I didn't realize you were supposed to walk through the wall, which warps you to another, disconnected room anyway. I get that there's a skeleton right by the wall in question that mentions an escape route when you scan it, but still... I thought that was in reference to the block puzzle in the room.

Am I alone, here? Did anyone else not realize you could walk through the wall?

No, you're not alone. That's one evil puzzle. The Gate of Illusion was easier.

Yeah, it's a pretty evil puzzle. Mostly because it comes so early in the game, before you've gotten used to how obscure the game's "hints" can be. I suspect that if it had come a few hours later, I would have thought "oh, he must mean there's a fake wall around here..."

Yeah I discovered it by walking halfway through the wall by accident. It likely would have taken me quite a while otherwise. I agree with Azilut, at that early stage in the game you aren't really prepared for that sort of obscure puzzle, especially since most of the hints up to that point are pretty straightforward.

So does it get... better as it goes on?

Also I saw videos of the original La Mulana and the hint you get for it is a lot clearer, so I'm hoping the remake doesn't have translation issues or something.

Depends what you mean by "better". The puzzles get harder and the clues get even more obscure, but on the other hand, you start to expect the curveballs, so in that sense it does get a bit "easier".

Oh hey the manual tells you how to get the Holy Grail.

Fffffff.

The translation is fine. The difficulty... varies. For example, the "next" area is easy; the area advertised as the most mindscrewy was easy for me, too (maybe because I was used to suck tricks in dungeon-crawlers). On the other hand, there are several difficult/deadly areas that look like you aren't supposed to go there until you complete some other quest that removes those obstacles. But you are.

Depends which area you're in. Some are easy, other are very, very difficult (and I'm not just talking about combat and platforming, which are actually the easiest parts of the game). To me this game feels more like a point'n click, an unrewarding, insanely hard one. Haven't played this for weeks now and I'm not sure if I will ever again.

Also watched some more videos of the original version after getting stuck on the remake. The simplistic graphics in the original make they key elements of a room a lot more... apparent. The remake's graphics are incredibly busy and I have a hard time telling decorative elements from functional ones.

Case in point -- and I hope I get the tags right --

[spoiler]
You have to hit some brick a few times to activate the elevator in the Guidance Gate area. No clue that you had to hit the block. There's a tablet mentioning that it's relevant for SOMETHING, but it's not really apparent that you can hit it, especially since hitting normal blocks usually doesn't do anything.

In the original, it's a little green gem that stands out a lot and doesn't serve the function of being a platform. It's also got an arrow pointing at it on the wall. The only thing you really CAN do with it is hit it, so it's a lot more obvious that you SHOULD.[/spoiler]
Think I'll give the original a go before actually passing judgement on the game, but I'm not terribly happy with the remake.

--- edit ---

Played the original for a few hours. I... I gotta say, everything about it feels better. The MSX style was very deliberate in how it was done, and there was a lot of care put into encoding meaningful information into the art. That's very much been lost in translation.

The slower controls in the original also allow for a lot more precision in how you move. The pacing is more deliberate in how it leads you along. In general a lot of the things I found careless/lazy in the remake are NOT there in the original.