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[rdein]

Well, I'm stuck! I can't find any coins, there are no coins! I've killed every snake and every chicken and busted every pot, 1 coin. I will never buy any of the equipment I need to progress.

if you save+load, the pots with 10 coins reset and you can grab them again

[iffi]

What does the map do?... Also, do you need a Glyph reader MSX cartridge to read all these tablets with the hand scanner? ALso, I found athletic land cartridge, but I have no idea what it does.

You need the Map ROM (buy it at the Surface shops) to use the map (equip the ROM, then press F4). And yes, you need a glyph reader to read the tablets. It may be worth save+load grinding a bit to gather the coins necessary from pots, since you're not going to get very far without the glyph reader. As for the Athletic Land ROM, the online La-Mulana database says that there is a purpose for it, but it's not crucial to the game. Namely, DOUBLE SPOILER. Most of the ROMs that serve a critical purpose as opposed to having minor effects or being purely collectibles are listed in the manual.

Well, I'm stuck! I can't find any coins, there are no coins! I've killed every snake and every chicken and busted every pot, 1 coin. I will never buy any of the equipment I need to progress.

if you save+load, the pots with 10 coins reset and you can grab them again

This also goes for all the pots that contain ammo for your secondary weapons (shurikens, etc.). Basically any pot that contains a lot of a preset item resets on load, with a few exceptions.

already opened the ruins entrance using shuriken and did some of the first puzzles. i don't remember how to get the grail, though. any hints? last thing i did was the sword->shield->helmet->armor puzzle

i feel rather dumb for not having found the glyph reader yet, too ok you can buy it, nvm

Get behind a block that there doesn't seem to be a way behind.

[baconman]

Well, having dabbled a little and not gotten too terribly far before; here's my exploits for the day:

-Made the full gamut of the outside perimeter. Ran like a bitch from the giant, avoided plunging down the waterfall. Scored "Game Master," "Hand Scanner," and "Shell Horn."

-Went into first ruins part. HAND SCANNER IS VERY HELPFUL HERE. I like how there's a Life Jewel early on to show you what it is and what they do. Also got Shurikens early on. Died a couple times to some YASDs, one of which involved me whipping a wall/corpse in the lower-right hand corner of a certain screen, and getting instakilled by lightning. That was a serious "WTF!?" moment. Also, I hate bats.

-Solved the armory puzzle, wasn't that hard to do. I have no idea of what that actually affects, however. Managed to score a green gem from a mouth, while I was at it, and find my way to work around that one block and activate a lift that took me up. Got the Grail too, for whatever that does, and a Map that at first, didn't seem to function. Heard about the 8 Anhks and Guardians, blabbity blablahh.

-Saw one room along the way with a treasure chest and three... anteaters?! At first I thought "finding a way to light the ________ on the right" might open it, but then I started paying attention and noticed there's a lot of those around. Hmm. I'll solve that sometime or another.

-Went back to the surface, scored the MAP rom, and saved my game... possibly a tragic mistake ...with about 10% of my health remaining; and my EXP at a little over halfway. Is grinding and filling your EXP really the ONLY way of restoring your health? o.o'

-Made one more trip down and found the "angel's pathway," which apparently is the first part of the early ruins' puzzle, along with a path that leads down into a second part. However, taking that seemed to loop me back to the room above, how about that?

I also got Konami's Tennis, Athletic Land, and... one other ROM, but I can't remember what it's called. It was a while ago. Not a big idea of what all they do either.

I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO EXCITED TO GET SUCH A BASIC MAP SINCE THE LEGEND OF ZELDA.

Come to think of it, for one sitdown, that's probably a lot of stuff to get!

[iffi]

The only ways of restoring your health are filling up the EXP bar, getting life jewels (which won't happen often), and saving+reloading the game. After you get more life jewels, though, filling up the EXP bar isn't nearly as difficult.

Also, the "whatever that does" Grail is incredibly useful - instructions on what it does and how to use it are in the manual.


Protip: Visit Elder Xelpud from time to time without having the Game Master ROM equipped. He usually just spouts out some random crap about the MSX but occasionally he actually says something useful (like in the very beginning).

[PaleFox]

Whenever you reload you start with full health, so if you're dying you might want to do that. Later on you can increase EXP gains and obviously health so it gets easier to make prolonged excursions.


If you find an item and you don't know what it does, check the manual and also go talk to elder Xelpud; he gives tips and clues about new areas and items. For example, he outright tells you how to use the Grail, which is very useful.



Just hit the first boss, myself. This game is harder than I remembered

[baconman]

Yeah, he gives me that great "Cranky Kong" impression. And he did tell me about setting a teleportation point by reading weird-shaped glyphs... although I'm still not certain how to activate them (unless maybe you have to activate multiple ones, and then "enter" them to teleport between them?)...

[PaleFox]

You hit the number corresponding to the location while in your inventory.


I've forgotten all the answers to the puzzles after the first area, so I'm very confused right now. Goddamn water areas, right?

[Hangedman]

I keep getting murdered. But I'm intrigued! Gotta learn when to back out and go save. Also need to grind enough to get a few more useful things, like the Glyph Reader.

[rdein]

once you get the grail, getting back to save+heal is like a 10 second trip. i'm with crowe here; ventured into the sun shrine and got the knife, now i don't remember anything, haha.

[iffi]

I wish I didn't remember as much as I do.

[Ashkin]

Died from whipping a wall.
GUESS I'LL BE MORE CAREFUL ABOUT WHAT I WHIP

[baconman]

Were you in the bottom right corner of a room facing left, right by a corpse? That's where I got surprise bolted.

[iffi]

If you get hit by a bolt of lightning from striking something, that something is significant in some way, be it where a new weapon is located, an obstacle that has to be removed, etc.

[paste]

I'm in on this one as soon as I get some free time. I attempted a little bit of it before and got discouraged, but reading the manual is explaining a lot about what went wrong when I first tried it. It's a bit cryptic about how to play in windowed mode. I'm guessing F6?

edit: holy crap there's a lot of stuff in this manual. i hope i'm not expected to memorize all of this.

[WelcomeToAwesomeness]

Trying to play it again: all transparency colour is light brown instead of black. It's incredibly hard on the eyes.

EDIT: apparently it's a windows 7 problem caused by fullscreen. Oh welp, windowed it is

same thing happened to me, how'd you get it to run in windowed?

[paste]

Woo, I beat the first area! Though there are still a couple of riddles left to solve, i.e. treasures not yet opened. I'd say more of what I've been doing, but I don't know how to do the spoiler thing on this that hides what you're writing. How?

edit: one thing i'm really liking about this game is that it doesn't have that "hit everything suspicious with your weapon" kind of feel that most games that look like this had (and i guess still have)

[Hangedman]

Windowed = alt+enter.
You may also have the same problem I had with scanned text being invisible. If so, check the LaMulana wiki for 'Troubleshooting'. There's a replacement text image with a non-transparency colour for the text.

[PaleFox]

Making some progress! I'm completely lost as to where to go but I've got a couple of new weapons and I killed a boss, so that's good.

The text transparency thing should be fixed in windowed, but if you want to play fullscreen yeah, you'll have to replace the font file.


I have no idea what the hell to do in the second area, so I've just been avoiding it. I got stuck there last time, too

[IzzyReggie]

I keep dying before I can get the item that lets me save 

[iffi]

I keep dying before I can get the item that lets me save 

At least one of the pots on the Surface should contain all the coins you need to buy the Game Master ROM. If you're having trouble doing that, you just need to practice the timing needed for the whip.