Atlantis: The Lost Tales review: that sinking feeling

Two hours into Atlantis: The Lost Tales, we were pleasantly surprised.

This was the first game friend-of-the-blog Darkshoxx and I played together as part of our Love Letters to Adventures collaboration. Staring with ‘A’ in January, we’re on a mission to try a classic or obscure point-and-click release with a title beginning with each letter of alphabet.

Although Darkshoxx has a vague memory of his parents owning a copy of Atlantis when he was a child, it wasn’t a release either of us had experienced before. The only information I knew about Cryo Interactive Entertainment’s release before our stream was what I’d learnt when I’d purchased it from GOG: it had originally been published in 1997 and had a review score of 3.7.

We had an idea of what to expect though. Random death sequences and moon logic solutions were common in point-and-clicks from this era, so we made sure Pete was on standby to guide us with a walkthrough when we needed a nudge in the right direction. After our self-imposed two-hour time limit, we came together to discuss our thoughts on the game – and were both surprised by how much we liked what we’d seen so far.

Our protagonist is Seth, a young man who travels to the island of Atlantis to take up a position as a Companion. It’s unfortunate then that he discovers that Queen Rhea has recently been attacked and kidnapped. It’s not long before he finds himself in the middle of a power-struggle where patriarchal forces are threatening to overthrow the peaceful, goddess-worshipping society that has long existed. Can Seth stop the nefarious Consort Creon from using a powerful weapon and conquering the world?

Myst had a significant influence on the adventure genre during the 1990s and set a benchmark for atmospheric exploration. Many developers were inspired by its success and, while I haven’t been able to find any direct references, it’s possible that Cryo’s team were inspired by Cyan’s hit. Using a proprietary technology called Omni 3D, you’re able to see through Seth’s eyes and look around wherever you like as long as you’re not moving. Clicking on directional arrows will then move you forward on a predetermined path.

While the environments are pretty good for a 1997 release, the character models aren’t great. There’s something of the ‘uncanny valley’ about them due to their weird lips and blank expressions; and they’re made even stranger because of a problem which causes their animations to run too quickly. It turns out that this can be resolved with the installation of a patch. I kind of like the fact that we didn’t get around to doing though, as it now means Atlantis will forever be known as ‘that adventure game where all the characters looked like they were drunk’.

Both Darkshoxx and I were disappointed when we came across a timed puzzle which involved dropping a flowerpot on a guard’s head. Our first failed attempt resulted in Seth being captured and, having played a fair few classic point-and-clicks, we feared being set back a long way. The autosave feature fortunately prevented us from having to redo too much progress in this instance. We were placed just several scenes before, which made it easy to keep retrying until we were successful.

In fact, I think this feature had a big hand in making our initial two-hour review of Atlantis quite positive. Despite the weird character animations and an astrolabe puzzle which took far too long to solve, we were rather upbeat and could see ourselves playing more. I took the opportunity to do just that and managed to finish the game a couple of days later. I’m sorry to report then that my opinion ended up changing so much between that initial experience with Darkshoxx and seeing the end credits.

Most conversations with characters later in the game are painful. Clicking on them to talk displays a line of icons representing different topics of discussion and this system is ineffective. Given that Seth is required to occasionally talk himself out of a situation, it’s frustrating to select one of these and then watch the scene play out in a completely unexpected way. Saying that though, it’s not as if many of the characters have anything interesting or useful to tell you anyway.

They’re just too simplistic in their representation. For example, Queen Rhea seems far too naive for someone in a position of great power and will probably be remembered more for the nipples protruding through her outfit rather than her intellect. Creon is so stereotypically evil that you’re more likely to laugh at him than be scared. And the citizens of Atlantis are spineless idiots, happily going along with the events unfolding around them and claiming that ‘everything is changing so quickly’.

Sadly, the frustrations don’t end there. Timed sequences like the flowerpot puzzle mentioned above make such a regular appearance that they feel out of place for a point-and-click title. I’ll never understand why developers insist on putting ‘action’ sequences in games like Atlantis as they really don’t appeal to adventure fans. Failure on one of these challenges put me back so far that I ended up turning to Pete’s walkthrough for the rest of my playthrough, just to get through the rest of it as quickly as possible.

The story doesn’t make up for any of these shortcomings. It isn’t particularly well-told, and the ending is both predictable and completely ridiculous at the same time (it’s hard to go into more detail without giving too much away). The worst part is seeing how Seth develops a relationship with another character. Their entire arc is over in the space of a few short scenes and only becomes apparent once she’s no longer in the picture. I also can’t help feeling that her barely-there outfit might have had something to do with Seth’s infatuation.

The most surprising thing to me about Atlantis is that it was a commercial success. According to Wikipedia, it was one of the ten best-selling video games of 1997 and did very well in Europe. Cryo Interactive went on to release sequels Atlantis II: Beyond Atlantis in 1999 and Atlantis III: The New World in 2001, before facing financial difficulties and ultimately filing for bankruptcy in 2002. (Perhaps it would be appropriate to include a pun about their business sinking along with Atlantis.)

It’s safe to say that I’ll unlikely be returning to the Atlantis series any time soon. Still though, it was a great way to kick of our Love Letters to Adventures collaboration – we’re only one month in so far and have already experienced highs and lows. Darkshoxx and I will be back this month with a game starting with ‘B’: Bad Day on the Midway by Inscape, released in 1995.