Not mind-blowing, but a solid, competent SNES game. Graphically, Indy is a nice looking game. Which is strange, because for the most part Indy controls much more fluidly than the arthritic Belmont. It is more fluid and more precise in Castlevania, while in Indy it feels sloppy and somewhat tacked on. Especially when it comes to using the whip to swing around the stage. In Castlevania it is a vital, versatile tool. They do both share a primary weapon, the whip. They use the standard level progression and utilize passwords instead of saves, both those are just conventions of the genre. At least not more than any two SNES action games. The Castlevania comparison is an easy one, but they are not particularly similar. Indy is a standard SNES action game, much like LucasArts’ Super Star Wars series, also for the SNES or Super Castlevania IV. Factor 5 and LucasArts had a long successful relationship, but Factor 5 disappeared a few years ago after the failure of Lair for the PS3. Factor 5 is famous for the Star Wars Rogue Squadron games, though at the time they may have been famous for the Turrican series.

Like Big Sky Trooper last month, Indiana Jones’ Greatest Adventures was from LucasArts and published, at least on the SNES, but JVC Musical Industries in 1994, though this was developed by Factor 5. When I started doing my Indiana Jones movie reviews earlier this month, I finally decided to drop the 8 space dollars needed to download this and see for myself how good it was. That changed when I noticed that nearly everyone who played had only good things to say about it. If was worth playing I would have heard about it. At first this lead me to conclude that the game simply wasn’t very good. I wasn’t shocked to discover that there had been an Indiana Jones SNES game, but it did stun me that I had managed to remain unfamiliar with it for all that time. I, however, was wholly unaware of the game until it was released for Virtual Console a couple of years ago. Still, it is a game based on one of the most popular film franchises ever. Indiana Jones’ Greatest Adventures is not exactly an unknown SNES game, though it is definitely not one of the systems most famous games.

This month’s Video Game Archaeology entry is significantly less obscure than any of the previous ones. It is time for more Video Game Archaeology! Video Game Archaeology is my monthly exploration of an artifact video game found during my excavations of various bargain bins and yard sales an examination of a game cast off and long forgotten.

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