It's a pretty pin but doesn't have much long-term appeal. AFM is ten times the pin in my opinion.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/an-in-depth-look-at-ij4

It's a polarizing game. I love the art, but by many accounts, not a keeper. Doesn't seem like a tough game to sell, though, and they seem to earn well on location.

It's extremely repetitive. You do the same 4 "modes" 5 times each. And one of the "modes" is just shooting the only ramp in the game and The Last Crusade mode is just a single ball mode as well. It requires a mind numbing amount of repetitive shots to get some the later stages of the modes going. Modes don't stack, so you have to do each individually and progress towards each outside of the modes. Scoring is very imbalanced. By bashing away on the Cairo Swordsman target, you can literally have 7 million for a score for the game and get a 40 million bonus, if not way more. By ball 3, if you focus on the Cairo Swordsman, your get bonus can get ridiculous since the bonus is made up the individual shots to various mode starters and the swordsman shot adds the bonus multiplier and since there are several EB's to be had. There is just nothing to the game, even the "different" hurry-up awards are just the same thing with different names. I read in Game Room magazine an interview with Borg about what he wanted to do with the game, but it is pretty obvious this was one scrapped for cost. They basically put the ark in there and quit. It is one of those games I don't mind playing for fun a couple times when I see it on route, but would never want to own because it is so shallow and repetitive.

I'm in the minority, but I like IJ4 much more than the Williams IJ. Ark multiball is a total show-stopper, especially for new players or guests. The ramp is smooth, I like the Hollywood Heat-esque captive ball, and all the shots are very do-able. I guess there are some serious imbalances with the scoring, but unless you're running a tournament on the thing, it's a blast!

That said...I'd much rather have an AFM