Mixed feelings. This is a classic of the genre, of course, and I picked it up on Steam in order to finally beat a game that I'd eventually stalled out on in my childhood. [Mission accomplished, by the way]. ;-)

It's still really fun to make Indy run around doing stuff. And the game roughly follows the plot of the Last Crusade movie, so you're in for a good time. Plus, you've got all the usual LucasArts in-jokes and whimsy.

On the downside, this is clearly a game that people would have no patience for today, and [IMHO] with good reason. There's just too much that's arbitrary and punishing. Examples: no indication of the right way to talk yourself out of fights; items and information from near the beginning of the game that (if missed) can make the game unwinnable or virtually unwinnable toward the very end; stuff like that. The game isn't hard like Super Meat Boy is hard: SMB is a game where the task is clear but difficult. This is a game where the task is trivial but often totally inscrutable. That's not challenging; I'd instead call it unfair. :-/

Still, this is a great game, though it is a product of its time and shows its age. My recommendation? If you're interested, grab it, but play with a walkthrough by your side from the start. It is not a rewarding feeling to make it 80% of the way through the castle, discover that there's now no way to win, and then discover that your most recent save-game from before your mistake was ~1 hour of gameplay ago. :-/

This game was fun and challenging. If you liked the movie, you should play this, since it follows the movie very very closely. The game is a challenging point&click, but it feels rewarding when finished. The fighting system feels very clunky, so be sure to practice a lot in the early game. The Steam display and music isn't the greatest, so I downloaded the SCUMM engine for free and played it off of that. It looks and sounds much better than the Steam transfer. I got this game in the LucasArts Adventure Bundle and I'm glad I was able to play this LucasArts oldie.

In a lot of ways, 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade' has all the makings of a classic game, but in light of difficulties with playing this game in the modern age and the advances that would be made just a couple years later on 'Fate of Atlantis,' this is a game for die-hard Indy and LucasArts fans only.

The gameplay itself is what you would expect if you've played 'The Secret of Monkey Island,' 'Maniac Mansion,' 'Sam and Max Hit the Road,' and so on, with all the good and bad baggage that such a similarity bears. Many of the game's crucial items are easy to miss, and the puzzles themselves are not always logical. One saving grace is that many of the problems that Indy encounters have multiple solutions, but some of them, such as the fist fights may prove to be more trouble than they're worth, and the dialogue trees are more luck than charming fast-talk. I can't say that I didn't enjoy this game, but unless you have a walkthrough handy, be prepared for a lot of trial and error.

Worst of all, though, is that in order to complete the game, you need a replica of the Grail Diary that was included in the packaging but is not included with this Steam version. I owned a retail copy of this game as a child, but it's as lost as the Holy Grail is at this point. Scans of the Grail Diary are found easily enough online, but even so, the requirement of the game's original packaging is definitely a strike against 'Last Crusade,' especially in an age in which a retail copy would be impossible to find.

That's not to say that there's nothing to recommend the game. Like you would hope, the plot moves along at a brisk pace similar to that of the movie and is entertaining no matter how familiar you are with the story, which has been changed in a few, mostly trivial ways. It also has plenty of the humor that you would expect from a LucasArts game, even making me laugh out loud in a few instances. While the sound is unfortunately composed primarily of repetitive chiptunes of the movie's score and irritating blip and bleep sound effects, the graphics have aged quite well with plenty of color and detail despite the number of pixels.

The game also has an interesting scoring system that gives you a point for every possible action in the game. Some of these, such as throwing a punch at a certain infamous German, result in Indy's death, but upon reloading the game, the point for such actions will carry over. This was a fairly new idea at the time, and it certainly gives some incentive to replay the game, with a maximum possible score of 800. I finished the game with 390, so there will be plenty for the more obsessive-compulsive of gamers to do.

The primary problem, then, with 'Last Crusade' is that every success of this game was bettered by 'Fate of Atlantis,' which is also a good deal longer, has considerably improved sound (including excellent voice acting), and has far more intuitive gameplay. Still, if you're interested in either of these titles, you'd do well to pick up Steam's LucasArts Adventure Pack, which includes both of them, as well as 'LOOM' and 'The Dig,' another personal favorite. Even by its own, though, 'Last Crusade' is a worthy game for the initiated, but mileage may vary for newcomers.

7/10

It belongs in a museum!

You should get this in the LucasArt pack together with "The Dig" and "Indiana Jones and the fate of Atlantis". Its still a good game but Fate of Atlantis is better and The Dig is a wonderful game.

my childhood ;-)

Vintage classic - I love the challenge of original point and click adventures

Junior?

I bought this for the nostalgia and played through it, but I don't feel it aged quite as well as the other Lucasarts point and click adventure games. As a classic Lucasarts game from my childhood, it saddens me to give it a thumbs down, but I have to be honest here. I will tell why I didn't enjoy this game, and please keep in mind this is only my opinion. There are others who do enjoy the game.

The game starts off great, all the way through the catacombs. The puzzles are clever and well designed. I was really liking the game and it's quirky humor at this point. However, when you hit the castle section a couple of hours in, the game quickly starts to lose it's appeal.

A majority of the fun puzzles from the previous catacombs chapter are suddenly replaced with dialogue trees with the castle guards which follow no rhyme or reason. You'll have to keep playing through them over and over until you find the correct dialogue pattern to pass certain guards. You can die here (which ends the game) when you anger the guards and have to reload to a prior save just to try a different dialogue path. There's no clues whatsoever as to which dialogue you are supposed to be using with certain guards, it's literally just trial and error, which makes it a very frustrating, boring, and time-consuming effort.

I won't give away any spoilers, so I can only say that it continues to go downhill from here as the game becomes mostly just picking the right dialogue paths, giving the correct object to the correct person, and/or lots of clunky combat. I found myself not having much fun after the initial couple of hours of gameplay because it gets dull and repetitive.

You can also completely mess up your game and be unable to finish if you don't pay attention to a very minor inscription near the beginning of the game. I got to the end of the game and had to reload a prior save (lucky I had it!) just to read the inscription again. You will also need the original game manual in tandem with the aforementioned inscription to complete the game.

The Last Crusade leaves a lot to be desired and it really isn't as good as the other Lucasarts graphic adventure games. Spend an evening playing it for the nostalgia if you want, but that's about all I would recommend it for.

If you want your Indiana Jones fix, I would suggest trying out the superior and far better 'Fate of Atlantis' instead.