Rocky Memphis: Legend of Atlantis (C64)

Deep in the jungles of Southern Mexico, legendary explorer, Rocky Memphis comes across a marker pointing to a temple in North Africa that may be the path to the legendary city of Atlantis. Rocky has long sought to discover this great mystical land, so he  rushes back home to prepare  his next expedition to North Africa as he vows to finally uncover The Legend of Atlantis.

Rocky Memphis: The Legend of Atlantis, the latest Commodore 64 project to be completed by Trevor Storey and Stuart Collier, starts off with some great introductory screens setting up the backstory and shows Rocky entering a temple in the African desert before the game play commences its entrance.

Rocky Memphis: The Legend of Atlantis is a platform adventure game with strong puzzle elements that sees you take on the role as Rocky with the ultimate goal of uncovering the secrets of Atlantis by collecting the 10 scrolls of knowledge hidden within. To do so, you will need to explores the mysterious chambers of the tomb avoiding the hidden traps, dangerous creatures and deadly specters.

The Legend of Atlantis features a broad range of puzzles for you to solve, which typically involve finding an item and placing or using it in a specific spot. All through out the tomb, you will find cryptic clues on stone tablets to assist you. Paying attention to detail and searching everything in sight is the key to progressing through the game. Combining found items with wall switches, pedestals and statues will often result in a closed section of the temple opening. But not all items found are going to be useful in helping you with your quest and herein lies one of the stronger elements of the game, the requirement for you to use your guile and logic to appreciate how items interact with fixtures within the temple.

One of the most clever elements of The Legend of Atlantis is that at some point you need to figure out a way to make the temple descend into darkness and have its interior illuminated by nothing else than the power of the moon. This not only essential in being able to collect the scrolls of knowledge but it also introduces a different way to play the same screens, effectively doubling the game environment.

Another neat feature, is the ability to complete the game with less than 10 scrolls collected, but doing so will only give you the ‘bad’ ending where failing to uncover the full knowledge of Atlantis means that you are not able to produce evidence of your find, and you miss out on your opportunity on gaining ever-lasting fame.

The Legend of Atlantis features some beautifully drawn high resolution graphics, when blended with multi-colour produces a very impressive looking Rocky Memphis character who is very well animated and moves freely about the screen. The background contains some intricate detail and if very effective in replicating a temple theme environment.

Saul Cross does a great job with providing the backing track that perfectly accompanies The Legend of Atlantis. After countless hours of playing the game, the tune grew on me to the extent that I found myself starting to whistle and hum along to the track while playing.

Game design is the key to any successful puzzle platformer and the non-linear nature of the game play, along with clever and fair puzzles and the ‘dark’ mode setting all combine so well to produce a long enduring and enjoyable game. The Legend of Atlantis rewards you the longer you play by gradually opening up the game world to you and always giving you something new to see and has somewhat of an addictive nature to it that will not allow you to stop playing the game until you have completed it. But beware, the game does not feature a save or checkpoint system so completing The Legend of Atlantis on real hardware will need to be done so in one sitting.

Rocky Memphis: The Legend of Atlantis was a pleasure to play and provided an engrossing and addictive gaming experience. I would suggest that The Legend of Atlantis is one of the best designed games for the Commodore 64 and I can easily see myself returning to the game, time after time in future years.

Rocky Memphis: The Legend of Atlantis can be purchased as digital download or as a physical release.