you. The hardest parts though are perhaps not the levels and enemies, but the utterly diabolical puzzles. [[MoonLogicPuzzle They are frequently obtuse]] and the you are given [[GuideDangit next to no hints]], making even those who can handle the games' monstrous physical challenges tear out their hair and give up.

* HarsherInHindsight: Xelpud's fondness for bat curry may seem less funny after the COVID-19 pandemic since the virus originated in bats.

* ItsHardSoItSucks: These games do ''not'' hold back at all; there are plenty of instant death traps, difficult platforming, and hordes of [[GoddamnedBats cheap]] and [[DemonicSpider brutal]] [[ThatOneBoss monsters]] ready to mop the floor with you. The hardest parts though are perhaps not the levels and enemies, but the utterly diabolical puzzles. [[MoonLogicPuzzle They are frequently obtuse]] and the you are given [[GuideDangit next to no hints]], making even those who can handle the games monstrous physical challenges tear out their hair and give up.

* ScrappyWeapon: The keyblade [[spoiler: until you've chanted the eight mantras in the remake, then it becomes an InfinityPlusOneSword]].

*** It's not much easier in the remake: [[spoiler:You now have to pass through 4 lanterns in ascending order. The first two can be done by looking at the seals you have, but the last two are hinted by Mulbruk which sometimes doesn't show. Worse still, people assume you need all of the lanterns, which is ''not'' the case.]] On the plus side, at least it acknowledges the solution without fail, [[spoiler: and any incorrect lanterns in-between the actual answer are ignored]].

* BestKnownForTheFanservice: The game, particularly the original 8-bit version, is well-known for the shot of [[spoiler:Lemeza sensually posing in a revealing swimsuit]] at the end of Hell Temple, particularly amongst those who were exposed to the game through LetsPlay/DeceasedCrab.

** The fact that [[spoiler:[[GeniusLoci the ruins ARE the Mother]]]] is getting close to this point.

** Chamber of Birth gains some ire as well, as some feel it has puzzles comparable to Confusion Gate, only without being as honest about it.

** In the Endless Corridor it's possible to jump through the ceiling of the main floor and appear in the bottom floor. This allows players to bypass the floor with all the block puzzles.

* FauxSymbolism: Lots. There's a large amount of ancient religion-style symbolism and implications in several levels and puzzles, and [[spoiler: the final boss is all over this]]. The [[http://la-mulana.com/en/blog/problem-of-faith.html official blog]] expressed concern over this for the [=WiiWare=] port, but fan response has been overwhelmingly supportive of keeping all of the symbolism intact, misguided as it might be.