Some of my most cherished memories of childhood involved our Thanksgiving and Christmas trips to see my grandparents in Maine. Seeing grandparents is the best because they’ve lived long enough to spoil their grandkids dammit. We were spoiled through film. At home we did not watch much TV, but our grandparents had a nice sized VHS collection and our main choice was always Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Watching the Jones boys traipse across the globe became one of our holiday traditions; we would never leave without watching it at least once. Considering how much I love the movie, I was happy to learn it was turned into a point-and-click adventure game. I wasn’t surprised that I hadn’t heard of it. We were a Sierra On-Line and MECC house, not a LucasArts house. Anyway, I got a copy from GOG and as much as I love Indy and the gang, I do not love this game. I like most of it, but unless you are willing to play step-by-step (literally in one chapter) with a guide, it is not worth your time.
What makes Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure so notorious is the inclusion of incredibly difficult combat. Indy throws hands in the films, but he shouldn’t do it in an adventure game. One of the primary draws of adventure games is the lack of action scenes. Luxuriating in gorgeous backgrounds and thinking through clever puzzles is the attraction. But Indy is always willing to mix it up with random random cards using the number pad to throw and block high, middle, and low punches. Gamers without a number pad on their laptops can use the number bar but that is even more confusing.
The only saving grace and reason I was able to get through the game is that all the combat is skippable if you can figure out the puzzles. However the puzzles were just not fun enough for me to work through. Most involve a dialogue tree where one wrong answer leads to combat. More infuriating, multiple guards will bring up the same dialogue tree for Indy and you as a player have no idea which fast-talk con will work on this guard. Indy doesn’t heal between fights and unless you have the patience of Job to perfect the fighting system, players will finish their first fight with a quarter health if they’re lucky. I would have been able to fight one guard the entire game if I were able to avoid every following fight.
Thankfully the internet has solved the problem with combat by writing out guides helping Indy bypass combat. This is absolutely necessary in the Brunwald Castle section that is swarming with guards. Each can by bypassed with the correct dialogue and costume choices (which need to be worn and removed every time passing the appropriate guard). After escaping Brunwald in order to flee Germany, Indy and his father flee in a zeppelin like in the film. In order to secure the airplane, players navigate a maze of catwalks and platforms with patrolling guards that instantly start combat when they catch up to Indy. I only got past the zeppelin by alt-tabbing between a guide that provided literal turn-by-turn directions for the maze and the game.
Aside from the combat, the game is fun. There are multiple ways to solve puzzles leading to a higher Indy Quotient (IQ) score at the end of the game. Some of the branching paths do not become obvious until hours later. It is possible to skip the entire zeppelin chapter if you find a specific item way back in Venice. The writing is clever and funny. I like the bright and bold graphics. Most of the movie characters are included. And you can punch Hitler right in the face. Indy gets instantly killed but it is still pretty great.
If you are okay with using a guide for the Brunwald and zeppelin sections (two of the largest in the game), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure is fun enough for a play-through. It is available to play in-browser at Archive.org and the save feature (F5) does work. The combat is so obnoxious that most recommendations for late 80s and early 90s adventure games avoid it, so if you’re looking for a lesser-known title, give it a try.
The Keasy Depot 