There's never been a much better amount of time in history to push for diversity in the stories we tell and experience. Thanks mainly to some growing advancement socially and politically, consumers are asking for a chance to see more from creators than the typical status quo, especially in video games. Enter Mexico-based developer Lienzo, bringing the rich good reputation for the Tarahumara individuals to the forefront of its latest venture, Mulaka. While on its surface the sport touts itself as a third-person action-adventure experience, the team were built with a clear and strong passion to college us on a community that was not given its time in the spotlight. And that's Mulaka's greatest achievement: using the platform of a video game to immerse a player in a real-world history lesson they may didn't have experienced otherwise. However, when it comes to every facets of exactly what a game should really offer, it does not succeed as much as it tried.
Of the two years it popularized develop the title, Lienzo spent six months going to the real Tarahumara people of Chihuahua, gathering fables, true-to-life accounts, and cultural customs to inject into Mulaka. You play as the Sukurúame, the Tarahumaran name for a shaman, who must travel across various locations throughout northern Mexico (which we now know as Chihuahua). Choosing the help of the demigods, it's as much as the Sukurúame to gather their powers to plea towards the gods not to destroy the current world. Because it surely might seem, the overall plot is fairly straightforward, but the connections the development team made with Tarahumaran lore and in-game mechanics takes everything to a much deeper level.
Players visit several regions of Chihuahua, like the Samalayuca desert, Paquimé market, Resó Rekubí, and Arareko lake, which are all still around today. Because the Sukurúame, you will get abilities that help with traversing perilous landscapes and interacting with as numerous of the people as you possibly can. With the Tarahumarans' strong connection with the spiritual world, believing the dead can still be contacted, one such skill is Sukurúame vision, enabling you to see ghosts inside a mechanic that feels reminiscent of detective mode in the Batman Arkham series. With it, you not only interact with characters in the spirit world, but additionally to determine certain enemies hidden from the real-world. The Tarahumarans also had a deep respect for certain animals, like the bear, which is translated into gameplay like a transformation for Sukurúame. You are able to transform in to the mighty beast briefly to bypass certain rock formations or use the powerful slash attacks in battle. Overall, the spell offers several uses, whilst teaching the gamer of their cultural significance.
While these are just examples, the detail put in making the Tarahumara culture come to life is unprecedented here. Rather than simply telling the player concerning the thoughts and feelings of the people solely through cutscenes, they reach experience the lore first-hand. All aspects to Sukurúame as a playable character are dripping with rich history, even right down to the fact that he has three health bars, referred to as souls in-game, since the Tarahumarans believe men have three souls. Additionally, much like the bear, Sukurúame can transform into three other animals of significance: a puma, bird, and water snake. Players must use all these other forms to successfully travel over the different areas, making their contribution to exploration vital. Consequently, Lienzo took the opportunity to use gameplay mechanics to obtain players to determine what the Tarahumarans honor and respect and why.
Unfortunately, with regards to the way the battling works, this is where the overall package starts to lose its luster. While I easily acquired the hack-and-slash mechanics of battle, as Sukurúame's main way of offense come from a fast and high attack together with his spear, the simplicity became frustrating once several types of enemies were introduced. Within the opening areas of Mulaka, you only go up against lesser creatures and spirits, providing a well-balanced bootcamp to test combos with the fast and high moves. However, much less far into the journey more enemies are introduced and thrown at you, often in groups, which often resulted in a glaring problem that occurred repeatedly.
Most of the creatures come with a unique defense that needs a particular maneuver to beat, such as the bull-like rock monsters that may charge in the player. The only real way of causing damage would be to time a dodge appropriately and allow the enemy rush past, exposing its weak spot on its back. On the other hand, there are several baddies which use shields that may only be overcome with a heavy attack, followed by a quick combo of the fast attacks. While these examples only scratch the surface of enemy variation, needing to execute several different offensive maneuvers in a single area turned out to be downright impossible sometimes. For example, there have been many instances where I'd attempt to set up a heavy attack from the shielded animals, only to be bashed by a bull-rock since i wasn't in a position to dodge during my attack setup. Essentially, the game was wanting me to stand my ground whilst moving as much as possible, which just doesn't make any sense. Again, this really is an example of two kinds of enemies making a battle a lot more than cumbersome, however when come up with, a majority of another monster types provided similar issues.
I can applaud the developers for wanting to make each encounter more than just a repetition of mashing the fast attack button, but there has to be a good way of overcoming any obstacle. It by no means needs to be easy. In fact, complexity in battle systems should equal practice for perfection. However, losing may come right down to the player's faults; not design flaws. Sadly, this same oversight bled into another core mechanic of battle: healing and taking damage. As previously mentioned, Sukurúame has three health bars, or souls, that leave his body after taking a specific amount of damage from enemies. Thankfully, among the four spells he can learn can return a soul if the situation gets beyond control. Similar to the battle problems, though, you will find apparent design issues.
When Sukurúame loses a soul, an animation occurs that lifts him into the air for the player to obtain the full effect that he's lost some of health. As the moment is involuntary, leaving him available to attacks, you might think Sukurúame would be safe from taking damage, but that is not the case. Monsters can continue to harm him, making several infuriating instances where I would be waiting for the animation to end, only to have another soul near to being lost. Exactly the same strange problem happens with healing, as returning a soul triggers an identical animation. When the soul returned to Sukurúame's body, creatures had hit me enough that the extra health was almost gone again.
Combining both of these glaring drawbacks with multiple smaller issues started to grate on my small experience playing the sport. From enemy hits connecting with Sukurúame despite him being clearly from the danger zone, to attacks not registering on creatures that were definitely in my spear's reach, the negatives greatly outweighed the positives if this found combat. That was unfortunate, as the game's mechanics for exploration were very intriguing and enjoyable, as was the general story. All of the animal transformations were an engaging way of travel and platforming, making me constantly wish to find all the methods to look for bonus artifacts that unveiled more history of the game's people. Unlike battling, they offered a manageable and diverse variety of travel options, as the bird solved the problem glide to new areas, the puma could pounce from tree to tree, and the water snake could swim upstream.
It was confusing to see so much effort put into creating a well-developed world that immersed the gamer inside a real, true-to-life culture, simply to possess the ball dropped on arguably the most important facet of any action-adventure game: battling. In turn, Mulaka could have been best without any combat whatsoever, instead using different puzzles as a way to progress. Of course, that's not the sport we have now, though, making recommending the sport a difficult decision.
I was undeniably blown away by the attention to detail if this came to historical and cultural accuracy, just like any game which makes me wish to study and find out more about someone I knew nothing about is not always easy. Exploring was engaging and fascinating enough to keep me scouring every corner of the several areas, too. However, the core action gameplay was lackluster, otherwise unbearable sometimes. Unfortunately, the praise for Mulaka isn't as universal when i had hoped, but there's still enough focus on detail in the areas beyond find it hard to argue it's worth trying out.
