Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures English Script
Hello, my name's SNES Man.
You probably know that Lucas Arts made a bunch of Star Wars games for the Super Nintendo
in the '90s, but did you know they also made an Indiana Jones one?
Yeah, they packed the events of all 3 movies into one cartridge and they called it Indiana
Jones' Greatest Adventures.
It's a fairly common, inexpensive game but lots of people still don't know about it.
Is it worth our time?
Is it worthy of President Harrison Ford's legacy?
Let's get down to gaming and find out.
The game begins with the first scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark, where Indy explores a forgotten
temple in Peru.
Your first task is to break apart a piece of the scenery and, in a Simon Belmontian
stroke of splendor, find the whip.
The whip is your best friend in this game.
It functions a lot like the whip from Super Castlevania 4, except you can't attack diagonally
and down at the same time.
But otherwise, it's a powerful and useful move that will get you through all types of
horrors.
Even the first level has a couple horrors, just to curb your ego.
There's pesky little bats, temple natives, and worst of all: totem poles that spit darts
at you.
You have a health bar so you can withstand a few hits, but they're still a pain because
they block your path.
Level one expects you to pay attention to a lot of tiny little enemies and annoyances,
and even roll through a narrow passageway with the 'A' button.
If you've ever played the Super Star Wars series for the Super Nintendo, you'll recognize
the controls right away.
They're pretty responsive.
Jumping is quick, without any floatiness or suspended gravity; and the whip hits nice
and fast with a corny "Wishhh" sound effect.
You also get a pistol later in the game, which is quite powerful.
It has infinite ammo and it fires faster than a whip so it's good at killing enemies who
throw projectiles -- but it's also rarer than the whip and sometimes you can't find it.
I wish you could keep items between stages!
It's a well programmed game but the downside to using that same Lucasarts Star Wars engine
is its awkward damage system.
Every time an enemy hits you, you lose health -- there's almost no period of invincibility
afterwards like in Mega Man, Metroid, or Castlevania, all games that use health meters to a wonderful
effect.
Indiana Jones isn't broken by its awkward collision system, but it does get frustrating
when enemies swarm you and there's a million things on screen and you don't have anywhere
to go.
The levels in Indiana Jones are very challenging, but I enjoy them.
In most cases, you can triumph over them with a little bit of trial and error.
Some of my favorite moments were fighting soldiers in the Himalayan mountains, roaming
the streets of Cairo, and riding a yellow raft in the snow.
Yes, Indy, use the Hostess twinky as your steed and ride to victory.
Or just smash into a tree, that works too.
Since the developers packed 3 movies into one game, they had a lot of brilliant, exciting
moments to choose from.
And they did a good job picking the good ones!
The famous rolling ball scene is nail-bitingly scary and hard to beat.
And it's just the 2nd level!
Even harder is the mine cart level where you have to shoot switches with your pistol or
else you fall into the lava.
It's easy to screw up and shoot it twice, so my advice is this: go nuts like a 'Y' button
Rambo on the obstacles in your way, but treat the switches like dainty flowers that must
be plucked individually with care and grace.
Oh God, did I just say that aloud?
Let me re-word that with a shred of testosterone: "Shoot stuff.
You'll win."
Another level that'll make you want to pull out your hair is the aerial Bi-Plane battle.
Seriously, how do you think my hair got this long?
It's the scene in Last Crusade where Indy's dad, Sean Connery, pilots the plane and Indy
shoots a bunch of Nazi enemies out of the sky.
Well in the game, an overwhelmingly Lucas Artsy objective is that you have to destroy
20 planes to move on.
The only way to possibly do that is hide at the bottom of the screen and circle around,
waiting for a lone plane to emerge so you can bully it.
If it doesn't have any teammates defending it with cover fire, you have an actually chance
of shooting it without it shooting you.
I don't know if you're picking up on my vibe, but these quick death, 3-D levels are hard!
But that's okay because Indiana Jones is the kind of game that toughens you up and puts
hair on your chest so you can be more like Harrison Ford.
It teaches you to grunt at your problems like a 16-bit robotic ape and adventure on, unfazed.
Good lord, the sound effects are pretty awful in this game.
At least the music is lifted right from the movies and it sounds good.
I feel like Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures was a rare treat: it was a tight, quick-paced
game that combined the plots from multiple movies into one cohesive package.
I think movie based games work best when there's plenty of source material to include so you
don't have to invent nonsense.
Cough cough, Home Alone.
Cough cough, every 16-bit Disney game other than Aladdin.
The game length is perfect.
It has about 24 levels so you're not going to beat it in one sitting, but it's also not
an endless dragger-on-er that recycles levels.
Everything feels pretty fresh, even if it's really hard!
To get you through, there's an adjustable difficulty level and an easy, 4-character
password system that uses greek letters.
Greek life, bro!
But here's where the fun ends for casual players expecting a fun romp through Hollywood-inspired
whimsy: the continues system is treacherous!
Before playing, heed my warnings or else face a pestilential, purgatorial gloom of Game
Overdom.
So, say you lose all your lives.
No big deal, right?
Just go to the continue screen, laugh at the silly looking Sean Connery close up, and get
back to business right?
Wrong!
You think this is just a game?
This is cold reality, junior, and it stings like a bitch.
You get sent back to wherever your last password checkpoint was, not your current level.
That means you can get sent back up to 4 levels, where you have to try again with a new set
of lives.
And not very many: 5 is the easy mode allotment, I believe.
Try beating a world with 5 lives and then facing an insta-death level like the mine
carts or the snow raft.
Now you grasp the severity of your situation.
Lots of people with fuzzy memories of this game have a selective memory and forget how
difficult this feature is.
But I'm kind of a glutton for pain and I'm amused by cheap game mechanics like this.
I love that chance to test my bravery against a stubborn, relentless piece of gaming history.
And you know what, I beat the game after a few weeks of that mentality.
THINGS TO MAKE IT BETTER -Continuing at your current level, not the
beginning of the world.
-A smoother damage system that allows invincibility periods.
-The ability to keep items, like the gun and whip, between levels.
-Better sound effects.
Music is fine, Indy's grunts: not fine.
Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures is inexpensive, on par in quality with the Super Star Wars
series if not better, and a challenging but rewarding adventure if you overcome the flaws.
It scores a 7 out of 10.
If you're an Indiana Jones fan and you've got a Super Nintendo, buy this one.
Do yourself a solid.
I'm SNES Man and I hope you enjoyed this review.
I hope to hear what you guys think about this game.
I read every single comment I get, even if I don't respond to all of them.
So know that there's someone out there who wants to hear your opinion: me.
It was great talking to you guys and I look forward to our next meeting.
Goodbye, au revoir mes amis, and adios.