This article has a talk page!The Mystery of Atlantis is the kind of platformer that lacks creative level design but makes up for it with terrible jumping physics, extremely limited time, insta-kill enemies, leaps of faith, and 100 mind-numbing levels of hell (well, almost 100, but we'll get to that). All by the same company that would later go on to make the likes of Batman and Gimmick!. However, it did manage to establish a sort of cult-classic status in Japan as a quintessential kusoge game, to the point where it was included in the Famicom Mini and later the Nintendo Classics library for Nintendo Switch Online. (Internationally, no less!)
The game was localized and bugfixed as Super Pitfall II and was submitted by Activision to Nintendo for manufacturing approval in August 1989, but for better or worse it ended up not being released in the US. Eventually, though, a prototype cartridge was found and dumped for everyone to... enjoy?
BLACK HOLE!
Unused Graphics#
There are some unused objects in the game's graphics data. These were presumably replacements for the diamond in Final Zone, but only the vase and coin appear in the same bank as the ending objects.
Debug Codes#
All of these are entered at the title screen, but must be done quickly before the demonstration starts. All of these were dummied out in Super Pitfall II.
Level Skip#
On Controller 2, press Select (×33) and A (×22), then press A on Controller 1 and B on Controller 2 at the same time. Now, during the game press Select to jump to the next level. Note that this cheat does not exactly skip the current level, but starts from Level 1 then jumps to 2, 3, etc. regardless of which level you use the code on first.
This can also be activated by setting $019F to FF. The level index is at $019E in RAM.
Infinite lives#
Press A (×11) on Controller 2 and B (×22) on Controller 1.
This can also be activated by setting $0191 to FF.
Invincibility#
Press B (×33) on either controller, then press A + B + Select + Up + Down on the other. This code actually gives an Invincibility item to you. It will last for 255 lives only, and your bombs may still kill you.
This can also be activated by setting $0457 to 01.
Unused Code#
Unused "Dark Enemy" Effect#
There is unused code in the game that causes enemies to turn black, except for the palette used on their eyes/other notable features, and illuminates them when you throw a bomb. It is used in all of the dark levels, and was probably supposed to be another effect of the "flash bomb" item (which illuminates the background). Most of the enemy sprites seem to have been designed with this feature in mind, as they rarely use the third color anywhere else on their sprites.
It can be enabled using Game Genie codes XVTKTO ASYGAP GEYGPP to require the "flash bomb" item, or GETKTO GEYGPO to always work in dark levels.
Alternate Sprite-Handling Code#
The game has an unused block of code that appears to be an old, broken sprite handling routine. Instead of using DMA to send the sprite list to the PPU, it writes them directly to the registers, one by one. Activating it and removing the DMA code (Game Genie codes GEAEIE GEPAZE XTZEIU) causes a lot of flickering and other glitches, although the game otherwise continues to run properly. Most of the glitches are caused by bad logic and leftover debugging code.
The logic can be fixed with Game Genie codes GEAEIE GEPAZE APZEIU VAGAPU, which makes it work in emulators, although there are still some glitches and it updates sprites less than half as fast as DMA.
Unseen Zone Behavior#
Zone 42#
The infamous "BLACK HOLE!" Zone flashes one of the palette colors red, similar to Zone 36. None of the graphics displayed by the stage (unless going out of bounds) use this palette color. Since the door and the "BLACK HOLE!" text are the only things in the stage, and doors otherwise never flash in the game, it's safe to assume either the text or the background would've flashed at one point.
Zone 50#
Zone 50 contains a closed, hidden door embedded in a wall near the 300 point chest, which leads to Zone 59. Since it's impossible to reach with a bomb, the door cannot be opened. It was probably meant to be open, requiring you to kill yourself in order to access it. The above map shows what the door would look like if it was set to not be hidden.
Someone on Super Pitfall II's development team must've realized this goof-up, as this door would be tweaked and relocated in that prototype, now residing in Zone 47.
Inaccessible Zones#
Several Zones exist that cannot be accessed without using the level-select warp. Interestingly, the manual mentions that there are 200 chests to collect, which is actually the correct total when summing up the amount of all chests across all zones... but only 194 of them are collectable in practice due to 6 of the chests being in the following inaccessible zones. Oops.
Zone 59#
Zone 59 cannot be accessed. It was originally intended to be accessed from Zone 50, but as noted above the door that leads to it is inaccessible.
It has four chests of little value and three doors: the left door, from Zone 50, leads to the right side of Zone 26. The middle door is invisible and leads to Zone 55. The rightmost door leads to Zone 69.
Zone 55#
Zone 55 can only be accessed from Zone 59, and as that Zone is not accessible this one cannot be reached in the normal game either.
It's a small zone that contains a chest worth 200,000 points, a microphone powerup, and one door that leads back to Zone 59.
Zone 84#
Zone 84 cannot be accessed normally. According to a full list of doors, there is not a single door that would send the player to this zone.
It's a short zone with a chest worth a tiny 4 points, and a proper door leading to Zone 83. If for any reason the right door in the midair is open, it will dump the player to the invisible door of Zone 59.
All of the above zones were made fully accessible in Super Pitfall II, all thanks to it tweaking a number doors including the aforementioned Zone 30 one. See the Super Pitfall II page for more details on these changes.
Zone 120#
Zone 120 (a number well above the 100 normal levels in the game) cannot be accessed without hacking the game, and contains 7 items - the maximum normally allowed in any level is 4. There is no level layout data or doors. The seven items are, in order from left to right: Score-Up, Microphone, Invincibility, 2x Points, Score-Up, 2x Points, and Super Bombs.
The general consensus is that these items were assigned to actual levels at some point during development, but were later deemed unnecessary and repointed to level ID 77, effectively "deleting" them from the game. A few of them do seem to fit into certain levels rather nicely.