Do I recommend this game?
No. You can read the reviews and decide for yourself whether you think you'll be able to stomach it, otherwise I see little value in trying to play it for simple reasons such as liking the art, or metroidvanias, or puzzles, or because a lot of people say it's amazing.

Something I've noticed while playing La-Mulana is that an overwhelming majority of modern (and not-so-modern) games have quite some of the so-called "handholding" in some shape or form. This includes games being touted as having nearly no handholding such as Dark Souls (I'm sorry, I need to draw comparisons simply because other people probably draw them but for the wrong reasons, and it's a good difficult game that is similar but also incredibly different).
Generally, by what is considered "good game design" nowadays, you'd enter the game world and have some sort of guidance, some visible path to follow, even it isn't very evident. In Dark Souls 1, the indications you're given initially are kind of broad (ring the 2 bells, one is up and one is down), but once you find the stairs to Undead Burg you're pretty much set for the whole game. You might need to use a guide here and there but it's not that big of a deal and you would've probably figured things out if you kept at it for long enough.
Dark Souls is even kind enough to give you a whole tutorial level, with doors that open gradually so you don't get lost and can progress linearly.
And this is considered having little handholding.

In La-Mulana, you're told you're going to explore the eponymous ruins, and then you just appear in a village, and the only help you can get in-game is an old man that is almost useless.
Where are the ruins, how do I enter them? I don't know, figure it out.
Once you enter the ruins, you go around exploring, maybe end up going through 4 different areas way too deep inside that are too hard for you, and maybe you manage to go back to the first area, then think, what now?
Where is the boss? What is my goal? Where do I go? What is the purpose of this game?
Figure it out.

Of course, that's not how you're really supposed to start off. There's a manual, and a short guide, longer than the manual, which give you some indications on what to do and how to progress through the game, and there's even hints on some puzzles and a convenient list of all items in the game. But even then, you're mostly on your own.
Though the manuals don't leave you as clueless as you would be otherwise, I think it's very interesting to observe how greatly the design philosophy of this game differs from practically everything I've ever played. And beware, because even if you have a smooth start, you will be dropped into that state of cluelessness again and again throughout your playthrough.

It's not quite just a game, it's really some ancient ruins. Most games want you to play and beat them, but this one doesn't care. It doesn't care about you, it doesn't care whether you play it or not. It's up to you to try to go through it, and sometimes the game will go from apathy to outright resistance. It will actively and aggressively go against you to prevent itself from being solved.
As it turns out, this is not the first game to do something like this, as it was mainly inspired by The Maze of Galious, which I've yet to play. And coincidentally, I found this video about the original The Legend of Zelda (which I've never played) a few days ago, just before finishing La-Mulana, which describes the exact same things I had observed in this game, so I was somewhat illuminated because I understand there must've been a whole generation of games like this, and it makes sense why they were so highly regarded and considered as innovative.
However, you can bet La-Mulana (and its sequel) has a massively increased scale compared to any games it might've taken inspiration from.

Now as for the actual content of the game, which other people have talked enough about, but I have to include anyways.
La-Mulana has these stone tablets scattered all around the game, and it all basically comes down to writing/screenshotting them all down, then using their hints to solve puzzles. What is a "puzzle", you ask? Just about anything. Pushing buttons, using specific items in specific places, doing sequences of arbitrary actions, killing certain enemies, etc. What happens when you solve a puzzle? They generally activate or unlock something, sometimes in the same room, sometimes in some other place (figure out where by yourself).
You must take note of almost everything: the names of rooms, the layouts of floors, each place that looks like a puzzle for which you don't have the solution yet, and just about anything that seems of interest.
La-Mulana is also an action platformer, with a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up NES-style "commitment" jump, where you can't change your direction mid-air if you jumped directionally. Hard to explain through text, but it's another barrier the game puts before you, and you need to master it if you don't want to die or fall off things all the time. You must also learn about the hitboxes of your attacks and such, and bosses tend to have ridiculously small hitboxes as well. Overall, not sure if I would say the action/platforming is enjoyable, but it's at least somewhat satisfying when you finally manage to take control over this unwieldy character, and the upgrade items (mainly health) also feel great as you can increasingly disregard all these uncomfortable aspects of the game as you progress. These upgrades feel less like "oh yes I got cool ability now! look at all these places I've opened up! and look at all this cool stuff I can do!" and more like "HAHA YES I CAN ♥♥♥♥ OVER THE GAME IN SO MANY WAYS NOW (and also opened up some very few places)"

I must also mention that solving puzzles and reading stone tablets serve the function of unveiling the lore little by little.
Dark Souls is lauded for its storytelling method of having everything cryptically hidden in item descriptions and NPC dialogues, but it almost never forces you to understand this lore, because it's a game that wants you to play it, so it allows you to just beat up enemies and bosses if you so wish.
In La-Mulana you HAVE to understand the lore, because it's intrinsically connected to the gameplay and the puzzles. It's a very rare game that requires both intense gaming ability and intense puzzle solving ability, whereas most games tend to focus on either one or the other.

In conclusion, this game is an uphill battle against it, full of frustration and despair.
So why should you play it? Hell I don't know, maybe you really want to know what the ultimate secret of La-Mulana is, maybe the lore you started discovering is just that alluring and you just need to know all of it. Maybe you find the puzzle solving fun, even though some of the puzzles are ridiculously obtuse and require extreme inspection or precise thinking.
I can tell you it's definitely an adventure, though.

PS: Writing concisely here because I ran out of characters.
Get people that have beaten the game to give you hints, or play it in parallel with others to complement each other and not have to rely on walkthroughs.
Use the manual and the guide (MANUAL[la-mulana.com] and GUIDE[nisamerica.com]). The manual is terribly translated but the guide is fine.
You should just read the whole guide before starting to play the game.
The manual is short and badly translated but it has a full item list. The guide doesn't have the item list but it has everything the manual has plus wayyyyyy more info (especially useful is "How to progress" part in page 38).
The "guide" isn't a full walkthrough, it's just a stepping stone for beginners, so don't be afraid to rely on it as much as possible.

TL;DR: 10/10 ♥♥♥♥ this game

Do I recommend this game? No. You can read the reviews and decide for yourself whether you think you'll be able to stomach it, otherwise I see little value in trying to play it for simple reasons such as liking the art, or metroidvanias, or puzzles, or because a lot of people say it's amazing. Something I've noticed while playing La-Mulana is that an overwhelming majority of modern (and not-so-modern) games have quite some of the so-called "handholding" in some shape or form. This includes games being touted as having nearly no handholding such as Dark Souls (I'm sorry, I need to draw comparisons simply because other people probably draw them but for the wrong reasons, and it's a good difficult game that is similar but also incredibly different). Generally, by what is considered "good game design" nowadays, you'd enter the game world and have some sort of guidance, some visible path to follow, even it isn't very evident. In Dark Souls 1, the indications you're given initially are kind of broad (ring the 2 bells, one is up and one is down), but once you find the stairs to Undead Burg you're pretty much set for the whole game. You might need to use a guide here and there but it's not that big of a deal and you would've probably figured things out if you kept at it for long enough. Dark Souls is even kind enough to give you a whole tutorial level, with doors that open gradually so you don't get lost and can progress linearly. And this is considered having little handholding. In La-Mulana, you're told you're going to explore the eponymous ruins, and then you just appear in a village, and the only help you can get in-game is an old man that is almost useless. Where are the ruins, how do I enter them? I don't know, figure it out. Once you enter the ruins, you go around exploring, maybe end up going through 4 different areas way too deep inside that are too hard for you, and maybe you manage to go back to the first area, then think, [i]what now?[/i] Where is the boss? What is my goal? Where do I go? What is the purpose of this game? Figure it out. Of course, that's not how you're really supposed to start off. There's a manual, and a short guide, longer than the manual, which give you some indications on what to do and how to progress through the game, and there's even hints on some puzzles and a convenient list of all items in the game. But even then, you're mostly on your own. Though the manuals don't leave you as clueless as you would be otherwise, I think it's very interesting to observe how greatly the design philosophy of this game differs from practically everything I've ever played. And beware, because even if you have a smooth start, you will be dropped into that state of cluelessness again and again throughout your playthrough. It's not quite just a game, it's really some ancient ruins. Most games want you to play and beat them, but this one doesn't care. It doesn't care about you, it doesn't care whether you play it or not. It's up to you to try to go through it, and sometimes the game will go from apathy to outright resistance. It will actively and aggressively go against you to prevent itself from being solved. As it turns out, this is not the first game to do something like this, as it was mainly inspired by [i]The Maze of Galious[/i], which I've yet to play. And coincidentally, [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHbQ6ti5BQ0]I found this video about the original [i]The Legend of Zelda[/i][/url] (which I've never played) a few days ago, just before finishing La-Mulana, which describes the exact same things I had observed in this game, so I was somewhat illuminated because I understand there must've been a whole generation of games like this, and it makes sense why they were so highly regarded and considered as innovative. However, you can bet La-Mulana (and its sequel) has a massively increased scale compared to any games it might've taken inspiration from. Now as for the actual content of the game, which other people have talked enough about, but I have to include anyways. La-Mulana has these stone tablets scattered all around the game, and it all basically comes down to writing/screenshotting them all down, then using their hints to solve puzzles. What is a "puzzle", you ask? Just about anything. Pushing buttons, using specific items in specific places, doing sequences of arbitrary actions, killing certain enemies, etc. What happens when you solve a puzzle? They generally activate or unlock something, sometimes in the same room, sometimes in some other place (figure out where by yourself). You must take note of almost everything: the names of rooms, the layouts of floors, each place that looks like a puzzle for which you don't have the solution yet, and just about anything that seems of interest. La-Mulana is also an action platformer, with a fucked up NES-style "commitment" jump, where you can't change your direction mid-air if you jumped directionally. Hard to explain through text, but it's another barrier the game puts before you, and you need to master it if you don't want to die or fall off things all the time. You must also learn about the hitboxes of your attacks and such, and bosses tend to have ridiculously small hitboxes as well. Overall, not sure if I would say the action/platforming is enjoyable, but it's at least somewhat satisfying when you finally manage to take control over this unwieldy character, and the upgrade items (mainly health) also feel great as you can increasingly disregard all these uncomfortable aspects of the game as you progress. These upgrades feel less like "oh yes I got cool ability now! look at all these places I've opened up! and look at all this cool stuff I can do!" and more like "HAHA YES I CAN FUCK OVER THE GAME IN SO MANY WAYS NOW (and also opened up some very few places)" I must also mention that solving puzzles and reading stone tablets serve the function of unveiling the lore little by little. Dark Souls is lauded for its storytelling method of having everything cryptically hidden in item descriptions and NPC dialogues, but it almost never forces you to understand this lore, because it's a game that wants you to play it, so it allows you to just beat up enemies and bosses if you so wish. In La-Mulana you HAVE to understand the lore, because it's intrinsically connected to the gameplay and the puzzles. It's a very rare game that requires both intense gaming ability and intense puzzle solving ability, whereas most games tend to focus on either one or the other. In conclusion, this game is an uphill battle against it, full of frustration and despair. So why should you play it? Hell I don't know, maybe you really want to know what the ultimate secret of La-Mulana is, maybe the lore you started discovering is just [i]that[/i] alluring and you just [i]need[/i] to know all of it. Maybe you find the puzzle solving fun, even though some of the puzzles are ridiculously obtuse and require extreme inspection or precise thinking. I can tell you it's definitely an adventure, though. PS: Writing concisely here because I ran out of characters. Get people that have beaten the game to give you hints, or play it in parallel with others to complement each other and not have to rely on walkthroughs. Use the manual and the guide ([url=https://la-mulana.com/download/lmlnpc_manual_en.pdf]MANUAL[/url] and [url=https://nisamerica.com/la-mulana-1-2/img/dl/LA-MULANA_Guide.pdf]GUIDE[/url]). The manual is terribly translated but the guide is fine. You should just read the whole guide before starting to play the game. The manual is short and badly translated but it has a full item list. The guide doesn't have the item list but it has everything the manual has plus wayyyyyy more info (especially useful is "How to progress" part in page 38). The "guide" isn't a full walkthrough, it's just a stepping stone for beginners, so don't be afraid to rely on it as much as possible. TL;DR: 10/10 fuck this game