A pioneer in the movement towards plotting cryptic design in Japanese platformers. Atlantis no Nazo is renowned for its "difficulty" -- the result of stiff control, obtuse progression, and limited offensive / defensive options.
At the same time, it's also a genuine genre innovator: Spanning a hundred stages, providing multiple dozens of different paths, featuring an expansive inventory, and generally pushing the platform (and players) to their limits. An essential entry in the Famicom canon.
Anyone who has followed me in the past 5 or so months will know by now that i have become obsessed with La-Mulana. It has a small but very dedicated fanbase, and by being the subject of some of the earliest commentated gameplay videos on the internet, has played an understatedly huge role in the development of internet and gaming culture.
However, La-Mulana is also the recipient of some incredibly harsh critique, mostly by players who it baffles and frustrates. While I certainly don't blame people for being utterly bewildered by it (I'll get into why soon) I dont think it really deserves the kind of scorn it often gets. I also believe La-Mulana wonderfully illustrates just how creative and varied game design can be, and why it's much better thought of as a storytelling device than a set of rules as to how a game should play out.
Childhood Rental Project: Woo! I'm a Mario Party (4) of one!
