Mulaka is an action adventure game set in Northern Mexico which takes on a wonderful and enlightening journey while showcasing a culture that you probably didn’t know about. Mulaka has been developed and published by Lienzo with the design work being done by Edgar Serrano. Mulaka is available on all major platforms which includes the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and of course PC. So, is Mulaka worth the journey through Northern Mexico or is it better to be left and forgotten to the sands of time, lets find out.
Mulaka has you play as Mulaka, a Tarahumara shaman who embarks on the journey of a Sukurúame who are renowned for their running abilities. On your journey you will draw upon the powers of the Demi Gods to fight off the evil and corruption that is slowly taking over the land. The location is heavily inspired by real Sierra Tarahumara locations and includes a lot of puzzle solving. The overall length of the game is not too long and can actually be completed in one long session since it is 8 to 9 hours long. The powers that you get do include shape shifting into animals like a bird to fly around and collect items or a bear to break down barriers to open up the area and level. While the environments are interesting at first they lose your interest after the first few levels.
After the initial couple of levels, the level variety and design seems to stagnate, which is sad since the game has an interesting and new location which I would’ve loved to see more of. But, the levels towards the end do improve and is probably my favourite part of the game. The game has you collect 3 keys in every level which then unlocks a door for you to fight a boss. At first, the boss fights were underwhelming but just like the case of the level design, it got progressively better towards the end of the game. Enemy variety is there but the variety isn’t that much since you will begin to see enemies often which will get repetitive, especially since the level variety gets stagnant too. You also have the option to craft items by collecting resources but it isn’t a deep or complex system.
The movement and fighting is fluid which is great since the game is fight heavy. The game also has platforming sections which can get frustrating due to the camera angles and was my least favourite part of the game. Thankfully, the platforming sections were not high in number. One of the issues that I felt that plagued the smooth and fluid combat was the way the health potion works. Once you decide to take a health potion, your character does a little dance which can break the flow of the game and also allow enemies to gang up on you and deal damage, at times rendering the health potion useless.
The visuals are decent with great usage of colours and has a low poly artstyle. This art style fit the game quite well and I liked it. The music is fantastic and is one of the highlights of the game. Even if you do decide not to play the game, you should absolutely go ahead and check out the music of this game on either Soundcloud or Youtube because it really is amazing. The game does have its fair share of bugs, glitches and annoyance which hampered my experience which includes random crashes.
Mulaka is a game that provides an experience that was new to me due to the setting and culture it revolved around. It has fluid movement and a good combat system but it does get boring and can lose players after the initial part of the game before picking back up towards the end. The game has its fair share of issues and I feel that is a game which you should check out if it ever goes on sale or if the Northern Mexican setting and culture intrigues you as much is it did to me.
