Let's Play La-Mulana: The Mother Has Been Waiting

The Guardians were the things keeping Mother/La-Mulana asleep, slaying them awakens her while also opening pathways for you to go deeper into the ruins. But if she's the entirety of the physical ruins, then her soul isn't really stored in any one place hence the wedge/mantras/pillars bit--doing that fixes her soul in place, but now you need a way to materialize that soul to kill her because you don't have a way to destroy the ruins physically. That's where the medicine comes in, as that gives form to her soul so you can kill it.

Yimothy, this LP is a tour de force. Very impressed you've made it this far!

The plot of this game is so weird. Is there anything that suggests that there's a rationale for killing the Mother beyond "we can't grant her wish, so she's better off dead"? I guess there's a mysteriously fantastic reward in it for Lemeza, but that still doesn't seem like a good reason.

Xelpud explained why they wanted the eight children to kill her a ways back. Basically, all she wants is to go back where she came from (somewhere in space), but the children she created were never capable of doing so instead fighting amongst each other or trying to usurp her powers of creation for themselves.

The seventh children created the eighth children when they realized that, and sealed away the remnants of the six prior races and themselves to await the day the eighth children developed enough to slay Mother.

I still don't see the part in all that where it's necessary to kill the Mother. If there were any remaining of her children actively trying to steal her powers of creation with ill intent, you could justify killing her with the "she can't leave, and she's too dangerous to stay" rationale. But I don't see that there are. In fact, it kind of looks like Lemeza is the one trying the hardest to acquire whatever power the Mother has.

I think it is just “she’s better off dead”, as you say. There are a few quotes from the game about it, but probably the most specific is

The Sages believe that being on Earth is causing the Mother to suffer, so if they can’t send her back to the skies then death is the next best option. Does the Mother agree? We have no way of knowing, though the ruins being generally hostile to Lemeza might be a clue. Do I agree? I’m not sure. I could quit playing and say that Lemeza went home, I guess, but otherwise the game doesn’t seem to offer any alternative choice.

Edit: Thanks, Gerad!

Ahh, the "she's suffering" from the sages was the key detail I was missing. Lemeza's quest does seem less self-serving in light of that.

Hello again. We seem to be coming towards the end of La-Mulana, and looking at my to-do list I remember that I still haven't beaten PR3. Time to give it another go! While I'm sitting on the title screen, I try entering the password "ZEUS", which I got from another ROM combination. It doesn't seem to do anything, just like everywhere else I've tried it.



I've got the opening down pat. Get a couple speed ups, get the missiles.



My routine has been to get DOUBLE!!, but I accidentally pick up FAMICOM!! instead. The laser is pretty powerful, taking out the building and baseball player very quickly, but needing to be on the same vertical level as enemies to hit them (missiles aside) makes navigation a bit tougher.



I'm actually doing pretty well until I allow myself to be trapped in front of enemy fire and die. I'm sent back to the beginning, where I take a new approach: last time I played PR3 I got really far on one of my lives, but it was my last life and so when I died I had to restart instead of going from a checkpoint. So this time, with each life lost I'm gonna quit the game and start it again, unless I get far enough to start from a checkpoint.



My next few attempts don't go as well as the first one did.



Skipping over three more early deaths, on this life I manage to make it pretty far again. But then:



I accidentally activate WHAT TH-!!, which takes away all my power-ups, leaving me in a slow ship with just the pea shooter. I die almost immediately afterwards. I find it quite hard to actually look at the power-up bar once the game gets hectic. I think I was expecting a second OPTION!! or maybe BARRIER!!.



On the plus side, it looks like I've reached a checkpoint. Barely - I'm pretty sure my starting position on this life is actually slightly further along than where I died. Unfortunately, starting from the checkpoint with no upgrades is pretty tough and I don't last long.



The next life is even worse, and then it's GAME OVER. Alright, enough of this! I've got Mantras to chant! Let's hit the ruins!



I start off by warping to the Temple of the Sun, going from there to the Twin Labyrinths (warping directly to the Labyrinths would be a shorter walk, but it involves fiddling with moving platforms whereas the Temple run is all falling down), and taking the ladder there to a room in the Shrine which I didn't visit last time. As with the rest of the Shrine, it's changed colour, has a tentacle across it, and hosts tougher enemies. And I don't find anything else there.



OK, time to look at the Mantras. There are three relevant clues I want to remind you of:

I think this symbol that appeared in the Dimensional Corridor after I beat Tiamat could be where I need to chant the first Mantra, which I believe is what the third quote there is giving me. Let's type "MARDUK" and see what happens:



Hmm... not much is happening. Unfortunately, me typing doesn't show up very well in the GIF, but the lack of any response is pretty clear. That's OK, though! There are lots of other places that could be where I need to go.



The room with the red cross is one of them. Not the right one, as it turns out. Maybe I should try doing something else. How sure am I that the method for chanting is to type the word in?



I head for the Tower of Ruin. There are some clues about this place that I'll bring up, too:

I think that Rusali, Yaksi, and Dakini are the figures on these screens (never mind that one of them is apparently a whole bunch of fairies). The question is, which is which? I need to figure out which one is mischievous, kind, lonely, and innocent. I think that the part about being lonely eliminates the group of fairies. The one with the hearts that freeze Lemeza seems kind of mischevious (though also the best candidate for Yaksi who beguiles men), so I'll try casting BIRTH on her and see how I go:



I type in BIRTH and she disappears, sending two stars off to the right. So typing in words is definitely how spellcasting works, whether I've picked the right fairy or not.



I cast DEATH on the others, causing them to die. Hope I've got this right!



When I go back to the statue with the pot, a green fluid is flowing from it. When Lemeza passes in front a sound plays, and when I check my ITEM WINDOW afterwards the container (bottom right) is filled with green liquid. If I've done this right, then I've obtained the Medicine of Life. I head back to where the fairy circle was and try scanning up the place, but I don't find anything.



I head back to town to save, then head for the Shrine via the Endless Corridor (because it seems there's no altar in the True Shrine). Now that I know I'm casting correctly, I'll try out a few spots in here where I might need to go to chant the first Mantra:



Option 1: Tiamat's room. Nothing happens.



Option 2: The room with this eye thing. Nothing happens.



Option 3: The Mother's chamber. I take along the key fairy in case there's something for it to do here, but nothing happens, either with the fairy or the Mantra. I'm running out of ideas, here!



I even try Amphisbaena's room in the Guidance Gate - this is the first Mantra, and it was the first Guardian, so maybe? But no.



Getting desperate, I return to the Dimensional Corridor and try typing MARDUK in every room. It doesn't work anywhere, but along the way I notice Fobous' door is open again, so I pop in. Have I gotten the Medicine puzzle wrong?



The Container is still full of green stuff. I dunno. For now, I'm focussing on the Mantra. Maybe I've been spelling it wrong?



I head back to the fancy stele to check - definitely MARDUK. I try chanting it here again, but still nothing. At this point I'm seriously considering ending the update here and asking if anyone has any suggestions, but instead I set off to try it on every screen in the Endless Corridor. I'm supposed to drive the wedges through the rear, and this is a front Field, but check out this clue that I crossed off after beating Tiamat:

If this is the back, then I might need to do it here somewhere.

I go one screen to the left and type in MARDUK, and the reversed glyph for 8 appears in a circle at the upper left. I found it! Yes!



To figure out how I was supposed to know to chant here, I look at the map, thinking of this clue:

I actually looked at my maps, rather than the in-game ones, but mine are impractically large and it's probably easier to see on the in-game. The blue rectangle on the Dimensional Corridor map is where I fought Tiamat, and where the big symbol with the (forwards) eight glyph had appeared. The red rectangles are where the crosses are. The blue on one the Dimensional corridor map is one screen to the right and three screens up from the red one. On the Endless Corridor map, I'm currently in the room with the little Lemeza symbol - that's where the (reversed) eight glyph appeared when I chanted MARDUK there. It's one screen to the right and three screens up from the red one. Is that what those crosses that I've been wondering about since almost the very beginning of the game are for?

Now that I've chanted the first Mantra, I expect the second one should be available. The relevant clue is:



I head for the lowest level of the Twin Labyrinths, and sure enough another fancy stele has appeared. From it I learn the second Mantra: SABBAT (actually I'd already seen this in the buggy text in the sound test - I wonder if it would have worked if I'd tried it before revealing this stele?).



I check the map (again, my map, not the in-game one shown here). The boss room is two screens right and two screens down from the red cross at the front, so I head to the room two screens right and two screens down from the red cross on the back. Let's chant:



Success! Two Mantras down, and now I know what the crosses are for, at last. I gotta say, though, starting the Mantra countdown with the back/front inverted Corridors seems kind of cruel, not to mention the fact that not all rooms are shown on the in-game maps (I added the blue and red rectangles in the middle of the Twin Labyrinths map above), and the boss rooms don't show as blue after the boss has been beaten. How do people who don't record their gameplay and make their own maps solve this one?



I stop by Baphomet's chamber, since it's not far away. There's a thing on the wall with the glyph for seven in it, just like the one I've seen in the Dimensional Corridor at Tiamat's chamber, but now that I've chanted the Mantra it's glowing.



As the clue suggests, I find the next fancy stele in the room next to where I fought Ox-Head and Horse-Face, guardians of hell. The Mantra is kind of odd - MU was the solution to a puzzle in the Tower of Ruin, not the Chamber of Extinction. Anyway, let's check the map to see where I need to go next to chant this Mantra:



OK, so Palenque was two screens right and one screen down from the cross. In the Chamber of Life/Birth, two screens right and one down is... off the map. Hmm. I guess I'll just run around the whole place chanting and see if I can find it.



It takes a while, but I find it. If you assume the map wraps (and ignore the hidden room where I got the Woman Statue, which isn't shown on the in-game map) and go from the room with the cross to the leftmost room, then right again and down, that's where this map is. So I guess the system still works, even if obscurely.



The next clue clearly describes this room in the upper left bit of the Inferno Cavern. The Mantra is the name of the boss of that Field, VIY.



The blue rectangle in the Cavern is down and to the left from the red one. On the Tower of Ruin's map, there's nothing there, but on my map a room is clearly visible. Let's go!



Success! This is probably getting slightly boring to read, but I'm ticking off items from my clue and to-do lists that have been there for months and it's exhilarating for me.



I'd thought this clue might refer to the goddess statue in the first screenshot, but I find the fancy stele below the one in the second. Which should have been obvious, given the latter is looking towards the broken tower in the last shot. I'm not sure where BAHRUN comes from, exactly. Bahrain?



This is another tricky one to work out on the map. The red rectangle in the Tower of the Goddess is a hidden room, so I've added it to this map myself. Bahamut's chamber is one right and five up from the cross, which again is off the boundaries of the map.



I find the right room one space to the right of the cross. If you wrap on the map from top to bottom, this screen is five screens above itself within its column. Intuitive!



There's no clue for the location of the sixth Mantra, but there's been a conspicuous abscence in the room with the clues about where the other Mantras are, so I was pretty sure the fancy stele would be there. And it is.



The maps are fairly closely aligned this time. The room one down and one right from where the little Lemeza is on the Moonlight map is where I need to go.



This one has a reversed three glyph on it. Two more to go!



I was actually thinking of a different room to for this clue (because I tried to identify where the Mantras would be back when I thought they were ROMs, so I was thinking of rooms where I found ROMs), but this room was on the way so I had no trouble finding it. I guess there are spikes protruding from seven floors here. Now, I've been leaving out most of the actual gameplay footage this time, but I'll make an exception for this room:



It takes me two and a half minutes to reach the stele. This GIF isn't of the whole process, just one of the more frustrating attempts. The combination of spikes and ice floors is just brutal.



The blue screen is two to the left of the red one. Simple enough, for once.

Consider this wedge driven. ABT, the Mantra, is the name of the giant whose statue started crying after I beat Sakit, the Guardian of the Mausoleum.



I think "eight stars" refers to the eight circles below the fancy stele, but if I'm honest I found this one by running around every room in the Gate until I saw it.



This time I need to go two screens right of the cross. Conveniently, that's a yellow rectangle on the Confusion Gate map, meaning it's the location of the altar and I can warp straight there.



And with that, all eight wedges have been driven. Might be time to pay another visit to the Shrine of the Mother!



Right after I save. I thought about stopping for the day at this point, having made a lot of progress, but I couldn't resist heading in to the ruins again to see what I'd done.



Getting to the Shrine still requires a trip through the Endless Corridor. I was hoping that driving the wedges would get rid of some of the tentacles and make the Shrine easier to navigate, but it doesn't seem to be so. The image of Sakit appears to have been smashed, though.



As have the others.



I summon a healing fairy along the way and get the green one, who sticks around long enough to fully heal me outside the Mother's chamber. When I enter, I find the final ankh in the centre of the room and one of each kind of Lock above it.



I break open the four locks and the red jewel in the centre of the Ankh turns green. I head over and try to scan it or drop a weight, but I can't. I don't have any more Ankh Jewels to use here.



One of the clues seems to say I should attack this thing, but it doesn't like being whipped.



There was a clue I dismissed a little while back: "The final ... jewel is ... Endless ... red light in the key". The keyblade, which I got in the Endless Corridor, now has a red pixel in the middle of its blade. Looking back over my footage, that wasn't there before I chanted the eighth Mantra. Straight afterwards, it was. Looks like I've found my key! Shame it's the weapon with the swastika on it.



Striking the Ankh with the keyblade causes a familiar spark to fly up, and a face appears between the towers. This must be the Mother! She opens her mouth and fires a projectile straight into Lemeza.



I get out my Shield, but it's ineffective. The keyblade produces the sound of a connecting hit, though.



I decide to try Bombs, but apparently forgot that Lemeza doesn't throw them straight up. When I do manage to connect with one it just pings, as does the whip.



I switch back to the keyblade and pretty much give up on dodging enemy fire, instead just jumping in to land as many hits as I can.



Eventually a blow causes the Mother's face to crack, and everything stops. What's going on?



The container appears and pours its contents over the jewel in the Mother's forehead. She disappears. After a pause, an exit opens at the lower right. If I've done things right, I think the Medicine of Life will have given form to the Mother's soul. Does the final boss battle wait beyond that doorway?



It looks like it doesn't. I'm back in the Shrine. With my current VIT, that's probably a stay of execution for Lemeza.



When I return to the Mother's Chamber, it's been restored to be as it was before I activated the final Ankh. I guess I picked the wrong fairy and didn't get the right medicine.



I consider activating the Ankh again just in case something's changed, but instead I warp out, save, and quit. I need to beat PR3 before I finish the game, anyway. Aside from that, I think I've done pretty much everything I can. There are clearly things I've missed and clues I don't understand yet, but I've made a pretty solid effort to look everywhere and not found them, so I think it's time to just press on. But not today!

Map:

Shrine of the Mother:

Clues:

"PASSWORD: ZEUS"

Village:

"Have you found all the ROMS? Something good will happen if you do."

"In obesiance to the Four Sages, we guarded the ruins. The four Sages realized that they could not grant the Mother's wish to return to the skies. Therefore, they wish at the very least to grant her the peace of death. That was the final conclusion that the Seventh Children reached. It is a sad thing that wish must be passed on to you, the eighth children. All children must eventually leave the parent's nest, I suppose. Your father was after the treasure of Life, the remains of the Mother's spirit once she dies. I hope you can get it in his place."

Confusion Gate:

"The mother ocean watches kindness and charity."

Temple of the Sun:

"Chant the correct Mantras, and seal off Tiamat, Baphomet, Palenque, Viy, Bahamut, Ellmac, Sakit, and Amphisbaena."

"The second Mantra is by the feet of the twins. The place where their feet connect."

"The third Mantra is a green beast. By the side of the guardian of Hell."

"The fourth Mantra is by a serpent. The path connecting to the pyramid Nu Wa guards."

"The fifth Mantra is below the goddess. By the feet of the goddess who gazes at the crumbling tower."

"The seventh Mantra is by many spikes. Spikes that protude from seven floors."

"The final Mantra is eight stars."

Temple of Moonlight:

"The Guardians protect something else. In those places lie wedges, eight wedges which can give form to a soul."

"Welcome, chosen one. I am Alsedarna, one of the four Sages - the Sage of Death. I shall tell thee the secret of the ruins. We went into a long sleep to grant the Mother's wish. The Mother came to the Earth from the skies. We do not know where she came from. But she wanted to return. Having lost the power to move, the Mother breathed life into earthen dolls -- us humans. We were born to return her to the sky, and were given wisdom here in these ruins. Then we were send out into the wider world, to look for a way to return the Mother to the skies. Yes.... these ruins themselves are the Mother. Alas, returning the Mother to the skies is not possible. If we cannot grant her wish, then all we can do is grant her an eternal rest. Chosen one, please release the Mother from her suffering.... That is our wish...."

Spring of the Sky:

"Welcome, chosen one. I am Giltorriyo, one of the four Sages - the Sage of Knowledge. These ruins are the Mother's body. She can not be defeated. Thou must defeat her soul. Summon the soul of the Mother and give it a form in this world. The method to do so is already prepared. As the 7th children, we have devised a secret art for this.... And now we shall tell it to thee. Drive 8 wedges into the Mother's body. Find the Wedge and the Magatama Jewel, and chant the Mantras. The Mantras have been inscribed on Tablets. Drive the wedges through the rear. Please, chosen one. Grant our wish and release our Mother...."

Tower of the Goddess:

"The mischievous Rusali. Yaksi, who beguiles men. Dakini, dancing enticingly. Only one of them has a pure heart."

"The right eye sees Charity."

"Welcome, chosen one. I am Samaranta, one of the Four Sages - the Sage of Power. The soul of the Mother sleeps in the Shrine of the Mother. There lies the final Ankh. The final red light will bring forth its true form. Ye who hast conquered these ruins. Only thy power can grant the Mother rest. We four Sages sealed off four paths. Mine is now open. For the others, find Fobous and Giltorriyo. Now go, chosen one...."

Tower of Ruin:

"The kind, mischievous fairy. The kind, lonely fairy. Her mischief is innocent. Innocent mischief will do thee no harm."

"Ascertain those who would lead thee astray. Ascertain those who are truly pure."

"The left eye sees Kindness."

"To ye who hast made it this far, undertake the final trial. The Mother's wish can no longer be granted."



Chamber of Extinction:

"If thou cannot go left, go right."

"There is a medicine that can give form to a great soul. Consult the correct spirit."

Chamber of Life:

"Charity, Kindness, Charity, Charity, Kindness, Charity, Kindness, Kindness, the endless sound of the waves."

"Drive in the wedges. Awaken the Mother. The Shrine of the Mother will then show its true form."

Twin Labyrinths (Front):

"Cast a spell on the spirits that have the elixir. The Elixir gives shape to souls."

"The King of Hell, Beelzebub. He guards the eight souls in front of the Mother."

Endless Corridor

"Chant the name. The one who Tiamat loved and hated. The source of all the pain who gave birth to the 11 monsters. MARDUK."

Dimensional Corridor:

"Make praise, the bright sun shines into day, the dark moon will then vanish, push from the celestial wall forever."

"Welcome, chosen one. I am Fobous, one of the Four Sages - the Sage of Life. The Mother's power is the power to create life. In ages past, others attempted to create life as well. Tiamat, Nu Wa........neither could compare to the Mother. With the Medicine of Life, one can attain the power of the Mother. The pure-hearted mischievous fairy has been entrusted with this medicine. Seek her out. When thou findest her, cast BIRTH, the spell of life, upon her. Cast DEATH, the spell of death, on the false fairies that would lead thee astray. If thou attainest the wrong medicine, return here. Without the correct medicine, thou cannot attain the power of the Mother........"

The Shrine of the Mother:

"The Sages will only show the path to the chosen one. At its end lies a great soul."

"Is this my son reading this? I hope so. I've made it this far, but was not chosen by the sages. I could not wake the Mother. Please do what I could not. The source of all life is here. Oh yes, please hit the "off" button now."






To-Do:

Anywhere:
-Find Shorn Kosugi
-Figure out what the red crosses do
-Clear each screen of enemies at least once
-Complete the software use and software combinations lists in the manual
-Find other key fairy locations, if they exist
-Get all the ROMs
--Have something good happen
-Find the eight Mantras
--Chant the Mantras from the rear to drive the eight wedges
-Undertake the final trial
--Defeat the Mother's soul
---Give the Mother's soul form
-Beat PR3
-Figure out where/how to use PASSWORD: ZEUS

Village:
-Return to hidden door at 4/2 with all the ROMs

Tower of the Goddess:
-Enter door: 1/-1 (behind water)

Tower of Ruin:
-Get the medicine of life
--Identify Rusali, Yaksi, and Dakini
---Cast BIRTH on Rusali, and DEATH on Yaksi and Dakini
-Do something with the blue cross at -3/2
-Interact with background woman at 0/3

Twin Labyrinths (Front):
-Solve block puzzle at 3/-2
--Find way to push leftmost block to the right

Dimensional Corridor:
-Chant the first or eighth Mantra at the glyph in Tiamat's room (?)

The Shrine of the Mother:
-Do something with fairy spot at -2/1
-Chant the correct Mantras to seal off each Guardian at their images (?)
-Bring forth the Mother's soul and its true form, and grant it rest
--Find the final red light, perhaps in the Endless Corridor



Fairy Locations:
-Confusion Gate -6/3
-Temple of Moonlight 0/-1
-Spring of the Sky 3/1
-Tower of the Goddess 2/5
-Chamber of Extinction 8/-3
-Endless Corridor 0/-2
-True Shrine of the Mother -2/1

ROMs:


Glyph Key:

The ending to an LP like this is always a little bittersweet. No more puzzles to solve (well, once you figure out the fairies, at least), just a giant monster to fight.

The fairies bit is one of those puzzles that mythology nerds will probably get right off and everyone else has to use wikipedia for. All three are 'real' mythological entities.

It somehow had not occurred to me to look at wikipedia (I think I checked JLB's The Book of Imaginary Beings and didn't find anything), but my quick look just now still hasn't made it clear to me. If reading a bit more doesn't make it clear, then I've got a 50/50 chance of getting it on the next attempt, otherwise I'll have it on the third. Unless it turns out I have to take the key fairy there or something.

On the one hand, that green medicine looked kind of sickly. On the other hand, why wouldn't the Mother have plaid blood? It speaks to the quality of La Mulana's worldbuilding that a person can even speculate on the subject.

I watched someone LP La Mulana on youtube. Twice. I don't remember any part of it well enough to say more than "Oh, I recognize that" from time to time. Except their rather strong reaction at the end of hell. But I would have thought you'd find out more about that area by now given how thorough you've been.
This first thing is just an educated guess, but I'm spoilering it anyway: It's a bad place, so maybe you need to enter the hard mode you pointed out near the beginning of the LP.
The second thing is hard to hint at without spoiling the lore of the place. The reason I think you should know more about hell by now is:

Yeah, I’m not sure how I’ve missed it. I might have a cursory look around before I finish the game, but I think I’ve made a good effort and I’m ready to finish up. Regarding your first spoiler, that idea makes a lot of sense, but turning up the difficulty and then searching the whole ruins again does not appeal. I’ll look up spoilers once I’m done.

Scrolling shooters are one of the oldest types of video games, generally pitting a single player controlled ship against huge numbers of computer controlled enemies.



The classic shooter R-Type has a false etymology that suggests the name derives from the r/K selection theory of ecology, in which r selection involves a large number of offspring, each with a relatively small chance of survival, and K selection involves a small numer of offspring, each given as much chance of survival as possible.



The idea is that the player is K selected, facing an army of r selected enemies alone (or in a small group, depending on how you interpret the lives mechanic).



Apparently the R in R-Type is for the player ship's light ray weaponry and has nothing to do with ecology, but it's a fitting interpretation of the genre nonetheless.



You could argue that the game would be more appropriately titled K-Type, since the player controls a single carefully nurtured craft to defeat innumerable expendable enemy pawns.



Another way of looking at it, at least when I'm in control, would see the dozens/hundreds of player craft sacrificed to the attempt to get good enough to beat the game as the r-selected side of the equation, and the carefully crafted set of stages as K-selected.



As a video-game playing child of the eighties and nineties, I played plenty of shooters.



I was terrible at them, and eventually gave up on the format.



The typical game starts off hard but doable, then escalates to all-but-impossible.



The idea of actually beating one seemed absurd, and the way the difficulty would increase if you were bad at the game (because a better player would be able to get and keep more power ups) seemed unfair.



Occasionally I'd put in a coin at an arcade and quickly reach a game over screen, and I had a few console games, like Action Fighter for the SMS (to this day I don't think I've beaten the first level) and Bio Hazard Battle on the Mega Drive (which I think I did beat as a kid, or at least got several stages into), but for the most part I thought shmups were not for me.



A few years ago I started to turn this around. I got Espgaluda II for my phone.



On the surface, a bullet hell shooter doesn't seem like a good way to acclimatise to the genre, but the iphone port's touch controls and option to just credit feed through the game made it more accessible than my previous shooter experiences.



I played through several times, aiming to reduce the number of continues I used rather than to try for score or a 1CC - to this day I don't think I've ever 1CC'd a shooter.



A bit later I started getting back into the Master System and Mega Drive, and enjoying the challenge of taking on old games on the original hardware.



Early on I got an SMS copy of Sagaia, but wound up save-stating my way through it. I could never recover from death, and had no chance of making it through the game without dying at all.



I took a break from shooters for a while, but in that time I played games like Rolling Thunder one and two and Metal Slug - challenging games that required repeated play to get better at and eventually beat.



When I picked up SMS R-Type, I was primed to really get into the game and stick with it to the end (greatly aided by the generous extra continues cheat).



My early runs ended in the first or second stage, and I got stuck for a long time on the fourth stage boss.



Before long, it was rare for me to lose a life in the early stages, and bosses that had seemed impossible, like stage four's, became speed bumps at worst.



Stage seven was particularly hard, especially because of the game's checkpoint system. The back half of stage seven is pretty ridiculous, but after who knows how many attempts I found a route (not the one in the linked video) that got me to the boss some of the time. Once I managed to beat the boss, I stuck with stage eight until I beat it, which took a lot less time than stage seven. I'd beat a foundational shooter!



The reward, after the ending, was the same game with the difficulty turned up. Thanks, but no thanks.

From there I toned things down a little, playing Steel Empire for Mega Drive and Cotton for NGPC, relatively easy games that still took me some work to overcome.



Then it was back to the SMS for Power Strike II, a tougher game that I eventually cleared on the back of its unlimited continues.



A word on credit feeding: different games have different approaches to lives and continues. Some will allow you to respawn where you died, even after continuing.



Under this system, the only thing between you and the end of the game is how many credits you're prepared to put in. On a home console, continues will often be limited. I'm not a huge fan of this system, because either I'll just credit feed through, or I'll run out of continues and get frustrated.



Other games take you back to a checkpoint, either after every death or after continuing.



Broadly speaking, this system, combined with unlimited continues, is what I prefer - you still have to get through every segment of the game without dying in it (or at least not dying too much), but you're not thrown back to the start after an arbitrary number of fails.



You do still have to replay the early stages at the start of each play session, though, which allows you to appreciate how easy those once-impossible areas seem after taking on the later levels.



But to each their own - "real" STGers don't continue anyway, or so I hear.



Gameplay-wise, there are two basic things you need to do in a shooter - kill the enemy and avoid getting killed. Often only the latter is actually required, and many games' bosses will die or depart automatically after enough time has passed to prevent players leaving them alive to accumulate unlimited point scores, but taking out enemies as quickly as possible generally makes not getting killed a lot easier.



Besides those basics, the third thing is to power up - you'll start off underpowered, and end up overpowered.



The rub, though, is that you're usually only overpowered until you screw up. Lose a life, and your upgrades go with it.



It's a regressive difficulty curve - the game is easier for better players.



Part of what makes these games compelling, though, is the combination of blitzing through enemies, particularly in stages that have otherwise been difficult, and the knowledge that a moment of error can and will take it all away.



The prolonged concentration, combined with the need to be watching where your ship is, where the enemies are, and where the enemy fire is, and to try to anticipate what's coming up, can be draining.



Sometimes, though, it comes together and you find yourself feeling invincible, killing every enemy almost before they appear, dodging each bullet perfectly, grabbing each power-up, and getting further than you've gotten before.



And then you die.



The spell is broken, and before you know it you've lost all your lives.



But the next time you play it's a bit easier. You know where to go and what to do.



The early stages, once absurd challenges, become a pleasant sight-seeing trip.



You slip up somewhere, but you're able to adjust your approach to compensate for the lack of power, or for having a different weapon to what you'd usually be using.



Eventually, knuckles white on the controller, you reach the end. Euphoria!



For some people, this is the time to start trying for a 1CC, or playing for score.



For me, it's time to move on.

I'm not great at shooters, even if I do think I've been getting better. The 44 deaths shown so far in this update are not even close to the full number I've had getting to this point, and I'm sure some readers of my little essay on the nature of shmups are shaking their heads at my ignorance of the genre. But whatever: it's a game, I'm enjoying it, who cares if I'm doing it well or right. PR3 is pretty tough. I can usually get through the first stage of a shooter a bit quicker than this. Still, that's given me plenty of time to develop my approach. In the early part of the stage, before the ground appears, I take two ZOOOM!!s, then two MISSILE!!s, then another ZOOOM!!, then DOUBLE!!, and then an OPTION!! which I have just enough power-ups to claim at the point reached in the fourth screenshot here. That gives me a fair bit of firepower.



The next thing I want is second OPTION!!. Taking the lower route here gets me the power-up I need to make it happen, though the face appearing over my HUD doesn't allow me to confirm that I have the right number straight away. The face seems to appear when I shoot all five of the fish. What's it saying?

よっしゃ よっしゃ ボーナスや! 5000
Yossha yossha boonasuya! 5000

I'm pretty sure ボーナス is "Bonus", and wiktionary gives yossha as "alright". や might mean "is", which would make it "Alright alright, bonus is 5000!". I do seem to get a points boost from this.



I find DOUBLE!! quite useful in the early part of the stage, when its 45 degree upward shot can clear enemies above me, but past the checkpoint the walls really close in and I'm tending to switch to the FAMICOM!! laser, which gives increased firepower in a narrower spread.



Then disaster strikes: I pick up a randomised power-up. The problem with these is that you can't get rid of them until you activate them, but doing so risks losing all your power-ups. I can't afford to take my eye off the play area long enough to try to time my button press to get what I want, and I wind up hitting "WHAT TH-!!", which puts me back to the base ship. This was a silly mistake, really - I was already at full power, aside from not having a BARRIER!!. I should have just played the rest of the life with what I had rather than risk losing it. BARRIER!!, although it seems like it would be the most useful item, has not been a priority for me. It only defends the front of the ship, and it has a much bigger hitbox than the ship, so it winds up absorbing a lot of fire that would otherwise have passed by harmlessly. I'm sure it has saved me a few times, but it's not to be relied upon.



Deprived of my firepower and with my movement speed reduced, I actually make it pretty far considering, but it's not to last.



Starting in the middle of the stage in the weak default state is hard.



The next life starts off a little better. I've been avoiding the first power-up here because it's a random one - in retrospect, since my ship isn't powered up yet, I probably should just take it. Worst case, I don't get anything from it, but there's nothing to lose yet.



My earlier attempts at getting through this bit from the checkpoint focussed on trying to get DOUBLE!! to take out the four heads in the narrow passage, but at some point I realised there's an enemy dropping a bomb that can do it for me, which takes the pressure off the early power-ups.



I wait to activate this bomb until everything I want to blow up is on-screen, then cruise freely to the power-up.



There might be enough power-ups to get back to full power before the end of the stage, but a fair number of them are randomisers that I don't want to risk collecting. I know one of the two I'm not getting in this GIF is, but not which one, so I avoid both.



My main goal is to double my firepower with an OPTION!!, as I do here. Another one would be nice...



BARRIER!! is a pretty good outcome from a randomiser, even if it's not the OPTION!! I wanted.



Near the end of the stage, the screen stops scrolling and the music changes to Aram Khachaturian's Sabre Dance.



Winged monsters (mechs?) start appearing from the right. Left alive long enough, they'll charge across the screen.



If they make it, they'll fire a heap of missiles at my ship. One of them comes extremely close to taking me out.



This goes on for a while, but just as it's getting overwhelming the screen starts to scroll. What now?



A peaceful looking figure on a not-so-peaceful dragon appears. Both fire at me, and I seem to be able to hit both by aiming for their faces.



There's writing on the beam fired by the humanoid figure:

メイリウ の (バ/パ)オラ
Meiriu no (ba/pa)ora

I'm struggling with this. Meiri apparently means "fame and fortune", no is a possessive marker, and オラ can be a first person pronoun, so perhaps this is "Fame and fortune are mine", but that ignores two characters. It's probably something else. Also, の is a hiragana character and the rest are katakana. I thought maybe the katakana version was too complicated to draw in this tiny font, but it's ノ, which seems doable. Iunno.



Although there's a fair bit of stuff on-screen, both of the boss' attacks are pretty easy to avoid.



Mostly. Here's the BARRIER!! that I recently derided as not very useful and only got by chance very definitely saving my ship.



It takes a little while and the attacks get faster, but I manage to beat it! Yes!



Oh man, that was just stage one? There's more?



I guess not. The game crashes. Looks like I just completed my first 1CC!



Xelpud has no comment on my amazing feat, but I save anyway to lock in my high score (actually obtained on an earlier, unsuccessful run), and quit. Phew!

To-Do:

-Beat PR3

Map:

PR3:

Congrats on sticking it out through PR3! Shame there doesn't seem to have been a reward for your troubles.

In Japanese the verb goes at the end of the sentence, so it's more like "Alright, alright, it's a bonus! 5000!" but yeah.

They're the Metal Gear Ray prototype (distinguishable from the mass-produced ones because of the tail) from Metal gear Solid 2!

This one surprised me, I don't associate it with an 8-16 bit looking game (and well, all references in the game so far have been to 8-16 bit Konami games)... but I guess La Mulana did come out in 2005. XD

It's "Meisou no Paola" (katakana ri and so are easy to mistake one for the other) = "Meditating Paola".

If she's a reference, no idea to whom.
A bit of googling led me to the 2nd Salamander OVA, called indeed: "Meditating Paola".

-----
ETA: Oh, and yes indeed, congrats on your hard fought victory! As always you're far more persistent than I'd ever be.

And holy shit, that map.

Metal Gear?! I thought those things looked familiar, but I couldn’t place them. I would never have got Meditating Paola, though.

The map I kind of just threw together - the space bit at the start is probably the wrong length because there was no stable reference point to connect screenshots. I would have liked to have included all the enemies on it, but with how they appear and move and also how many of them get blown up straight away once the ship is powered up, it wasn’t practical.

I was pretty pleased with this update, so I hope you all enjoyed it. I wasn’t sure how to LP a shooter, but I thought showing myself dying at just about every point in the level (I didn’t do any of them deliberately, so there were a few parts especially near the start where there were no deaths) was a pretty good approach.

Welcome back to Let's Play La-Mulana: The Mother Has Been Waiting. Last time, Lemeza put aside his quest to pilot a sole spaceship (well, probably seventy or more sole spaceships) against hundreds of foes. The time before that, though, he obtained what I'd hoped was the medicine of life, took it to the Mother, and found it to be false. So I'm returning to the Tower of Ruin to try again.



This time I cast BIRTH on the red fairy, and DEATH on the white fairy and group of fairies. I did take the suggestion from the thread and look up Rusali, Yaksi, and Dakini, but I wasn't able to figure out from that which was which in-game, so trial and error it is.



Doing it this way gets me a red liquid for my container. Blood? I guess that could be the elixir of life.



I head back to the Mother's Chamber via the Endless Corridor. I grind a little using the last enemy on the path so that I have full VIT when I reach the boss. Even if I remove the time spent doing that from the equation, it takes me over five minutes to make the trip from the altar in the Corridor to the Mother's Chamber. I'm pretty sure it's the closest warp point, too.



I take a few hits in the fight, but I'm still in pretty good shape when I beat the Mother's first form. Have I got the right medicine?



It appears that I do not. The Mother disappears and an exit from the room appears, as it did with the last batch of medicine I made.



I exit and re-enter, thinking that perhaps I'll get the second phase of the fight this time, but it's just the first part again.



So it's back to Fobous to reset the fairies. At least there's only one choice left now.



This time it's DEATH for the two solo fairies, and BIRTH for the group. This is the correct combination, which I know because A) I've tried the other two, and B) at the time of writing this I've already played the rest of this update. I got this by trial and error, but let's take another look at the clues:

The question is, which of the fairies is the mischievous Rusali. I know now that it's the group, but how was I supposed to know that? Let's ask wikipedia: Rusali I think is a misspelling of the plural form of Rusalka. If I'm right that it's a misspelling and I haven't missed some other entity called Rusali, then the plural bit alone should have clued me in. (I tried the group last because the mischievous fairy is described as "lonely"). Apparently rusalka are spirits of young women who have been murdered or comitted suicide. Yaksi are female spirits with exaggerated secondary sexual characteristics that can be benevolent or malevolent. I think - it's not the clearest page on the wiki. I think the white fairy, with its beguiling heart attack, is the Yaksi. I'm having trouble making sense of any description of Dakini I can find, but here's one:

That description seems to fit the red fairy, more or less.



The statue is now pouring a yellow fluid, which I collect in the container. I stop by the Village to save, then head for the Shrine again. Along the way I get the key fairy and try taking it to the room where Beelzebub was in case there's something hidden there. Doesn't seem that there is, though.



I also take it to the entrance from the Chamber of Extinction in the vain hope that it'll open the path there and allow me to cut about three minutes from the trip to the Mother's chamber. Nope! Is there an altar hidden in this place somewhere that I haven't found, or did the developers really intend for there to be a five minute plus hike before each attempt at the final boss? Speaking of which:



The Mother's first form is a pretty easy fight in itself. Even if every attack hits Lemeza, which isn't all that far from what's happening here, you'll probably still be able to take it out before running out of VIT. That might not leave you in good condition for the subsequent forms, though. Smart play (not shown) is to stay fairly close to the centre of the screen, dodge the first attack by moving from one side to the other, allowing Lemeza to avoid the second ball without getting too far away, which lets you to jump up and attack twice between the Mother's attacks assuming you don't have to dodge to many of the rebounding balls. Anyway, I've cracked the Mother's facade. Let's see if my new medicine will work:



It does! Uh-oh...



The Medicine, as advertised, gives shape to the Mother's soul. That shape then starts attacking Lemeza. Could it be that she does not want the eternal rest I'm here to provide? It does kind of look like I've already returned her to the stars...



For now, under attack, Lemeza needs to defend himself, but how? The Mother appears to be out of reach of most of my weapons. I try Bombs, but am unable to land a hit, though they will connect with her projectiles.



This is about as good a shot as I think I'll be able to take, and it misses. I must need to do something else.



These Flares pass through without so much as a "ping". That's not it either...



I can't seem to do anything with the whip.



I take a shot at reflecting the projectiles to no effect. It's hard to tell in the GIF, but the shot that hits Lemeza here does so right through the middle of the Shield.



After trying without success to hit the Mother's soul with various weapons, I decide to try blocking the light wave attack with the Shield, losing the last of my VIT in the process. This is almost four minutes into this phase of the fight - Lemeza doesn't take a lot of damage from these attacks, and they're relatively easy to dodge, but not having figured out how to attack I'm just stuck here taking damage. Darn.



Nine minutes later, my second attempt also ends in failure. This time I tried the axe and the Pistol, and then moved on to seeing if just avoiding damage for long enough would get the boss to another stage. Nope.



I start my third attempt at this phase by attacking the Mother while she appears. It doesn't seem to work.



This time, rather than trying to attack the Mother directly, I go for the projectiles. The keyblade isn't doing the job, though.



Nor is the katana.



The knife, though: there's the ticket! When I can connect with it, anyway.

Two out of three isn't bad.



You've really got to be accurate to make a hit here, which is tricky with the knife.



The tenth reflected projectile ends the second phase of the fight, and a new form of the Mother appears... a mother holding a baby?



I'm not sure I feel comfortable attacking this.



But it looks like I'm doing it anyway. The Mother's eyes open and start crying blood (perhaps upset because the baby appears to be a skeleton?) as glowing crosses fly in from the edge of the screen and throw waves of fire across the floor. The knife doesn't seem to be working.



I try flares, but they just "ping" as they hit the Mother's face. Standing below her to make the attempt puts me right in the middle of the enemy attack, too.



The Bomb also just makes pings.



I always find it hard to tell if the axe is connecting, because the sound the weapon swing makes is too close to the sound of a successful hit, but at least it doesn't produce a ping. It looks like I've found a way to dodge the Mother's attack, too.



If I can avoid screwing it up, at least.



Or there's always the old standby of just taking the hits and attacking during blink time.



That's (almost) more like it!



A few more hits and we're on to the next phase.



A pair of disembodied eyes in a sea of oversized micro-organisms is much more comfortable territory than the previous phase.



Attacking the left eye seems to be a bad idea. The right one makes a "ping", which suggests I've used the wrong weapon, but they both move when I attack it which makes me think I'm on to something.



Attacking the left eye now gets me another ping instead of lightning, but attacking it again gets more lightning. Let's review some clues:

OK, this seems pretty obvious - I'm fighting the Mother underwater, facing two giant eyes. The right sees charity, the left kindness, and I'm given a sequence of those two virtues that translates to RLRRLRLL. I need to attack the eyes in that order (though I've just realised something - the screen left eye is actually the Mother's right eye. You could argue that I should be attacking in a LRLLRLRR sequence in terms of where the eyes are on screen, but that's not what the game responds to).



Just as soon as I get some more VIT. I thought I was hitting the correct eye here: I'd done right, then left, then right. Next in the sequence is another right. I guess it resets when you hit the wrong one.



I reload, head through the Corridor and the Shrine, and beat the first three phases again.



This time I equip the knife (thinking its small hitbox would make it easier to avoid accidentally hitting the wrong eye) and run through the whole sequence: RLRRLRLL. Even though the knife also makes "ping" sounds on contact, the way the eyes respond to the correct sequence made me think that doing this would work. It doesn't.



Attacking the right eye at this point gets me zapped. Time for a rethink. Readers may have noticed something about the weapons used in the phases I've beaten so far - at this point in playing, I have not.



I try the whip and the keyblade, each of which will move the eyes, but with the sound of a ping.



I bust out the katana and give it a go. I still get lightning when the sequence is wrong, but now when I follow the order I get a satisfying "hit landed" sound. At this point the scales fell from my eyes and I saw the pattern with the weapons: the first phase required the keyblade, the second the knife, the third the axe, and this fourth the katana (the order almost matches how useful I've found the weapons, from least to most - just swap the axe and knife). So the good news is that I've figured out how to take on this part of the fight. The bad news is that once I beat it there'll be another form for me to take out with the whip. I don't have the VIT for that!



Not having enough VIT for a fifth form turns out to be immaterial - I didn't have enough for the fourth, even having figured out what I needed to do.



So, once again I go back through the Corridor, back through the Shrine, and unlock the Ankh in the Mother's chamber.



There's no reason a patient player should take any hits from the Mother's first form. I am not a patient player, so I take a few, but my VIT is still pretty reasonable at this point.



Dodging everything the second form puts out is quite tricky, and landing the hits pretty finicky, so I think I can be forgiven for taking some damage.

The third form has a consistent pattern that, although the timing is fairly tight, can be very reliably dodged, so there's no excuse for taking damage here. That said, my VIT at this point is lower than it was at the end of the second form.



The fourth form reduces your movement speed, surrounds you with enemies, and requires a weapon that hits below Lemeza, meaning I'm constantly struggling to get above the eyes to attack. I think taking hits here can be forgiven.



I get through the whole RLRRLRLL sequence from the stele. This GIF shows the two left side attacks at the end. To my surprise, that's not the end of this phase.



One more right-left does the job. What will happen now?



The Mother's tower rises from the floor and the figure of the Mother's soul starts bouncing around the room. I'm able to land hits with the whip, which spurs the Mother to summon several glowing balls to attack with.



Or maybe my attack landing was coincidence? The second Mother attack in this GIF comes after I fail to land a hit.



The tower opens to reveal... an eye?



The ground itself starts to attack me, and the Mother uses a much harder to avoid ball attack. I take a hit from it, but then am able to learn that the balls can be blocked with the shield or destroyed with the whip.



As I attack some more, images of Amphisbaena and Sakit briefly appear. Is this indicative of my making progress? I put my Shield to good use against the Mother's projectiles, but then walk into a column of light, tipping my VIT into the red.



After a few more hits, Ellmac and Bahamut's images appear and disappear.



Then Viy and Palenque. Are they being drawn into the eye?



Baphomet and Tiamat are next. As they disappear, something appears in the centre of the screen. It looks like what I'd taken for an eye is the Mother's womb, and something is growing there.



I try Flares to see if I need to attack it, but nothing seems to happen. Probably for the best.



I return my attention to the Mother, but I'm getting very low on health. With the rate at which these light columns appear, it's hard to get into a good position to attack.



C'mon...



Yes! The creator falls, stricken. Have I won? I continue whipping, just to be sure. She disappears, and the figure in the centre of the screen drops something before fading away.



It's the La-Mulana Treasure! The source of all life, or so I'm told. Score!



There's a rumbling sound, and Lemeza looks about desperately as the screen fades to black. Man, I don't have the VIT for an escape sequence! Am I going to die, after all that?

Lemeza heads out through the Shrine, fortunately for me on auto-pilot.



He heads through the Corridor as rocks fall all around. Has he forgotten about the Grail?



Or perhaps it doesn't work now that the Mother has been defeated? The Mausoleum of Giants is the next step on the path out of the ruins.



Finally he reaches the entrance of the Guidance Gate and escapes!



Outside, the sun is rising. Or setting.



Lemeza walks on screen and holds the La-Mulana Treasure aloft as the game congratulates me. Thanks, La-Mulana.



Lemeza sets off again on his slow walk across the screen and away from La-Mulana.



As the credits begin, Elder Xelpud appears behind Lemeza. This is the first time we've seen him outside of his hut.



As the Sages get their due, Rusali and the fairy that lived in the ruins join us.



As the Guardians are named, a villager appears, along with one of the women from the pit of sacrifice.



A skeleton joins the group as the Mother is named.



The undead continue to appear as the Algol and a ghost join us. I don't know what Duracuets is. Something I missed, I guess.



The child from the Village comes along as the shop masters are named. I haven't the foggiest which is which.



One of the fist enemies from the Mausoleum appears. Of the special cast, I met Samieru and Duplex as computers in hidden rooms. Gyonin was a character in the hidden game Muki Muki Memorial SD. Wherever Naramura was, I missed him.



It says You, but it was me, Yimothy. But this is a Let's Play, so in a sense it was all of you, too. One of those annoying monkey enemies from the Shrine shows up.



Without the efforts of the translator, this LP would not have been possible. One of the four Sages joins the exodus.



I have no idea who these people are.



Hey! Shorn's alive! And he stole my treasure!



And that's the end. Whew! I'm kind of surprised by my clear time. I thought it would be less, though of course the actual time is much more, since this probably doesn't include all the times I died or screwed up a puzzle and reset or played an update's worth but forgot to record it and so had to do it again. Not to mention the time spent compiling images and writing about them, which I think would total a few hundred hours. Yowza. Time to get my time back.

My thanks to everyone who's been reading, double thanks to everyone who's commented, double again for translation or puzzle help, and especially for help with the invisible ladder in the Confusion Gate, which I'm really not sure I would ever have figured out for myself. I started this LP eight months ago knowing it was going to be a big job and a little uncertain I would ever finish it. Fifty-odd updates later, here we are. I didn't manage to find everything - among other things, there are still five ROMs missing from my collection, I didn't reach the optional dungeon, I don't know what PASSWORD: ZEUS is about, and that damned block puzzle in the Labyrinths remains unsolved - but I think I did pretty well. It's a shame I resorted to guides for a few items (especially since if I'd just done my late-game thorough exploration a little sooner I probably would have found them honestly), but that's an authentic part of the La-Mulana experience, and what an experience it is. The game certainly has its faults, and there are a few puzzles whose challenge derives at least in part from inconsistent mechanics (like the already-mentioned block puzzle, or the balance scales where I got the mace, for example), but what other game sets the challenges that this one does? What other game rewards attentiveness and thought like this? Has anyone ever done a retro aesthetic better? La-Mulana is one of the greats.

OK, that's it. I hope you've enjoyed Let's Play La-Mulana: The Mother Has Been Waiting.

Clues:

Village:

"In obesiance to the Four Sages, we guarded the ruins. The four Sages realized that they could not grant the Mother's wish to return to the skies. Therefore, they wish at the very least to grant her the peace of death. That was the final conclusion that the Seventh Children reached. It is a sad thing that wish must be passed on to you, the eighth children. All children must eventually leave the parent's nest, I suppose. Your father was after the treasure of Life, the remains of the Mother's spirit once she dies. I hope you can get it in his place."

Confusion Gate:

"The mother ocean watches kindness and charity."

Temple of Moonlight:

"Welcome, chosen one. I am Alsedarna, one of the four Sages - the Sage of Death. I shall tell thee the secret of the ruins. We went into a long sleep to grant the Mother's wish. The Mother came to the Earth from the skies. We do not know where she came from. But she wanted to return. Having lost the power to move, the Mother breathed life into earthen dolls -- us humans. We were born to return her to the sky, and were given wisdom here in these ruins. Then we were send out into the wider world, to look for a way to return the Mother to the skies. Yes.... these ruins themselves are the Mother. Alas, returning the Mother to the skies is not possible. If we cannot grant her wish, then all we can do is grant her an eternal rest. Chosen one, please release the Mother from her suffering.... That is our wish...."

Spring of the Sky:

"Welcome, chosen one. I am Giltorriyo, one of the four Sages - the Sage of Knowledge. These ruins are the Mother's body. She can not be defeated. Thou must defeat her soul. Summon the soul of the Mother and give it a form in this world. The method to do so is already prepared. As the 7th children, we have devised a secret art for this.... And now we shall tell it to thee. Drive 8 wedges into the Mother's body. Find the Wedge and the Magatama Jewel, and chant the Mantras. The Mantras have been inscribed on Tablets. Drive the wedges through the rear. Please, chosen one. Grant our wish and release our Mother...."

Tower of the Goddess:

"The mischievous Rusali. Yaksi, who beguiles men. Dakini, dancing enticingly. Only one of them has a pure heart."

"The right eye sees Charity."

"Welcome, chosen one. I am Samaranta, one of the Four Sages - the Sage of Power. The soul of the Mother sleeps in the Shrine of the Mother. There lies the final Ankh. The final red light will bring forth its true form. Ye who hast conquered these ruins. Only thy power can grant the Mother rest. We four Sages sealed off four paths. Mine is now open. For the others, find Fobous and Giltorriyo. Now go, chosen one...."

Tower of Ruin:

"The kind, mischievous fairy. The kind, lonely fairy. Her mischief is innocent. Innocent mischief will do thee no harm."

"Ascertain those who would lead thee astray. Ascertain those who are truly pure."

"The left eye sees Kindness."

"To ye who hast made it this far, undertake the final trial. The Mother's wish can no longer be granted."

Chamber of Extinction:

"There is a medicine that can give form to a great soul. Consult the correct spirit."

Chamber of Life:

"Charity, Kindness, Charity, Charity, Kindness, Charity, Kindness, Kindness, the endless sound of the waves."

Twin Labyrinths (Front):

"Cast a spell on the spirits that have the elixir. The Elixir gives shape to souls."

Dimensional Corridor:

"Welcome, chosen one. I am Fobous, one of the Four Sages - the Sage of Life. The Mother's power is the power to create life. In ages past, others attempted to create life as well. Tiamat, Nu Wa........neither could compare to the Mother. With the Medicine of Life, one can attain the power of the Mother. The pure-hearted mischievous fairy has been entrusted with this medicine. Seek her out. When thou findest her, cast BIRTH, the spell of life, upon her. Cast DEATH, the spell of death, on the false fairies that would lead thee astray. If thou attainest the wrong medicine, return here. Without the correct medicine, thou cannot attain the power of the Mother........"

The Shrine of the Mother:

"Is this my son reading this? I hope so. I've made it this far, but was not chosen by the sages. I could not wake the Mother. Please do what I could not. The source of all life is here. Oh yes, please hit the "off" button now."






To-Do:

Anywhere:
-Find Shorn Kosugi
-Undertake the final trial
--Defeat the Mother's soul
---Give the Mother's soul form

Tower of Ruin:
-Get the medicine of life
--Identify Rusali, Yaksi, and Dakini
---Cast BIRTH on Rusali, and DEATH on Yaksi and Dakini

The Shrine of the Mother:
-Bring forth the Mother's soul and its true form, and grant it rest

Haha, I love that ending. Fuck you, dad!

Anyway, congrats! That was quite a final boss gauntlet. So many forms, and puzzles besides. I'm surprised that you got it in so few attempts, honestly.

I loved the shit out of this LP. Seeing someone tackle something impenetrable like this blind and (almost) spoiler-free is a rare delight, to say nothing of your usual deft hand with GIFs. Thanks for the trip!

Also, props on the final "clues" post, lol. That must have been cathartic!

It almost doesn't bear mentioning at this point, but it's incredibly impressive that you solved all that on your own. Thanks for showing us this game.