Atlantis The Lost Tales Sega Saturn Part 1

Channel:

Tails of Saturn

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Published on December 19, 2021 2:45:02 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giHf87phYa4

Game:

Atlantis: The Lost Tales (1997)

Duration: 2:37:47

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Review
Story
Set in mythical Atlantis, you play as Seth, the Queens newest Companion. While the rest of humanity is slowly emerging from prehistory, Atlantis already has thousands of years of History. The Queen of Atlantis, Rhea, embodies the Moon God, Ammu, the chief deity of the Atlanteans. The Queen's Consort, Creon, embodies Sa'at, the Sun God. Shortly after Seth's arrival, news reaches the Palace that the Queen has been attacked and has gone missing. It soon emerges that the Consort's men and the Companions don't see eye to eye. The Consort orders his men to investigate the Queen's disappearance while forbidding the Companions to interfere. This is a great story, and if you enjoy classical antiquity ad myths this will suit you very much. The story and settings don't draw on any real life myths but rather expand Plato's story into a fleshed out narrative of the struggle against corruption in the utopian society.

Graphics
Its an FMV point and click style game. In this one, the static scenes are replaced with panoramas, and it really helps with immersion. You get FMV scenes when traveling between the Static Panoramas and in Story sequences or when interacting with the residents and objects in the world. The Static panoramas are much lower res than the FMV scenes, but they still work really well and kind of feel like realtime 3D on the Saturn. The FMV sequences are high res, smooth and of a very high quality. The characters do look a bit jarring, they haven't aged amazingly but still do the trick. I kept on finding myself impressed by the graphics engine. The static scenes really aren't static at all. I first noticed this in the form of animated fire, but particular highlights are when people move around in the scenes. Observing the knifeman from the balcony while he paces up and down the alley looked particularly impressive, being able to see this (What I'm assuming to be) FMV element from multiple angles was very impressive. I'm guessing they must have rendered a complete field of view for the clip and translated it into the scene.

Sound
The music is of a very high quality. Even before starting the game you get your first taste of this in the form of 'La Lune' which really sets the scene and mood for the story to come. The in game background music sets the ambiance in each area but doesn't become imposing, instead serving to compliment the visual feel of each area. The composers, Pierre Estève and Stéphane Picq, really did a great job on this one. The voice acting also isn't bad at all for the era. Its still a bit wooden in places with some sentences seemingly misplacing the emphasis or inclination, but its mostly very good. Sound effects are fitting and of good quality as well, with everything, music voices and SFX recorded at a high quality without any tinny compression artefacts.

Gameplay
Its very exploration heavy and plays like a point and click RPG, with lost of talking to NPCs in towns, solving puzzles and exploring the island to advance the story. However, this one manages to change things up quite a bit by having time based sequences where you contend with NPCs and objects moving in real time in the world. It controls really well. The standard controller has an intuitive layout and its all very responsive and quick. Better still, if you have a Saturn mouse this game supports it and its definitely the best way to play the game (this is what I'm using in this footage). Its also quick for an FMV game. FMV transition sequences between the panoramas initiate almost immediately, and you only get a 1 second or so load sequence at the end to transition to the next static scene. The game does largely make you progress the way you are supposed to. If you fail a sequence you will get a brief narration sequence that effectively acts as a game over scene, but this isn't really an issue as you just respawn at the most recent checkpoint. Fortunately, these are very regular and they also act as the auto save points, so there's not a lot a repeating the same sequences over and over when you fail, though sometimes you find yourself redoing the same short sequence several times in a row as you try to figure out what the game wants you to do.

Overall
A very good game with excellent presentation and engaging story, but quite linear in its delivery. Strongly recommended for fans of story driven gameplay.

This is an expensive game on Saturn. The Saturn version comes on 2 CDs and is a PAL exclusive. PS1 had a 4 disc port with higher resolution panoramas but plays worse because of increased loading times. The aesthetic quality difference isn't that significant thanks to the Saturn's better image output.

A quick note on playing at 50Hz - I was unsure if this game was PAL optimised or not. It seems to run fine in both 50Hz and 60Hz, so I went with 50Hz in the end because it is a PAL game and FMV scenes tend to be the most likely to have issues, though there are borders if you play it this way.

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