NIGORO posted some details on the achievements for La-Mulana today, and what they have to say about them might surprise you.

It’s never really been public what NIGORO thinks of achievements, but this new post is rather illuminating: the team doesn’t like achievements. They make a fair point: achievements direct players to play the game in a certain way, rather than find their own path.

All the same, knowing that achievements were a much-requested feature for the Steam version, NIGORO thought it might be a good idea to use the system to their advantage.

The really interesting thing they touched on, was the significance of the Steam achievement icons’ borders. This is how they broke it down:

• Yellow frame: achievements you get by progressing through the game
• Blue frame: achievements related to characters that appear in the end credits
• Red frame: Challenging achievements that NIGORO dares you to get.
• White frame: Misc. and trivial achievements

I spent some time working on the localization for the English Steam achievements, and after spending some time with them, I couldn’t help but let a maniacal cackle out. Some of these achievements are truly devious.

Still haven’t preordered the Steam version of La-Mulana? You can do so here, and get the 10% preorder discount while it lasts. La-Mulana releases on Steam on April 15th.