When it comes to Indiana Jones, I’ve been a fan since the beginning. I’ve seen all the movies, visited the Disney stage show, played most of the games, and even watched the cartoons. I enjoy the adventure, humor, and supernatural twist on historical events.
Right from the start, The Great Circle feels like an authentic Indiana Jones adventure. The game takes players to dramatized versions of past locations around the world starting at The Vatican in 1937, just before World War II’s start. As you wander the Vatican’s halls to complete the game’s various tasks you might notice the classical looking paintings that adorn the walls. Each is a picture-perfect reproduction of a classical artwork. The list of works and artists is provided in the game’s credits.
The entire game features this level of attention to the most miniscule of details. Exploring all of the environments is rewarded by the discovery of similar creative details. The curious are also rewarded by hidden collectibles of several types. After I completed the game, I fast-traveled back to Giza just to explore the area at my leisure. I wasn’t disappointed that I took the time.
The locations and architecture are not the only incredibly detailed assets in the game. The characters are fantastic too. Indiana Jones looks, sounds, and moves like he does when Harrison Ford plays him in a movie. The witty humor, silent brooding, and athleticism of the character are spot on.
The Great Circle’s story is classic Indiana Jones. Almost real archeology and history, combined with just a touch of the occult and the supernatural. Other reviewers thought the story reached franchise movie heights. I know that I frequently played longer than normal sessions just to see what happened next.
I played the game on my i9/4090 desktop, a R5/3080 Ti desktop, my Gen 1 Legion Go, an Xbox X, and via Gamepass streaming. I’ve seen the game on screens ranging in size from eight inches to seventy-seven. Personally, I thought the bigger the screen the better for this entry. I preferred playing in the living room with a controller rather than at my desk or on handhelds. Probably because the game played so much like a Hollywood movie. With the graphics cranked to their max on the PC with the 4090 the visuals are impressive and immersive. Even on the small Legion Go with the graphics on low, the game looked great.
Navigating the world should be familiar to adventure game fans. Climbing, jumping, sprinting, sliding, and sidling are all movement options. Whipping and swinging is common as it should be. You unlock fast travel points as the main story is progressed. Indiana’s fighting, health, stamina, and other attributes can be ranked up.
Like any good adventure game, you can use several strategies to make it through to the end. The main two paths in this title are stealth exploration or combat. Explore enough and you’ll find ways to sneak through and reach your goals. The other option means getting good at combat, especially picking up and using weapons in the environment. Then you can clear each area of bad guys before searching for your goal. No sneaking required. Both strategies can be used alone or in combination throughout most of the game.
Combat consists of punching, blocking, cracking your whip and shooting Indiana’s iconic revolver. In addition to those, there are various environmental items that can be picked up and used as a makeshift weapon. Shovels, picks, hammers, and other tools are generally lying around. You can recover weapons from vanquished foes. Rifles, pistols, and various period machine guns are easy to get in most of the bigger fight scenes.
The rest of the game is straight out of the movies. Follow the clues to figure out what is happening. The Great Circle is billed as an RPG. I tended to complete all of the side quests, and missions for each geographic area. Then I would advance the main quest line causing the game to unlock and move play to the next geographic region. Playing this way made the experience feel much more chronological and linear than the back and forth travel that often occurs in RPGs.
I played for 150 hours. I finished the main story and all of the side quests. I found all of the books and fully upgraded Indiana. I enjoyed the puzzles and took the time to figure them out on my own. There were several puzzle types that adventure game fans will recognise. One was new to me, which I always appreciate.
I went through this run on normal difficulty. On this setting, the enemies were challenging enough to make sneaking worth the effort. However, anytime I tried to blast my way through an area, I was able to. Be aware that going loud has consequences. Some of the battles to exhaust an area’s supply of Nazi soldiers took more than twenty minutes of intense fighting.
I’m pleased to report that there is an actual ending to the game’s storyline. It isn’t a cliffhanger set up for the next title or DLC. There aren’t any major plot holes, assuming that you have completed all of the side quests. Overall, I had a great time playing through this adventure. The gameplay was fun and the story kept me engaged all the way to the end. Indiana Jones and The Great Circle is a game worth finishing.
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