Secret of Mana

Released on August 6, 1993 for the Super Nintendo by Square, Secret of Mana is a vast action-RPG featuring both single and multiplayer gameplay.

Secret of Mana and I have circled around each other for 26 years. I first started seeing the game at parties because, instead of alcohol and sex, the parties I attended included Sunkist and video games. I remember the game featured beautiful music and incredible graphics, wind blowing the grass in a field, as two players fought monsters with a sword and axe in what looked like essentially a multiplayer The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Every now and then I'd get a turn in, but never for more than 10 or 15 minutes at a time. I knew the production values felt high, that, without even seeing the opening menu, Secret of Mana had to be a Squaresoft game, but I never got deep enough into it to form a full impression...until, for some reason, now, 26 years later.

OK, now that I've finally seen the menu, I've got to say, this font has got it GOING ON.

This game is as beautiful as I remembered. While the graphics aren't quite as tight as A Link to the Past's, they're bright, colorful, and more highly detailed, with well-animated sprites. Secret of Mana takes place in your basic Squaresoft fantasy world of 16-bit anime'ish-styled human characters, along with a bunch mostly humanoid monsters, just like in Chrono Trigger, or a Final Fantasy game. Secret of Mana features plenty of huge, very nicely designed bosses for our three heroes to fight, and some great Super Nintendo style explosions engulf those bosses when they're defeated. Speaking of, there are also some great 16-bit rivers and waterfalls--plenty of beautifully animated environments.

Looks pretty much exactly like where I live, minus all the smog, concrete, cars, metal, and crushing depression.

Wait, did I say three heroes? Yes, Secret of Mana features three protagonists. You can only start with one, but the second and third are obtained early on in the game. From that point, if you're playing solo, you can switch between the characters at will with the press of a button, and the computer AI will take control of the other two. If you've got a buddy, they can take control of one of the other characters. If you've got two buddies, and a Super Multitap accessory, all three of you can play at once. But what exactly will you be doing?

Whatever it is, it looks kinky.

Secret of Mana is an action-RPG in the vein of A Link to the Past, but with heavier RPG elements. You begin the game as a male character (you can name him whatever you want) who lives in a small, rural village. Your character falls in a lake, finds a mysterious sword jammed into a stone (sounds familiar...), and pulls it out. Before you can say, "Put it back! Put it back!" monsters are everywhere. Seems, this sword is the Mana sword, and...
Honestly, plot isn't Secret of Mana's strong suit. You've got to find Mana Seeds, and eventually reach a Mana Fortress, and there's an evil Emperor, and really it's all just an excuse to exercise the basic RPG formula of go to village, stock up on supplies, learn about village's problem, visit nearby dungeon, fight through enemies, grow more powerful, defeat dungeon's boss, which fixes village's problem, move through an overworld until you reach the next village. This is the bread-and-butter of RPG mechanics...then again, it's one that's proven for years not to be broken. Why fix it?
Your characters have their choice of weapons, all of which can be upgraded throughout the game. Some, like the whip, feature longer range, while others, like the axe, allow you to cut through rocky obstructions in your path. Unlike A Link to the Past, you can't just hammer away at enemies. Every time you swing at an enemy (in realtime--no turn-based fighting here), your attack meter goes to zero, then quickly charges back up to 100%--giving you maybe a two or three-second pause between attacks. This encourages you and your friends to work on timing your attacks out in multiplayer. Or, of course, if you're playing alone, this encourages you to quickly tap through your characters so that you can hit, switch, hit, switch, hit.

Also, if you play by yourself, you won't have to get in a fistfight with anyone over who gets to control the dragon.

A little ways into Secret of Mana, two of your characters learn magical moves, including attacks and healing spells. As you make your way through the game, you earn new elemental magics, like fire, ice, and earth, giving you a diverse move-set, and creating even more opportunities for strategy, as certain enemies are more vulnerable to certain elements than others.

It only took me three hours to figure out that this ice dragon was vulnerable to fire.

That's gonna leave a mark! No? Burn, baby, burn! No? The heat is...on! No? Fire in the hole! No? That's a spicy meatball! No? No to "That's a spicy meatball?" Really?

Of course, to go with your health meter, you've got a magic meter that depletes with each move you perform. Both can be refilled by items, though you also learn refilling magics late in the game. As for items, you can only carry four of each at a time...leading to even more necessary strategizing. And then, you'll want to buy the best armor in each village (defeated enemies drop cash), so that your defense goes up. And you're going to want to fight and grind as much as possible because Secret of Mana takes the "RPG" in action-RPG seriously, and your characters' many stats can be leveled up frequently throughout the game as you accumulate enough victories in battle. Your spells even level up with frequent use.
All of this adds up to a deep, fast-paced, action-packed game, that's a blast with friends, or alone on a long and lonely night. But unlike those two top-tier games I've name-dropped in this review, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana features several flaws that pull it below that top tier of hallowed Super Nintendo perfection.

You could almost say, there are a few things about this game I do not Lich.

You'll feel these issues right way as you try to navigate Secret of Mana's menu's. Your weapons, items, and options are selected and toggled through in a circular on-screen pop-up you've got to navigate While this at first seems original, it quickly proves to be unintuitive and frustrating. Eventually, you'll get used to it, but it's just a bit too loose, and should have been tightened up a bit. However, this, what I am generously calling "looseness," and should really be calling, "lack of polish," starts to show its ugly head in other areas of the game. For instance, you'll start to notice that sometimes when you swing at and hit an enemy, you inexplicably won't make contact, or contact will inexplicably be delayed for a second or two. Late in Secret of Mana, fast-travel, most definitely a modern convenience and a step-forward in 1994 gaming, becomes accessible, but the game's overworld map is clunky, and loads up like it's booting from a floppy disc. However, these are just minor annoyances.

It's like waiting for a dial-up JPEG of a...um...erm...uh...of a skyscraper to finish loading. That's definitely the kind of pictures I was looking at in high school with my dial-up Internet. Fine architecture. Hey, something had to fill the void between all the Sunkist and video game parties!

What's more frustrating is how loose the game is with telling you where to go and what to do. Secret of Mana is nearly obtuse at moments. However, even this is forgivable in light of the game's most frustrating sin.
Secret of Mana's final dungeon is very long and contains multiple bosses and zero save points. On first try, the final dungeon could feasibly take someone three hours to complete. The final boss fight at the end of this dungeon requires that a specific duo of your characters have both leveled up one specific element of their magic. This climactic boss fight also requires that the third specific character has leveled up their skill with one of the game's weapons, in particular. I haven't mentioned it yet, but any character can use any of the weapons in this game, varying from sword, to whip, to bow, to spear, to axe, and more. The more a particular character uses a particular weapon, the more that particular, specific character levels up their skill with that particular weapon. Secret of Mana never once tells or even hints that the player needs to level up these specific skills and this one specific weapon with this one specific character in order to take down its final boss, and if you haven't, you can't even damage it. That means you can fight through the final dungeon for three hours, meet the final boss with full health and a fully stocked inventory, and then inexorably watch your characters die as you fail to do even one point of damage to the foe in the final battle.

Dammit, that sounds exactly like adulthood! Here's some nice, soothing pink trees to calm me down.

Even worse, after I furiously googled what I was supposed to do to be able to damage the final boss, furiously grinded with my characters until I had leveled up the correct spells and weapon, and then rushed through the final dungeon in an hour or so to face him, the final boos randomly pulled out some massive attack that killed my entire party 30 seconds in. No warning, and he had never done this the first time through, in the grueling 30 minute fight where I literally unloaded everything single thing I had on him to no effect. The third time was the charm, after casting a million defensive protection spells to protect my party against randomly getting wiped out again, but by then I was so frustrated, I had nearly forgotten the hours upon hours of joy Secret of Mana had given me.

Any 16-bit game that features a mountain-view with some moons in the background gets bonus points from me!

And it had given me hours of joy. Secret of Mana is a very long game. Secret of Mana has no play-time counter like some of its contemporaries have, but I feel like I at least put a good 40 hours of time into the game. I enjoyed most of those 40 hours. I particularly enjoyed what I heard in the background. Secret of Mana features a classic 16-bit soundtrack. While it the music does fall prey to the same "looseness" as the rest of the game (I'll get to what I mean by this in a moment), much of Secret of Mana's music is stunning. The best tracks, particularly when you're traveling the overworld, or deep-diving into a dungeon, are sweeping and full, transporting your imagination into fantasy. However, in a silly glitch, if you attack multiple enemies, or there are just too many sound effects happening, a channel or multiple channels of music are cut, meaning maybe a guitar lead line or the percussion or both might just fall away mid-song...sometimes even leading to silence. At first I thought there was something wrong with my game, until research proved there's just something wrong with the game. There are also a few poppy, percussion-heavy tracks that lean a little too hard into cheese, but overall, especially if you stand completely still, this is a great soundtrack.

DOUBLE-BONUS!!!

Really, Secret of Mana's soundtrack is emblematic of the entire game: absolutely phenomenal for most of its runtime, but with some very frustrating quirks and flaws. The last 26 years of my life have been...the opposite of that?

Graphics: 9.5/10.0

Sound: 9.0/10.0

Gameplay: 8.2/10.0

Lasting Value: 8.5/10.0


Overall: 8.6/10.0

Warlock

Released on May 26, 1995 by LJN for the Super Nintendo, Warlock is a side-scrolling action-platformer adaptation of the sequel to the film of the same name.

The opening ten-second sequence of Warlock for the SNES is one of the most stunning I have ever seen. You begin in a field in front of an English cottage, wind blowing through the trees, butterflies fluttering overhead, birds flying to and fro, your coat billowing in the wind. Your dog prances around the grass as you run through this grassy dream, and into a nightmare of an absolutely horrible video game.

Just don't play past the first ten seconds, and you'll be fine!

LJN is known for having made some horrible video games, particularly horrible video game adaptations of films and TV shows. Warlock is particularly horrible, sharing little in common with the film it is supposedly based upon. Indeed, the only positive elements that came from me playing Warlock, which came six years after film, is experiencing that beautiful first ten seconds, and the fact that I sought out and watched that fun film afterward.
Truthfully, I only bought this game for two reasons: because I saw the first ten seconds on a Youtube long-play, and because it was $3.99 at the Lafayette Play-n-Trade. You can't quite tell how bad Warlock is by watching someone else play it, but you can sure tell by playing it yourself. As soon as you run through that field, and start getting attacked in this side-scrolling action-platformer, it's clear Warlock isn't going to be a classic.

Misfire! Just like this entire game past the first 10 seconds!

You play some kind of wizard, who shoots bolts of electricity or something out of his hands, and has some kind of orb floating over his head that you can kind of use as a weapon, by pushing a button, pointing the D-pad in a direction, and hoping the orb flies that way. Also, when you attack, he stops moving. Ugh.
Enemies come at you non-stop, and you can never seem to get a leg-up on them. Die once, and it's game over. You can die by missing a jump and falling into a pit, or of course by getting hit enough times by the numberless enemies (other wizards, monsters, crazed animals, floating eyeballs that also shoot lightning). Warlock is a bad video game.

Hide! Hide from this game!

Warlock eschews the fun, fish-out-of-water horror/adventure/comedy of the 1989 original film for the rune stones and druid mumbo-jumbo of its sequel. You've got to collect six hidden rune stones from the game's multitude of infinity-long, nondescript levels. When you actually get one of the damn things, you're given a password to get back to that point after you die, so at least there's that. If that doesn't sound very fun, it's because it isn't.
I quickly tired of trying to play this travesty straight, hit google, and found that if you hit "left, left, right, left, right, right, left, right, right, left, left, right" on the d-pad at the opening menu, you get a level select screen, and the option of invincibility. Either invincibility also makes you fly, or I found some rune that gave me the power of flight, I'm not sure, because this stupid game doesn't tell you absolutely anything. So I played the rest of the game invincible, with the ability to fly, and even that didn't make things much better.

If hiding doesn't work, fly away! Fly far, far away!!!

The cheats did allow me to experience the game's dark atmosphere, its only decent quality, though even the atmosphere overstays its welcome and becomes oppressive after a few short minutes.
The graphics themselves bounce around from beautiful pixel works of art to "Did you doodle this with a BIC in your school notebook?" They are just all over the place. The soundtrack is urgent, but after a few minutes of its irritating caterwauling, you'll urgently want to mute your television.
This game is a train-wreck. Thanks a lot, LJN! At least I enjoyed the film!...and the video game's first ten seconds. Man, what a great first ten seconds.

Graphics: 5.0/10.0

Sound: 3.5/10.0

Gameplay: 2.0/10.0

Lasting Value: 1.5/10.0


Overall: 2.5/10.0

Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Released in North America on June 1, 1993 by JVC for the Super Nintendo, after development by Sculpted Software and LucasArts, Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back adapts the second film in the original Star Wars trilogy with a blend of  16-bit 2D side-scrolling and 3D Mode 7 action.

The Super Nintendo changed my life. Up until that clear dividing line, middle school hadn't been going that well. My voice hadn't changed yet. No hair under my arms. Instead of hitting a growth spurt, I just grew two inches a year, until, by tenth grade, I was taller than everybody again (which was little comfort in the 7th grade). Then there was the family stuff. My grandpa was dying. My family had a huge blowout fight on Christmas Eve that resulted in my mom returning our presents to the store. That first 1.5 years of junior high sucked, with late 1994 coming as the suck climax. And then it happened.

Let's just pretend like I've started reviewing the game, and am not giving my entire life story.

After my grandfather died (my namesake, without whom my other site, The Nicsperiment, would be called "Thesomethingelsesperiment") on Friday the 13th, January of 1995, my mother gave me the money from my returned Christmas presents. I pooled that with other money I'd saved from my birthday a few weeks before.
$120, the most money I'd ever seen.
What would I do with my vast sum? I immediately thought of my aged NES, which hadn't given me joy in awhile. Only getting my modern gaming kicks from my next-door neighbor SEGA cousins was fun, but wasn't the same as playing games at home. For some reason, I went to Blockbuster Video for ideas...but that did the trick--that's where I saw a used copy of Super Street Fighter II for the SNES...for $9.99! Yes, the same game I'd fed a billion quarters to at the arcade could now be mine forever for only...40 quarters! But first, I'd need a Super Nintendo Entertainment System. I bid my mother take me to Wal-Mart, where I found a SNES for $99! At 1995 East Baton Rouge Parish tax rates, I could make the SNES and Super Street Fighter II mine for $120! I didn't even notice the SNES came with The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, which is a story for when I finally write a review of that game...needless to say, I played a couple weeks of Street Fighter II, and then a whole lot more weeks playing Zelda. And when I beat Zelda and found another $20 in my pocket, there was only one place to go...back to Blockbuster Video!

Yep, totally reviewing this game right now, and not endlessly bloviating.

I dug through their used SNES shelf and came upon Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back for only $5.99! "Didn't I really like Star Wars when I was a kid?" mused my 13-year-old self. Like so many mid-90's video game purchases that ended up being awesome, I bought Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back on a whim...

Yep, just steady posting pictures for this Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back review, which is definitely gonna talk about the game now.

And I absolutely loved it. I played through that game a million times, beating it again and again, til I saved $70 (Toys 'r Us prices sucked) to buy Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. Meanwhile, I found that I suddenly liked watching the original Star Wars trilogy, particularly The Empire Strikes Back, far more than when I was younger. In fact, that entire summer, my younger brother and I watched an original trilogy film daily, and generally all three on a weekend. It was such a great time to be 13! No other Star Wars films existed! ...but then, eventually, they did. My relationship with Star Wars has gone through several permutations since then. I read essentially all of the extended universe novels and comics until, 20 years after that summer, Disney said they no longer existed.

Yep, all these pictures are for a video game review. A VIDEO GAME REVIEW. Speaking of, I've always found the way the graphic design for this game integrates into the level graphics to be stunning.

Meanwhile, I tried so hard to like the prequels, but outside of John Williams' music and a few scattered moments, I just couldn't. The new trilogy has proven to be the most divisive of all with the general public. Star Wars, in the mid-90's, was the definitive trilogy, an untouchable cultural touchstone. It's now threatening to become just another Disney franchise.
After all that has passed, I've nearly forgotten about those great 7th grade afternoons, running through 16-bit Cloud City, brawling with 16-bit Darth Vader, taking down 16-bit Imperial walkers...until I started noticing that Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back is starting to turn up on "Hardest SNES Game" lists online...sometimes even turning up as number one. "It's even impossible on easy mode!" some commentators enthuse.

Apparently not as impossible as it is to start this review. START THIS REVIEW! Also, I've been obsessed with this window nearly the entirety of my life.

No, it's not. 13-year-old me beat the game on easy mode a thousand times. Would 37-year-old me come around to these new, Youtube-channel-based opinions? Time to dig out and dust off Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back...

*     *     *

Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back follows the plot of the 1980 film of the same name (minus "Super Star Wars:), as rebel forces, led by Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker, and Han Solo, are hiding from the dastardly Empire on the icy planet of Hoth, are discovered, fight to escape, and split up, with Luke going to train in the ways of the force in the swamps of Dagobah, and Han and Leia fleeing to the possibly sinister Cloud City over the planet of Bespin. The player switches between controlling Luke, Han, and Chewie through side-scrolling 2D shooter/lightsaber hack-n-slash levels, as well as 2D snowspeeder and speeder-bike shooter stages, and some Mode-7 space/ice/cloud-battle stages.

Wait, it seems like the review has actually started. Wow! On that note, Cloud City!

Maybe it's because of the sheer amount of time I've put into this game, but Super Star Wars: The Empire Strike Back's controls through all of these modes feel perfect. All player characters and vehicles run, jump, fly, and shoot on a dime. The controls are extremely responsive and intuitive. The on-foot stages, which take up the majority of the game, feature a dedicated button to jump (which can be tapped again to double-jump!), shoot, and one to do something unique with each character. With Luke, it's use a force power, like healing, elevation, or saber throwing. With Han its toss a grenade, which he can find strewn across his levels. With Chewie, it's a devastating spin-attack, with a rapidly-depleting, but self-refilling power bar.

The scene where Chewie fights a futuristic lion-tamer over a pit of lava was definitely my favorite in the film.

Of course, the d-pad is used to move the controllers directionally, but as an added bonus, the SNES L and R shoulder buttons can be used to shift the screen up and down, to get a better idea of your surroundings. This way, you never have to make any blind jumps, which are generally platforming poison. Speaking of, the 2D on-foot side-scrolling portion is a great balance of platforming and run-and-gun action, some genuinely difficult jumps breaking up all the enemy shooting/hack-and-slashing.

Pictured: Hacking and slashing.

The controls for the vehicular portions are similarly spot on. The 2D side-scrolling ones are frantic fun, and incredibly tight--likewise, the 3D stages. The Battle of Hoth is so tightly and completely constructed, it could be its own game. Firing at smaller vehicles, and launching the classic tow-cable at AT-AT Walkers, then circling to wrap them up is intuitive and perfect. Controlling Luke's X-Wing in a late game Bespin invasion is seamless. Flying the Millennium Falcon through a 16-bit, Mode 7 asteroid field and blasting Tie-Fighters controls like a dream.

And look at the attention to detail in the Falcon cockpit! There's only one level set there, and the developers still went above and beyond, even integrating how many lives the player has left into the HUD.

Really, diversity is the name of the game here (EDITOR'S NOTE: No, the game is named Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back) and one of Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back's greatest strengths. That each different style of gameplay is so polished and full of depth is incredible. Even the diversity in the on-foot levels is vast. For instance, when Luke visits Dagobah, he can learn eight different force techniques like "Heal," "Elevation," or "Freeze." His gameplay was already set apart because of his lightsaber (though you can switch between lightsaber and gun with Luke at will!), and his awesome lightsaber spin attack when you double jump, but these force abilities make his stages even more distinctive.With that said, the game's multitude of nearly endless waves of enemies frequently randomly drop some of the same items for each character, like a temporary shield, a life meter extender (in the shape of a lightsaber for your lightsaber shaped life meter!), or a kill-every-enemy-on-screen thermal detonator to bring continuity.

Nice, happy little clouds.

However, the game's other greatest strength is, in a way, a matter of personal bias.
My favorite film of all time is Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. My second favorite is Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light. My third favorite film of all time is...The Empire Strikes Back.
Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back puts you directly into The Empire Strikes Back as the main agent of action. It covers every single moment of the film that could possibly be used in a video game. The extra bits that it adds in itself are completely logical with the narrative of the film. This is complete, 16-bit Star Wars immersion. There are even awesome, 16-bit cutscenes.

It even has awesome 16-bit cutscenes!...wait, did the review just actually say that? I still can't believe it's finally talking about the game.

At the service of this immersion are some excellent 16-bit graphics and a great soundtrack. Before I get into the praise...yes, there's some graphical slowdown when there's a lot going on onscreen, but it has never once resulting in me dying, and when I was 13, I just called it slow-motion mode and thought it was super badass. Anyway...
The pixel-art style in the 2D stages has been aped for years to the extent that, 25-plus years later, people have been creating 16-bit versions of the new 2010's Star Wars Trilogy trailers in admiration. It's spectacular, with detailed backgrounds and enemies, huge bosses, and brilliant animation. The use of color is brilliant, with palettes mimicking the film exactly. The lights on the buildings in Cloud City even fade on and off...enhancing the zen-like feel of that level, along with the sunset color scheme and a 16-bit SNES interpretation of John Williams' exact music for that area. It's such a favorite sensory experience of mine that I still remember the password..."MCDGRJ," nearly 25 years later.

Just Han and Lando, hanging out.

While there's not an abundance of tracks here, the game's soundtrack features all of the film's major themes, and they're deployed perfectly. Sound effects come directly from the film, with special credit going to the distinctive storm trooper and Imperial Walker laser blasts, respectively...and tauntaun! There's even some digitized speech, primarily employed by Darth Vader, also straight from the film, to further the immersion.

Alright, Boba Fett, you get on outta here!

But what of the reports that Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back is far too difficult for mere mortals to attempt? Frankly, it's a bunch of Internet hyperbole.
This game is perfectly manageable on "Easy Mode." There's a password for each level, given when the player gets a game over (a very small flaw here...if you need to turn the game off, you've got to give yourself a game over, i.e. use up all your lives, to get the password). I remember distinctly beating this game for the first time in six days back when I was 13. Coming back to it all these years later, I struggled for a couple minutes to get into a rhythm, did, and then steadily progressed to the end, notebook and pen at my side for any time I did get a game over.
The player even gets three continues after all they've used up all their lives, which restarts you at whatever level save point you last died past...yes, the levels themselves have even more save points than this review has pronoun jumps.
The levels themselves often house secret areas full of one-ups and hearts to fill up your life meter. Enemies also drop hearts. The game also includes four distinctive gun powerups, as well (kept until you die...), which can fall randomly from an enemy, but are also sprinkled across each level. The normal, or "Brave Mode" is very difficult, but still possible with practice and skill. The very hard, or "Jedi Mode" difficulty is nearly impossible, but that's the entire point of a "very hard" mode. Back on easy mode, though, enemies may continually come at you, but their attacks aren't cheap, and you won't get knocked down by random. previously unseen flying enemies when you're trying to jump across a chasm, like in lesser games (*cough--Indiana Jones Greatest Adventures--cough*). There are most definitely far more difficult games than this one.

You see? He's not a machine! He's a man! Whoops, wrong awesome 80's movie!

Anyway, I love this game. I am undoubtedly biased, but considering that, after a nearly 25-year break in which I played many, many other games, including many other Star Wars games, as game technology has advanced exponentially beyond 16-bits, I still found Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back to be an extremely enjoyable, near-transcendent experience, there has to be something here. Yes, that was one sentence.

C'mon, Tauntaun, the review is finally over. Let's get out of here.

Graphics: 9.5/10.0

Sound: 9.5/10.0

Gameplay: 9.5/10.0

Lasting Value: 9.5/10.0


Overall: 9.5/10.0

Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures

Released in North America on October 11, 1994 for the Super Nintendo by Lucasarts and JVC, and developed by Factor 5, Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures recreates the globetrotting archaeologist's cinematic adventures with 2D side-scrolling action. 

Like most children of the 80's, my cinematic youth's landmarks are signed by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Star Wars and Indiana Jones operated on some heavenly plane far above the Earth of other films, only sometimes visited for brief moments by Back to the Future and the Goonies. Indiana Jones rested on top of the pinnacle of mighty heroes, the man every boy, or at least this man when he was a boy wanted to be. The heroic archaeologist was brave, adventurous, virtuous, but not too virtuous, too cool for school, but also the teacher, and most importantly, able to take a licking and keep on ticking. While 90's action stars like Steven Seagal were too immaculate to even take a punch, 80's hero, Harrison Ford, was getting the crap kicked out of him by huge Nazi goons (before, of course, getting in a few good punches, and outsmarting them), getting drug through the desert by a truck, REALLY, and I mean REALLY getting drug through the desert by a truck WITH NO CGI ASSISTANCE, and partaking in so much dangerous action that Ford literally had to staple his hat to his head to keep it from flying away. What a guy.

There he is

Of course, when Lucasarts announced they would be releasing a Super Nintendo game based on all three films' worth of Indy action, I freaked out. The Super Star Wars games Lucasarts had released were some of my favorites. Now, the greatest hero of all was going to be immortalized in 16-bits, in a 2D side-scroller, just as Star Wars' heroes were. Be still my beating middle-school heart.
However, it looked like a different developer would be working on this game for Lucasarts. While Sculpted Software created the Super Star Wars games for the Super Nintendo, Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures would be developed by German upstarts, Factor Five.

Nothing Indy can't handle

I have 90's history with this game. My local Sears clearanced out a huge section of their SNES games to make room for Playstation, and the incoming Nintendo 64. They also had a demo Sega Genesis running Sonic & Knuckles at the time. I saw they were selling Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures for $20. I wish I would have bought it then. That's half of what I paid for it (in the box) recently. At some point in the 90's, I did rent it, and made it to the final boss, though I can't remember if I beat him or not. For some reason, 20+ years later, I just got the fever to buy it and play through it. Does it do Indy justice?

Run, Indy, it's my expectations!

Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures looks good. It ran on the Super Star Wars engine, and those are good looking games, as well. Levels are colorful, detailed, and faithful to the aesthetics of the films. Indy himself is excellently animated, and it's a joy to see this gloriously 16-bit depiction of him running, jumping, and whipping around the world. Enemies are mostly well-rendered, as well. Special mention must go to the backgrounds. The original Indy films are famous for their incredibly realistic background matte paintings, which frankly put many computer-generated backgrounds of today to shame. The backgrounds for all 28 of Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures' levels are treated with equal love and detail. They're beautiful, and I died a few times admiring their distant mountain peaks, and bustling cityscapes.

Hey guys, can we stop fighting for just a second to look at these happy little clouds?

The music is also given great care, as each track is a meticulously rendered 16-bit interpretation of the themes composer, John Williams, created for the films. "The Raiders March," "Main Title: South Ameria 1936," "The Basket Game," "The Map Room: Dawn," and "Slalom on Mt. Humol," among several others are faithfully recreated, with all the glorious, warm, Super Nintendo textures you could want. Unfortunately, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is not represented musically at all, and many themes from earlier in the game are simply repeated for the latter portions. Considering other Super Nintendo games released around the time of Greatest Adventures, i.e., Chrono Trigger, include more than 60 tracks, the fact that there is only a single digit amount of songs here, when the films include multitudes of musical cues, is inexcusable. Sound effects are great, with Indy's whip sounding exactly like his whip in the film, and some digitized speech, like Indy saying "Let's go!" at the start of each level adding an extra layer of immersion. The birds sound weird, though, and boy, will I get to those birds again later.

Let's, uh...swing away from that for now.

As far as gameplay goes, Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures is a mixed bag. Factor Five have generally been known more for their technical prowess than game design. They were one of the only developers to get film-worthy sound out of the Nintendo 64, and their Rogue Squadron games look and sound incredible, but none of those games feature mind-blowing gameplay. Same thing here. Indy controls okay, his running, walking, and jumping movements feel right, and his trademark bullwhip handles like a dream. However, the crouch and roll mechanics feel a little off, which can be frustrating when those moves are needed in dangerous areas. That's a minor complaint, though. The more major problems with this game don't really lie in how Indy moves, but in the environments he moves through. As I've said, they look great, highly detailed, with stuff moving everywhere. However, Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures falls prey to the same problems lesser 2D Castlevanias do.
Indeed, Indy's whip mechanics are quite similar to the Dracula-hunting series' weapon of choice, as Indy can swing from hooks, and like in absolute classic, Castlevania IV, strike with his whip in almost any direction. The problems come when Indy has to jump over one of the games many pits. Apparently, bio-diversity over pits is higher than in the rainforest, because when Indy's in mid-air over their depths, a previously unseen bird, bat, or rock will always strikes him from the sky...knocking him backward into the pit...and killing him.

A guy who can rip out a human heart with his bare hands? No problem. A two-pound bird with hollow bones? Insurmountable.

This is insanely frustrating, just as it is in the games I previously mentioned. Castlevania: Dracula X, which I just reviewed, is lousy with it. Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures does not at all need this cheap difficulty spiker. The player is forced to trial-and-error memorize their way through many of the game's levels, discovering where all the hidden airborne wildlife is. The game would have been just fine without this element. Sure, it would be a shorter adventure, but at least it would be more satisfying, less aggravating, and require more skill than repetition-ingrained memory. Also, this makes the game feel silly. Indy's greatest enemies should be Nazi's...not an unceasing horde of unladen swallows (and sometimes laden! I'm not kidding, some of them toss rocks at you!). Indeed, the parts where you actually fight Nazis are a blast, when you're also not being dive-bombed by pernicious birds.

Fighting a Nazi on top of moving tank #lifegoals Or, I guess I could fight a bird instead.

Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures' weapons include the previously mentioned whip, Indy's fists (the punching mechanic is fun in theory, but Indy seems to miss when his fist is dead on just a few too many times), and at select moments, a gun with unlimited ammunition. The gun is weaker than the whip, but obviously has greater range. To highlight the scatterbrained level design, there are a few stages where Indy is given the pistol, or some health refuel (health in the shape of hearts is hidden around the levels) just as he's exiting the stage...which does him and the player no good. The game also features collectible jewels, or maybe gold balls, I'm not sure, scattered through each level. Collect 100, and in true Nintendo fashion, you receive an extra life. There are also some extra lives hidden throughout a few of the game's levels. The player starts with three, and is allowed three continues when their lives are expired. Each geographic area of the game, generally composed of 2-4 levels, has its own password, which the player can use to return when they've had a game over, or God forbid, turned off their SNES. This means that during a difficult, four-level area, if the player suffers a game over at the boss, of which the game has several, they have to start the entire area over. True to an old-school difficulty vibe, but annoying to modern gaming sensibilities. True to the films, a map is superimposed over images of Indy traveling from area to geographic area, when he completes the former, and a red line follows his progress.

Anywhere they don't have birds

On a production value level, the game features text-supported screenshots from the films that loosely tell their stories between levels, though these screens are not as impressive as the more interactive animated ones in the Super Star Wars games, as unfair a comparison as that may be. There are also three awesomely Mode 7 vehicle levels, one on a raft going down a mountain, one on a mine cart, and one in a plane. The first is thrilling, the second has its frustrations, and the third requires an exploitation of the frame to complete. If you'll remember, Mode 7 is a utilization of the Super Nintendo's highly touted ability to create the highly-pixelated illusion of movement through a 3D space.

In other words, it's basically a PS4 game.

Ugh. I love the aesthetics and vibe of this game. It captures a period of time where Indiana Jones and Star Wars, free of the Crystal Skull and prequel debacles, were unassailable. I looked at incredible console and computer games, lithographs, and other assorted Lucasfilm merchandise in the Lucasarts catalogue, under a blue, relaxed, puffy-cloud pocked sky. I read books by Timothy Zahn, and watched all my favorite Lucasfilm works, except for Howard the Duck, which I pretended didn't exist, on the USA Network. Life couldn't get any better. Looking back, though, underneath the dreamy vibe, Indy deserved a better 16-bit game than this. It's fun on a nostalgic, and dopamine-releasing level, but it's too flawed to be a classic like the films upon which it's based.


Graphics: 8.5/10.0

Sound: 8.0/10.0

Gameplay: 6.5/10.0

Lasting Value: 5.0/10.0


Overall: 6.8/10.0