Wii is to doujin as Xbox is to indie?
This is probably old news to a lot of you, but I just discovered that La Mulana is coming to US WiiWare later this year, with improved graphics and sound (which are optional, and you can toggle back and forth between them and the original graphics and sound)! This is amazing, since La Mulana is one of the biggest and most difficult games I’ve ever seen; it was originally a Japanese doujin game designed as a gigantic, obtuse tribute to old MSX games, and it’s gained a big cult following on the internet for being incredibly daunting and crammed full of secrets. From the little bit I’ve played of it, it feels like a cross between Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and I Wanna Be the Guy.
The port is being done by Nicalis, the same guys who are porting Cave Story to WiiWare, which I’m also looking forward to. I find it intriguing that these two big Japanese doujin PC games are being ported to a Japanese system… but by an American company! I wonder what that says about the Japanese video game market and the Japanese video game industry…
And speaking of La Mulana, if you haven’t played Derek Yu’s La-Mulana-inspired Spelunky, then you’re not living life to its fullest. You may love it, you may hate it, you may hate loving it (as I did), but at any rate you should at least play it for a while.