With a non-linear and fairly open world full of ruins to discover, your archaeologist / ninja heroine in the old school platformer La-Mulana 2 can trek to just about any part of the game from the get-go.
While that’s great for exploration, it also means you’ll be pulling your hair out constantly as there are plenty of areas that can’t be completed without first getting the correct items or meeting specific hidden characters.
The La-Mulana 2 gloves are one of the most important items to pick up as soon as you can (along with the ice cloak and grappling claw) as it is used to progress through difficult puzzles that are otherwise normally impossible to complete.
With the gloves equipped, Lumisa can finally move those pesky stone blocks out of the way to re-arrange areas and complete several major riddle sections. If you find yourself bottlenecked somewhere in Annwfn, the Immortal Battlefield, and so on, then most likely you need the gloves to progress.
Finding The La-Mulana 2 Gloves
Unlike many other items and special characters found in the game, the gloves are fairly easy to acquire without having to go through any particular sequence. Other than the first sigil required to unlock the Annwfn area, you don’t need the grappling hook or any other special items to actually get to the gloves.
On the Annwfn area of the ruins map, look for the square room directly underneath the teleportation altar. After killing Nidhogg, go through his gate and travel right one room and down one room to reach the correct location with the gloves chest.
In this room, scan the tablet that tells you to “turn away from your desires” and “not gaze upon what you seek,” which is pretty cryptic… unless you think in a hyper-literal fashion.
This is one of those lateral thought puzzles where you think you need to hit a button or perform a jump, but the answer is more basic than that. Literally, just don’t look at the object of your desires. You don’t need to do any weird backwards jumping or come up with any crazy puzzle solutions here, as this one will become amazingly obvious once you figure it out.
Climb up the ladder while facing left instead of right, and stay facing that direction for a few seconds (towards the rock instead of the chest) until the chest magically unlocks and the gloves become available. Turns out all you need to do is convince the ruins you don’t want the gloves for a bit and they will decide they want to get to you!
Did you feel dumb after that chest finally unlocked? I know I sure did! After grabbing the gloves, make sure to enter the inventory screen (F2 on the PC version) and equip them in the items section.
The gloves aren’t strictly necessary to progress at this stage of the game, as there are several other areas you can reach without them, but they sure do help you expand out the specific ruin locations you can get to without exploiting the game’s broken controls.
There are a few puzzles you can cheese your way through but in general, though, it’s just an all-around better idea to grab the gloves to avoid more frustration in this already difficult game.
Make sure to equip your gloves after the chest unlocks!
Need more help with this ultra-difficult old-school platformer that pays homage to the Metroidvania and MSX style? Check out our full list of La-Mulana 2 walkthroughs and guides here, including how to find all those special Lumisa costumes!
