iPhone App Reviews

Rise of Atlantis

Swain Valasek | Jul 25, 2009 Games

User rating: (3 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)

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I am completely burned out on match 3 games…at least I thought I was until I started playing Rise of Atlantis from SkyZone (originally developed by Terminal Studio; iPhone port by Gamelion Studios).  Despite some criticisms which I will level at this game shortly, it captures that addictive quality all developers pray for with a combination of slick presentation and casual gameplay.  I’m going to assume you know the basic mechanics of match 3 games; if you don’t check one of the  many other reviews on this site in that category.  In RoA you ‘Journey’ through 7 classic civilizations in the Mediterranean, gathering an artifact from each one to place in an ancient relic on the Altar of Poseidon with the ultimate goal of raising the lost city of Atlantis from the depths.  RoA features some excellent graphics and visual effects; you will not be disappointed with that aspect.  Generous amounts of animation keep the playfield lively, active and most importantly, interesting.  The BGM is well done and keeps to the theme of the game.  Gameplay starts very easy in Phoenicia but by the time you reach the last civ Troy the levels are much more challenging.  You play up to 12 levels per civ (77 total) in classic match 3 style and timed (though don’t worry as in most cases there’s more than enough) but littered around the playfield are a number of possible items: artifact pieces (always present), powerups, locked/double-locked tiles, frozen/double-frozen tiles and rocks (as of Journey 2).  There could possibly be more stuff too but I’ve not played to Journey 3 yet.

The way you collect artifact pieces and powerups is very ‘Azkend-y’ in that you must match tiles until they reach the bottom of the playfield and drop off.  Artifact pieces are then added dynamically to an onscreen image while powerups are stacked for later use (never used immediately).  You can gain 5 powerups this way:  life, which gives you more attempts should time expire; swap, which lets you swap any 2 pieces (except artifacts); time, which adds extra time; bomb, which blows up all tiles in the immediate area and lightning, which eradicates all tiles of a specific type.  A 6th and unique powerup is Sun power which charges up with every match of 4 or more and when discharged sends fireballs all around the screen, eliminating tiles.  Sun power can be used over and over as long as you keep matching 4+ tiles.  Rocks you just have to avoid, drop off the bottom of the screen or blow up.
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A few other notables come to mind in the miscellaneous category.  You can go back and play any level you’ve already beaten to get that powerup you missed or beat your score.  Unlike Bejeweled 2, if you end up with a ‘no more moves’ situation you don’t lose a life, the game just reshuffles the tiles for you.  The immediate effect of this is a sizable reduction in the difficulty level as you can basically just wantonly match tiles with no thought to strategy and pretty much still win.  This is fantastic for casual puzzle people but hardcore match 3 veterans might find the game too easy.  Also, a direct effect of powerups not being used immediately is the tendency to hoard them unnecessarily.  Even though the game itself encourages you to save your powerups for the harder levels, I tended to be absurdly frugal, basically never using my powerups until reaching Troy.  This ‘powerup hoarding’ is a little unfortunate as playing through 60+ levels without them kinda reduces the game to a really basic match 3 which is ironic on some level.
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So yeah, about those criticisms (and suggestions), here we go.

• No screen flip (why are developers constantly ignoring this feature?)
• No global scoreboard, even though the app store claims ‘networked high scores’.  What’s really ridiculous about the scoreboard is you can’t even see it on demand; you literally have to stare at the title screen for 30 sec and wait for it to ‘appear’.  I’ve honestly never seen a more useless implementation of a leaderboard to date.
• No iTunes music support (see my complaint about screen flip)
• The tiles are way too small.  I’m sure this has everything to do with being a direct port but it’s a shame.  Literally a full 3rd of the screen is sucked up by UI elements that have only limited effect on gameplay.  This should  have been coded to close like a drawer when not in use to allow a fullscreen display of the playfield.
• Exceedingly anticlimatic endgame sequence.  You basically get a couple of static screens congratulating you then you get to start all over again.  Where’s the raising of Atlantis, wasn’t that the whole point of playing through 77 levels?  Couldn’t we get at least a token animation of some kind?  I definitely felt gyp’d after finishing Journey 1.
• Somewhere along Journey 2 my score got blown back to zero (it was at or around the 500k mark).  I can only assume this is a bug as all my powerups remained as did my progress in the game.  Not too happy about it nevertheless.
• The game promises new challenges on further replays but on Journey 2 beyond the addition of rocks everything was identical.  Even so, I’m not too critical of this one as at least there was some effort made to increase replayability…and the game is definitely fun enough to play through at least twice.
• On rare occasion the game would throw up ‘no moves’ and reshuffle when I clearly saw an available move (weird this happens with Treasures of Montezuma too, must be a logic issue with this type of game in general).
• Possibly a minor exploit (though not entirely sure) is that it would seem locked/frozen tiles were intended to stay glued to the spot until unlocked/unfrozen.  However I found that in certain cases with determined swiping I could move them just like any other tile; they just wouldn’t disappear until the lock/freeze was removed.
• Game slows to a crawl during extended play sessions.  Restarting the game seems to clear it up but only until it happens again.  Rebooting the phone makes no difference.  I have to assume this is an OS3 issue.
• Crashes, nasty ones.  Some were just app crashes but others actually threw up a screen of video garbage and rebooted my phone!  I would say this one is certainly an OS3 issue and needs to be addressed immediately by the developer.

Rise of Atlantis is definitely a great game, port or not.  However, there are technical issues holding it back that really need to be addressed before I can wholeheartedly recommend it but hopefully the developer is already aware and working on an update.
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version reviewed – 1.0.0
reviewed on – iPhone 3GS OS3.0
iTunes link
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Tags: $2.99, match 3, Swain Valasek