In anticipation for the new Indiana Jones game coming out tomorrow, I replayed Emperor’s Tomb on a nostalgia kick. This was one of those PS2 games I played as a young lad that has stuck with me all these years. I figured my review on here needed an update since it was one of my early ones. Unfortunately GOG didn’t support screenshots for this game, so I’m pulling some from online to spice the review up.

For a game released in 2003, the graphics hold up pretty well. They aren’t the greatest, but they are charmingly early 2000s. Indy looks like Indy, with a lot of details in his model. They go the realistic route in that you can see most all the gear you pick up, from Indy’s whip to a machete to an MP-40 on his back. The other characters look decent. For the main characters, they have different character models to fit in with the scene, be it a jungle temple or a swanky night club. The world spaces are easily readable, which is important for a platforming adventure game. They go for the Tomb Raider style of design where platforms you can climb on are usually blocky and stick out among the set dressing. And each set is different and varied, the Ceylon temple ruins look distinct from the German U-Boat base and the Istanbul rooftops. The music is also working overtime here. It’s original music that takes samples from the John Williams score. I remembered a few of these tracks from my first playthrough as I went through it again. The bad guy theme for the Nazis is one that stuck with me, sounds like it’s straight from the movies.

While this was one of my favorite games growing up, it was also one I remember being challenging. There’s no checkpoints during levels. Luckily most levels are relatively short with usually either one big platforming or puzzle challenge, or a couple combat encounters. But the later levels get a little bit more involved and it doesn’t feel good when you get close to the end only to die and restart from the beginning. Especially because a lot of deaths feel cheap. Indy usually controls well, but occasionally he doesn’t respond to inputs correctly so you fall down a pit to your death, or some of the later enemies gang up on you and you get knocked off a cliff to your death. When you take damage, Indy heals himself with a canteen. It allows you to heal however much you want, but once it’s empty you have to find fountains to refill it at.

Part of my difficulty with the game as a youth was I tried to use my whip in every combat encounter, because it’s an Indiana Jones game. Unfortunately, the whip does some of the lowest damage of any weapon. It’s more a strategy tool, used best to disarm enemies or create space. Fighting with your fists is what the game encourages. Enemies are kinda tanky, but they seem to be the same level of toughness throughout the whole game. There’s also a selection of guns you can loot from enemies, but those are more for last resorts or dealing with large groups of enemies or enemies that are far away. Ammo isn’t scarce, but it’s not plentiful enough to solely rely on them. Everything is also mapped on an on-the-fly inventory, so you have to sort through all guns, canteen, and puzzle pieces to pull out your whip or machete.

The story is a solid adventure tale, but I realized in this playthrough that Emperor’s Tomb is an okay Indiana Jones story. After finding an artifact in Ceylon and meeting the German Von Beck, Indy is visited by Marshall Kai of the Chinese Army who tells Indy that Ceylon artifact is part of an ancient Chinese artifact that opens up the Emperor’s Tomb, and his assistant Mei Ying sends him off to Prague for the next piece. After going through the castle in Prague, Indy fights a robot man and is knocked out by Von Beck, who turns out to be a Nazi. The next level is set in Istanbul with Indy being saved by Mei Ying, who is secretly a spy for the Chinese government, and Indy’s love interest. She warns Indy that Marshall Kai is actually the leader of a powerful triad and is looking to use the artifact in the emperor’s tomb to rule over China. So, they team up to stop both Kai and Von Beck. After getting all the mirror parts, the story to me starts stalling a bit, which the game is plenty long, it doesn’t need to pad for time. Mei Ying get captured and there’s two lengthy chapters involving infiltrating a Nazi U-Boat base and a Chinese fortress. The next boss is Mei Ying possessed by an evil god. Finally, with Mei Ying saved, you both enter the titular tomb and stop both Von Beck & Kai. You follow Kai into a strange netherworld, much like the one at the end of Tomb Raider 2. There you fight Kai along with the dragon he summoned. The game ends with Indy getting ready to meet with Lao Che, as this game is a prequel to Temple of Doom.

Compared to the main Indy films, Emperor’s Tomb leans a lot more into the supernatural side of the pulp adventure. It makes sense as it opens up more gameplay opportunities, but it doesn’t feel as Indy. And it didn’t have to be like that, a lot of the expanded Indy material does, with books about him visiting the hollow earth or the such. But the game doesn’t do much to give the story that Indiana Jones personality. The only lengthy cutscenes in the game are mainly for exposition, so a lot of the dialogue is very utilitarian. There’s not characterization for our main characters: Kai is a cackling, Fu Man Chu-esque, supervillian, Von Beck is a bland, pulp Nazi bad guy, Mei Ying is a button downed, capable heroine, and Indy's voice actor does a pretty good Harrison Ford, but his few quips he gets off are nothing great. There’s no cutscenes that show Indy overcoming a challenge in a scrappy way. One of the most Indy things that happened during the game was something I did by accident during a fight. I picked up a throwing knife and, in a hail mary attempt, as I got surrounded by bad guys, I chucked it at one of them and it whiffed right over his head and Indy got clocked in the gut. That felt like something I’d see in an Indy movie.

All in all, Indiana Jones & the Emperor’s Tomb is a definitely a product of it’s time. The gameplay can be a bit finicky, but the controls aren’t too awkward. The story is a good pulp adventure tale, but it doesn’t go far enough to nail the feeling of an Indiana Jones game. Still, this was a formative game of my youth, so nostalgia won’t let me hate on it too much. I still consider it one of the best Indiana Jones games, now let’s hope I can say the same for Indiana Jones & the Great Circle.

I played the GOG version.

What if Indiana Jones was in a Chinese Martial arts film? This would be the answer. This game is fun and well made, but it has some big issues in some areas.

The bad

• Indiana Jones feels limited in terms of combat. He has a few punch combos, but they don't change the damage output, he has a grab command that is quite useful specially near pits, but then most melee weapons don't feel useful because they do the same damage as your punches but are slower; the only useful melee weapons are the whip because it can disarm enemies and the flying disc that can kill spirits.
• Has a few frustrating moments. There is a scene where you get chased down by a giant drilling machine near the end and the level is like 10 minutes of non-stop jumping and swinging with the whip, one mistake and you have to do the level over; the main problem is that the camera changes way too much, so you may end up accidentally making a jump way too early or you will take a "trap path" and get killed. Also the boss fight with the Kraken can be quite annoying because the camera won't cooperate and let you aim correctly while underwater.
• Some enemies are annoying. The flamethrower soldiers cannot be grabbed and engaging them in melee is a bad idea unless you get them from behind because they will one-shot you with a single blast, so save your ammo for them; the guardians of the Black Fortress can be annoying to fight if you don't save ammo or you don't manage to knock them down quickly, they will jump over you and attack you from behind or they will disarm you if you get too close.

The good

• The music is very good, it has memorable songs and they are similar to the ones you hear in the movies. It also has the main theme of the movies.
• The enemy variety is very good, you have weak enemies who fight using melee, soldiers with similar skill level as Indy, trained martial artists who are way faster than you but don't hit as hard, sharks, undead chinese soldiers, and wraiths who revive enemies or shoot energy.
• The graphics are good for their time. The scenarios look good despite being aged and are quite fun to explore, they are all distinct so you don't feel like they recycled assets.
• The voice acting is well done. Everyone does their job well or decent enough, Indiana Jones' poor mandarin is noticeable though.
• The game has a lot of collectibles. Collecting them all grants access to the art gallery.
• The final boss fight is the craziest thing I have ever seen in an Indiana Jones game. You fight an actual dragon in the middle of an ethereal dimension, and you have to use the flying disc to kill it; this fight could have been more intense, but I loved the idea of Indiana Jones going toe to toe with an actual divine being.

Indiana Jones and the Emperor Tomb is fortune and glory kid, fortune and glory.