Mulaka review

Reviewed on: Xbox One

A beautiful adventure through Mexican mythology – and nothing more

Mulaka is the second game from independent studio Lienzo – they previously released Hunter’s Legacy – located in Mexico, more specifically in the Chihuahua region, and that says a lot about the game, since it is broadly based on the mythology, culture and even geography of the place.

In the game you are a Sukurúame, a kind of shaman of the Tarahumara tribe, natives who even today have great influence on religion and customs in the Sierra Tarahumara region. A good part of the character’s traits derive from that. In the legends, the natives of this tribe, very strong and warlike by nature, could cover great distances at high speed and never got tired, even managing to hunt animals without landing any blow, just tiring them out by chasing them. This explains why the character develops great speed when running and has no stamina bar as is normal in games of this type.

Another trait is that the player has an energy bar divided into three parts, because in the stories the Tarahumara had three souls. Each time the player loses one of these parts, a short animation shows the soul leaving the character’s body.

Characters, events, places and even enemies were all based on the legends of the Tarahumara people, and Mulaka proves to be a beautiful adventure in exploring this theme little known to the general public. The chosen art also helps and is quite pleasant. Using low poly visuals and bright, vibrant colors, the game proves quite pleasant to play and admire, although at some moments it becomes a bit tiring and even poor in some aspects, especially when we assess the work as a whole. Controls and gameplay take away a good part of the game’s shine.

If the minimalist look with a pleasant soundtrack and sound effects (some dialogue is even in the Tarahumara native language) wins over a good part of players, the controls and some technical decisions may leave a good part of the audience frustrated with the gameplay.

You have two attack buttons, a quick one and a strong one, a jump button, dodge, run, a button to throw the spear and another to use your magic vision that reveals locations, some items and enemies. Nothing complicated, but with an imprecision that borders on the ridiculous. The strong attack button seems to work whenever it feels like it, especially when we use the aerial strike. The dodge in some cases is useless, and it’s easier to simply avoid enemies with the character’s normal movement.

And that isn’t even the main problem of the gameplay: when we lose one of the energy bars, an animation plays showing it leaving the body, and the same happens when we use a potion to recover energy, showing the character doing a little dance that lasts a few seconds but, amid several enemies during a battle, can mean many moments of frustration, because the enemies do not cease their attacks during these animations while the character becomes uncontrollable by the player and there is nothing we can do to avoid losing energy from the hits taken.

Besides that, after progressing in the game, we can take the form of the demigod animals that help us on the journey; these also have their animations that can get in the way when we want to perform more precise movements, and many times we will need to do that. In battles where we need to attack enemies, dodge attacks, use mystic vision, aim the spear all at the same time and the player still has to take into account the time these animations take, things can get quite complicated. The battle against War’ruara Watakari (the giant toad) can be extremely frustrating and should become the quitting point for many players for exactly this reason.

Another problem is that despite all this Mexican mythology background, the game itself is quite shallow; you basically spend your time running around the map collecting items to open doors and face enemies until you reach the area boss. Looking at it coldly, although pretty, it is a rather poor game with nothing really very engaging in its gameplay.

Even so, Mulaka can still be a good option for those looking for an action game with interesting visuals and a story full of symbolism and myths little known to those who don’t know the culture it is based on.