Play Lupin Sansei - Pandora no Isan Online

Lupin Sansei: Pandora no Isan came out for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1987, developed and published by Namco. It was part of that wave of early NES games that tried to translate popular anime and manga into challenging, often unforgiving, side-scrolling adventures. You don't see many games based on Lupin III from that period, which makes this one a curious artifact, even if it's notoriously difficult.

You control the core members of Lupin's crew: Lupin, Jigen, Goemon, and Fujiko. Each character is essentially an extra life with a unique weapon; Lupin uses a whip, Jigen a pistol, Goemon a sword, and Fujiko a limited-range bomb. Your goal is to navigate through a mansion and its grounds, screen by screen, to find the pieces of Pandora's legacy. The key mechanics involve switching between characters on the fly to use their specific abilities to overcome obstacles and defeat enemies, and collecting special items that act as one-time saves if you fall into a pit or get hit. The pacing is deliberate and the difficulty is steep, demanding precise jumps and careful character management. It feels like a tense, methodical puzzle where one wrong move can undo a lot of progress.