Happy Friday, everyone. Today I’m going to talk about a fairly obscure game that never came out here in North America: Atlantis no Nazo.
Developed and published by Sunsoft, Atlantis no Nazo was released for the Nintendo Family Computer in April 1986. At the time, Super Mario Bros. had recently been released for the Famicom and was completely dominating the market. Jealous companies had been trying to replicate its success, with very few managing to even get close to doing it. One such company was Sunsoft, a developer best known for titles such as Blaster Master, Batman: The Video Game, and Gimmick. They chose to create a game that would, in fact, surpass Super Mario Bros. in terms of levels, but we’ll get to that shortly. The game was released in Japan on April 17, 1986, and received a PS1 port several years later (but again, only in Japan). How does the game fare? Let’s see.
The title screen is in Japanese, but fortunately you don’t need to know Japanese to play this. It translates to “Mystery of Atlantis”, so the story is pretty self-explanatory: discover the secret of the mythical land of Atlantis. The player controls Wynn, an explorer who is trying to make such a discovery, as well as find his lost master. First, let’s talk about the visuals. Now, this was released at a time when the full potential of video games–especially 8-bit ones–hadn’t been fully realized, but I will say they are very basic and don’t have nearly as much detail as Super Mario Bros., and the animation is also a bit choppy. Wynn only has one or two frames per animation. Again, look at Super Mario Bros.’ fluid animation. Is that not enough? Field Combat, Antarctic Adventure, even Super Arabian, which was also made by Sunsoft!
What about the music? Although not enough to be fully memorable, the music is well-composed and doesn’t have any tracks that would hurt the ears. Probably the highlight is either the menu theme or the music that plays in the cave levels.
Now onto the gameplay. The game is a side-scrolling platformer, like Super Mario Bros. The object is to make your way to the exit door that is at the end of each level. Unlike Super Mario Bros., Wynn can explore the level left and right. This means that some levels will be a lot less linear. While the mission is to make it to the final level so you can rescue your master, there is also a high score involved. A high score is attained by killing enemies with dynamite sticks, as well as collecting treasure chests. Usually, finding a treasure chest would give you some sort of ability, but nope. Wynn is almost bare bones, with somehow infinite sticks of dynamite as your only weapon.
Enemies cannot be stomped on; they can only be killed by the dynamite sticks. This is one of the things that makes the game incredibly difficult; while the dynamite does usually land in the enemies’ spot, almost every enemy moves, so they can sometimes avoid being blown up. Other enemies have defense mechanisms, meaning dynamite will not kill them while they are using it (yeah, somehow dynamite can’t penetrate the shell of a hermit crab). Not to mention, some enemies fly, and can even pop out of nowhere. It doesn’t help that Wynn can’t change direction while in midair, so if you are in the air and a fish jumps out of the water, you’re pretty much out of luck.
There are power-ups you can acquire throughout later levels, including ones that can allow you access to certain parts of a level, give you more points from treasure chests, and destroy all enemies on-screen. Because the dynamite isn’t very reliable, these items are pretty much crucial to getting farther into the game.
To add to the difficulty, one hit will kill you in this game. Every time an enemy hits you, you turn to stone and die. Because of this, you have to have twitch reflexes in order to make it to the seventh level, let alone the final one. You got to jump, duck, and time your movements almost perfectly, or you’re going to have a terrible time. Since Wynn can’t change direction in midair, coordinating your jumps correctly is critical to success, because even in the smallest of pits, an incorrectly done jump can result in a merciless death. You also die if you don’t reach the end of the level within the time limit. Yes, Super Mario Bros. had a time limit as well, but enemies weren’t a chore to kill and it was a lot slower.
The level layout in this game is very confusing; the order in which you play them is not at all linear. You can skip over levels depending on the door you choose to enter, and it’s not at all clear which level each door leads to. This means that playing all of the levels will require some trial and error. Okay, sure, but then there’s the fact that you have to sometimes throw dynamite into a specific area in order to open a secret door. So unless you get lucky, there’s no way you can play all the levels! Oh, and there are also three zones that cannot be played unless you select them at the menu via a cheat. I don’t know if that was a bug or an irresponsible oversight, but that’s pretty messed up.
So, that’s Atlantis no Nazo. It’s pretty clear that Sunsoft just wanted to get this game out there to compete with Super Mario Bros. Sadly, it lacks the polish. The graphics are basic, the controls are fear-inducing, the level design is unpredictable, and overall the game is a borderline unfair trip. And would you believe this game was going to be released in North America as a sequel to Super Pitfall? However, for unknown reasons, it never happened—although a prototype was released on eBay in the following years. Now, Atlantis no Nazo is nowhere near as bad as Super Pitfall, but I think Sunsoft made a good choice keeping it local.
So here’s my recommendation: if you happen to find a copy of this game at a flea market, there are probably worse ways you could kill time, but that’s as high of a recommendation as I’m going to give Atlantis no Nazo. Just stick to Super Mario Bros.
Rating: 5/10
Featured Image by Kaio Scott