La-Mulana

Light spoilers here (nothing puzzle wise, just an upgrade you get that you'll see in the manual if you read it)
Game mechanically played fine, moving around felt ok. Knockback being intended to piss you off definitely achieved its goal. Double jump was hard for me to use for some reason, would always assume it kept my upward momentum and added to it, not replace it. The whip hitbox is significantly shorter than advertised by the visual, boss hitboxes are a mess. Its playable, just somewhat frustrating in ways that i doubt were intended. If they were intended, its bad design. Difficulty shouldnt be implemented in the form of misleading hitboxes. At the end of the day, im happy i played this game. Its unique, and sure its suffering but theres some joy to be had in finding a horrid answer to a puzzle and being able to complain about it with people who have also suffered. I did feel some accomplishment realizing the solutions to puzzles, even if it was retroactively after getting a hint or brute forcing, and times when you actually feel like you know whats happening are great. Cant say i recommend playing it, its a lot of wandering miserably and not understanding, but sometimes thats appealing, i guess? Its a vast change of pace from anything else iv played, anyway.
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Spoilers beyond here
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I took issue with a lot, as you probably should with this game.
- There were a nonzero number of puzzles without hints in a game about using clues to solve puzzles
- Theres a lot of intentionally obtuse language, which i mean you should expect. The problem comes when a puzzle has exactly one hint and its obtuse as all hell (gate of illusion, big brother's shop). Basically same complaint as above.
- I think every usable item outside of the djed pillar, scanner, and lamp of time was shoehorned in, there was no reason for just about any of them to exist. some of them were literally passive items (the curse-breaking talisman, serpent staff to kill argus) that you had to equip to get the effect of. I will admit, I laughed at the Palenque boss fight just ending for not using the Pochette Key
- The eden puzzle was cool but ruined by the fact that you had to press the item button, should have been a different way to interact with it, or worded as "inspect" the locations or something other than what it was.
- Key fairy, granted it is not required to beat the game i dont think
- Most boss fights were ok, nothing special. Almost all had something frustrating or unfun that im not sure was intentional. Tier list and reasons why i ranked where i did below
- Access to twinlabs is there from turning the game on, this should almost certainly not be the case, as shown by the classic version of the game that did not have the ladder from inferno -> twin
- Escape sequence with intentionally trolly design after a five phase final boss zzzzzz. In the manual for classic they say "we wanted to create tension in every moment. Imagine you were exploring ruins in real life. Would you jump down a pit you cant see the bottom of? Hell no!" In the escape sequence you have to jump down a pit you cant see the bottom of (the escape is remake exclusive too, apparently)
- The serpent staff usage in Chamber of Birth is bullshit and you cant convince me otherwise. Yes, it should probably be an easy brute forced thing and yes im mad i wasted as much time there as i did but thats still not a good excuse for it. There was a hint tablet for using the key of eternity on the infinity sign that very clearly appears only after solving a puzzle in the room it shows up in, but not for this?
- Grail should be where the shell horn is, tbh. Item has no hints and its entirely possible to just miss it for hours on end. If NOTHING else, game should say "do not leave the gate of guidance until you have the holy grail" or something VERY specific to tell you how important that shit is to playing the game.

I said it during my final stream of the game, but i dont think its possible to catch everything i would want to put here in a retrospective. Should have kept a running list as i played honestly, think that would be fun to look back at and see what i was thinking at times. Would recommend that to someone who has not played yet.

Things I liked:
- The QoL items were massive cranks but still really nice, i laughed every time i found something like the scriptures or the crucifix.
- The translation puzzle in tower of ruin was sick. I actually managed to translate the letters using the nearby tablet that has both translated and untranslated text, but forgot about the hint that said to follow the name of the nameless one. I ended up brute forcing the puzzle but i had the right translation and realized it as soon as the chest unlocked. I also thought i had to use all of the letters, so when i was looking through key names and words i had written down in my notes i didnt really take note of mu. I just really like the idea of "hey, we could have made you learn the alphabet yourself :)" I think it showcased the custom language in an intelligent manner.
- The eden -> gate of illusion transition was so cool, probably my favorite moment in the game outside of actually finishing, wasnt sure that would happen ever.
- In general, i really like the idea of a game that encourages you to note every little thing, as impossible as it is to do in a manner that is playable. I think its really cool that i had like 6 or 7 pages of notes written down, and it felt great to cross stuff off as i was playing and progressing
- Music, have some top jams:
Inferno cavern: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsfgTnx--oY
Endless Corridor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TkBf53aGes
Dimensional Corridor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBVjqd2mneY
Tiamat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cp_A1Nn9b-Q
I really love how the bosses all have the same sounding intro as you go into the fight
- Wont you buoy something, blub-fishy-blub?

Places i took hints:
- the first hint i took was.... the pepper? I forgot about the ONLY head that mattered with it and wandered around for a long time because of it, eventually asked "what area is it in" and figured out that i missed one
- Needed help for big brother's shop, i hit a wall at some point, asked where to go next, was told twin labs, and then further was told "look at your map, something isnt there that it says is"
- took a hint for the serpent staff use in CoB, because i thought i tried everything on that mound but i did not. Ended up wandering A LOT before being told to go back to the mound.
- was told to focus on the tablet in tower of the goddess that tells you about the annunuki stone basin and the giant is pointing at, twice actually. Once for each hint there. For the later of the two i also asked if i was in the right place while in the mausoleum of giants
- was told to look at the tablet in inferno cavern with the map of it and tower of ruin overlaid as a hint for the mudra puzzle, was told that wedges correspond to bosses correspond to mudras to fronts to backs (after saying and having confirmed "you told me to look at that tablet to realize they are overlaid, right"), and that the cross of light was "like a nail holding the maps together"

I think this was everything? I honestly dont remember anymore what all i got help on and what i stumbled my way through eventually lmao. If you watched my playthrough and i forgot some, feel free to make fun of me in a spoiler free manner.

Tier Lists

Weapons:
Axe
Whip
Katana
Key Sword
Knife

anything under whip essentially fell into the useless category after some test usage. knife was nice for hitting below me until i got the katana and it functioned better

Sub Weapons:
Chakram, the GOAT
Gun, i guess? Feels dirty to put in this list honestly
Shield, they own
Flare, one of few things that hits above you, made bahamut killable
Rolling Shuriken, killed pazuzu and viy for me
Earth Spear, good on a Palenque, maybe Viy if i had enough to burn there, useless anywhere else
Shuriken, actually used them somewhat but too weak to be high tier, even when mashing
Bombs, very weak on bosses (when you would actually want to use them) and very expensive
Caltrops, because this was a casual/blind playthrough and i didnt do the fun inventive stuff like using them to have iframes on bosses
          or to fall down ladders fast. This tech would put them above flares, probably.

Usable items:
Lamp of Time
Hand Scanner
Djed Pillar
Pochette Key
>Power Gap<
Pepper
Dragon Bone
>This is the end of items that needed to be usable<
Cog of the Soul
Key to Eternity
Crystal Skull
Woman/Maternity Statue
Magatama Jewel
Mini Doll
Vessel
Serpent Staff
>These items should have been put under passive even with the game as it is right now<
Talisman/Diary/Mulana Talisman

Bosses:
Palenque, bullet hell kinda thing was overwhelming at first but ended up being doable and cool imo. the pillars suck though
Baphomet, mostly just an enjoyable boss, nothing obnoxiously frustrating
Amphisbaena, maybe the only boss with 0 garbage. Good intro boss while you get used to the movement of the game, now if only it was the
             easiest to find
Tiamat, kinda hard to tell when her big attack in phase 3 snapshots your position until you die to it a few times, impossible to know
        what parts of her will damage you, dodging some attacks feels like chance even after killing her
Mother, phase 1 and 2 shouldnt exist, five phases is too long and they dont do anything. The walk to her is annoying at best
Ellmac, dash isnt really telegraphed and was frustrating feeling like i had no choice but to eat some of the fire breath attacks. Rails
        felt random and that limits chances to attack
Sakit, literally forgot about this guy making this list, counted only 8 and was like wait who... He's just bland, and amphisbaena
       already has the excuses for that reserved
Viy, gives rolling shurikens a use, but otherwise is pretty meh
Bahamut, I JUST WANNA HIT GANON

Bosses in this game were invuln or effectively so too much