The Wii is running on fumes, make no mistake about it, but at least there are a few bright spots remaining. One such spot was Lu-Mulana, a beefed-up version of a freeware platformer that offered plenty of challenge and exploration. I had casually dabbled in the original, but it was enough to place the remake in my “most wanted Wii games of 2012” list.
After numerous delays, Nicalis finally announced that it would no longer be publishing La-Mulana in North America or Europe. The game was actually released last June in Japan, but there were some nasty hiccups that needed to be addressed before it came out West. Developer Nigoro recently stated that the supposedly fixed build was in Nicalis’ hands over four months back. Nicalis, however, said that Nintendo still cited compliance issues and wouldn’t approve. As it stands, the long development time caused the game to miss the Wii’s prime years, meaning it no longer stood any chance of selling well.
The PC port of the remake is still on its way and will be self-published by Nigoro, so it’s not a total loss. Could a Wii U version appear in the future? Who knows.
