Some of you here may have heard of an indie game from 2005 of quite epic scope called La-Mulana, which featured over sixteen large, complex, and interconnected areas filled with puzzles, and a very rich soundtrack (including a unique track for every boss) to accompany it. Designed in part as a "love letter" to the MSX computer system, featuring 8-bit-style pixelated graphics, chiptune music, and a large number of references to MSX and MSX2 games, it also stood on its own as a large-scale indie metroidvania game, by a developer named GR3 (now renamed NIGORO), consisting of three Japanese guys.

The success of the game--especially overseas, unexpectedly (as the MSX never became a big thing in the U.S.) prompted the developers to port it to other systems in a proper commercial release, with a more updated presentation, graphically and musically.

Well, that's what they did. The Japanese version came out on WiiWare in 2011, and localized English versions were slated to come out on WiiWare and PC/Windows. Nicalis (which has produced Cave Story for WiiWare) was supposed to handle the localization, though that--particularly the WiiWare release--ran into some problems.

Nevertheless, NIGORO forged ahead with their translated version and their dedicated and long-waiting English fanbase, and now, La-Mulana has been published directly for PC!

They've released the game, in a dual-language version, on Playism's new English-language site--as what's basically a launch title for the new site, in fact. It currently retails at $14.99 and is (as I've heard) DRM-free. This is the new version of the game, a translated edition of the WiiWare version, which features lots of new content, including reworked puzzles, bosses, script, and more.

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