Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (NES, Taito version) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
309A playthrough of Taito's 1991 NES game, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Please note that despite sharing the same name, this is a different game from the 1993 Ubisoft title, also on the NES.
Based on the final movie of the 80s Indiana Jones movie trilogy, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade does a pretty good job at holding itself true to the movie. You can choose the order in which you tackle most of the areas, but as you play each, the difficulty level of the remaining stages increases. This provides an interesting way to approach each level, and allows for some variation based on how good you are at each type.
The levels switch styles up pretty often - you have beat 'em up stages, puzzles, mazes - all fairly typical stuff, and they all represent Indy's challenges pretty well. The graphics generally look good, and there are some awesome remixes of the movie music (thanks Follin brothers!) playing in the background. The controls can be pretty obnoxious though (the whip doesn't hurt enemies unless you hit their sprite with the very end of the whip, and jumping is pretty inexact), making some of the stages way too frustrating for their own good. On the bright side, as you make it through them, you are treated to some pretty excellent cinematics throughout.
This was a title I always kind of liked, and would often go back to as a kid. I hated it for how uneven and unfair the challenge level often came across as, but everything else was so well done that I kept coming back to it. Maybe it was masochism, or maybe it was a want to figure out something that I wasn't understanding that made the game harder than it should have been.
Now, I think I've come to the conclusion that it was a bit of both. The Last Crusade is a mismash of very different elements of wildly varying quality, and your mileage will probably be based on how much you like the good versus how much you can't stand the bad. I'm in the middle - I'd call it mediocre. There's a lot of potential here, but it's hamstrung by a few too many issues to really call it a "good" game. It is entertaining, nonetheless, and being a fan of the films will certainly help you enjoy it more.
If you want a truly excellent game based on The Last Crusade, check out the ancient LucasArts PC adventure game instead.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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