YMMV / Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Heimdall and Sternhart are both irritating jerks, but Indy discovers them both dead at various points during his quest, the latter implied to have suffered before he died.
• Complete Monster: Nur-Ab-Sal, the old king of Atlantis and creator of the God Machine, attempted to create man-made divinity through the sacrifice of countless "unworthy slaves". To test the God Machine, Nur-Ab-Sal experimented on his subjects, turning them into mutated abominations; inevitably, they perished in agony, and their warped skeletons are strewn all along Atlantis. In a room bloated with these skeletons, the spirit of Nur-Ab-Sal himself attempts to possess Indy's companion Sophia after having acted as her malevolent Spirit Advisor for the game, callously attempting to dispose of her the moment he sees fit so he can reclaim the God Machine. Nur-Ab-Sal's arrogance and pride are directly mirrored by the Nazis themselves, who pay the price for attempting to exploit Nur-Ab-Sal's monstrous technology for themselves.
• Fan Nickname: Before the release of The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, it was not uncommon to treat this as the fourth installment of the Indiana Jones series as a whole. Some fans continue to treat it as such post-Crystal Skull
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • For all the chiding Crystal Skull got for revealing that the skull belong to interdimensional beings. The comic book of this game, made years before that movie, revealed the whole Atlantian society was inspired by aliens.
  • When Indy is trying to figure out where a pile of bones in Atlantis came from. He speculates "Mars?...Hell?..." Doom, which takes place in exactly those two locations, would come out just one year later.
  • Indy's quip about him being the captain now, after he's punched out the submarine captain, was an amusing Bond One-Liner at the time of release. Fast forward 20 years to the release of Captain Phillips and its associated meme, and that line becomes hilarious.
  • In the game, Indy express doubt in continental drift - the theory ends up having a major impact in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: Some fans even state that the game is better written than three of the films. It helps that the genre tends to parallel the pacing and writing structure of film more than other gaming genres (assuming you're not getting stuck), allowing for a story that can feel like the movies without relying on Gameplay and Story Segregation.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The balloon ride and the submarine-steering scenes. The fighting could also be considered this, since this is an Adventure Game, but most of the time it can be skipped by using the "sucker punch".
• That One Level: Both the Balloon ride and the labyrinth navigation are disliked for being long and silent.

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