La-Mulana
Fair · Action · 2013
Steam Deck VerifiedThe verdict
NO RUSH.
Fair at $14.99. Buy it if you want it.
- Length
- 21h
- Value
- $0.71/hr
- Reviews
- 80% positive
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Minimum on the Steam store: 1 GB of memory, DirectX 9.0c compatible card, 128MB of VRAM, 502 MB of storage. Runs on Windows, macOS, Linux.
LA-MULANA is an “Archaeological Ruin Exploration Action Game,” bringing the classic appeal of adventure with the punishing difficulty of retro-inspired gaming. Search inside ancient ruins, seeking out the “Secret Treasure of Life” – which sleeps in the sprawling ruins of “LA-MULANA” and is said to be the beginning of all civilization.
What drives the score
How to read this
Every input gets a grade, S to D, read from the buyer's side. The score is multiplicative, so an input only counts as raising when it sits near the top of its own scale. Anything with real room left is holding the score back, because that room is the gap to 100. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. The exact weights stay secret.
The value story
December 2013 is where it bottomed out, at $1.49. It has been discounted 113 times in the 14 years tracked here, typically at 70 percent off, with about 5 weeks between sales. Today it is at full price. The last sale was about 2 weeks ago, and on this game's rhythm the next one tends to arrive within 5 weeks.
On value it sits in the top 7 percent of its genre. It is pricier than 86 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 78 percent. Among the games that feel like it, VVVVVV ($4.99, scores 96) beats it on value, while it beats Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap ($19.99, scores 42).
Of the 479 Steam-purchase reviews this site sampled, 1 comes from a buyer who refunded the game, sampled from reviews written March 2020 to September 2026. Inside the two-hour refund window, 49 percent of the 261 reviews written there were positive, against 80 percent overall, and those are 13 percent of everything written about it.
Finishing takes 21 hours; clearing it takes 66, which is 3.2 times the campaign.
Deck Verified, so no launch options and no controller remapping before it runs.
The drop-off
60% start to <1% rarestNo achievement in this game marks the ending, so there is no finish rate. The curve runs from the most-unlocked achievement to the rarest, and its shape is where players stop. Steam global achievements
Players
19 players at peak in the last day.
The chart appears once this game has been counted more than once.Player counts via SteamSpy.
What players say
First off, let me get this out of the way: I liked La Mulana. I liked it a lot. I've told my friends to buy it. It's definitely one of the most impressive indie efforts I've ever played, with a massive world, great art, excellent soundtrack, some truly great boss battles, and intensely enjoyable action/platforming gameplay. I even got into the story, for crying out loud. But oh boy, this game has issues. Some games...
Recent reviews have dropped this down to Mixed, which is a shame because this is easily one of my favorite games. It is not for everyone however, and I think people confuse that with being a bad game. Mechanically abrasive but highly rewarding. The game expects you to read and remember hints for hours in the future, or to revisit old zones to reread tablets when looking for progression. You have to read the manual...
Fantastic game that's stuck with me forever and reshaped how I think about games. I've played a lot more than what's on steam- playing the switch version first and also the vita version. First time I beat it recently though- the final boss is really tough! Can't recommend this enough. It's a good idea to have friends who have played it before who can point you in the right direction- I admit to using guides for some...
Player reviews from Steam: the most helpful all-time, plus the newest that clear the same quality bar, with the hours each player had put in when they wrote it. The mix of Recommended and Not recommended follows the game's Steam ratio. Rotates daily. Opinions are theirs.
Cite this score
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La-Mulana scores 58/100 on the BANG Score (fair value). The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/230700/la-mulanaThe BANG Score is one number for value, 0 to 100: price against how it reviews and how long it was built to be. It answers the money question and stops there; whether the game is for you is still your call.
Reviews set the ceiling and price moves you inside it, so a cheap game that reviews badly cannot climb. Ratings from few reviewers are shrunk toward the middle, so 100 percent from nine people does not outrank 96 percent from ninety thousand. Length comes from HowLongToBeat where it can be matched, measured against a per-genre floor so a five-hour narrative game is judged against other narrative games rather than against a sixty-hour RPG. Where no verified length exists the score says so and carries a dock, because the biggest input is then a guess. The full method, including where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 6, price as of Sep 24.
A number here look wrong? Tell me what it got wrong and I will look at the inputs behind it.