The game is set in the mythical land of Atlantis. The player controls a boy named Wynn (ウィン?), whose objective is to rescue his master being held captive in the final level. SunSoft developed the game with the intention of surpassing the enormously popular Super Mario Bros., and advertised the game with the slogan Ano Super Mario wo koeta!! (あのスーパーマリオを超えた!!?, lit. "The game that surpassed Super Mario!!" The number of levels included in Atlantis did surpass the number included in Super Mario Brothers).[1]

The game was ported to the PlayStation on December 6, 2001 as part of Memorial Series SunSoft Vol. 2 (coupled with Route-16 Turbo). The game was also released for the Microsoft Windows operating system on June 29, 2001 as part of the Ultra 2000 Sunsoft Classic Games 1 (coupled with Super Arabian and The Wing of Madoola) and its value version, Yu Yu Sunsoft Kessakusen 1 (released July 2, 2004). On December 2, 2008, Atlantis no Nazo was ported to the Wii's Virtual Console.
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Plot

Several years ago, a gigantic island arose from the southern Atlantic Ocean due to sudden shifts on the Earth's surface. Numerous adventurers made their way to the island to investigate, but none of them were able to return home safely. This island was named Atlantis, and nobody approached it out of fear. The game's main character is an amateur adventurer named Wynn, who decides to go to the island after learning that his master disappeared on the island over half a year ago. Armed with the special dynamite invented by the master, Wynn heads over to Atlantis all by himself to face an evil emperor who seeks to revive an ancient empire.
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Gameplay

Screenshot of Atlantis no Nazo.

The game is a side-scrolling platform game, similar to Super Mario Bros., but unlike Mario, it is possible to scroll in both directions on the screen rather than just the right-hand direction. However, the somewhat choppy physics of Atlantis no Nazo, one-hit deaths, and multiple pathways make it much more challenging than Nintendo's own flagship title.

The levels in the game are referred to as "zones", and the player travels through various locations such as fields, caves, ruins, temples, and even across clouds. The games consists of 101 of these zones (zones 1-99, the final zone, and secret final zone), and features not native to Atlantis, such as Moai face statues and pyramids appear in backgrounds of the zones. In later zones, the terrain may be difficult to see because of the dark, or it may become hard to control the character because the ground is covered with ice. Some zones (called "black holes") only involve falling. Three zones are not connected to the main game, so they can only be accessed using a hidden command that allows the player to select and play any zone they want.

The player starts from the first zone, and must head towards the final zone to rescue Wynn's master while fending off numerous enemies by throwing sticks of dynamite. The player warps into different zones by going into the entrances placed within each zone. However, the zones do not come in numerical order, as several warp entrances may be placed within a single zone.

The earlier zones are generally easier in terms of difficulty, and the later zones are more difficult. Certain entrances may take the player from an easy zone directly into a harder one (with secretive warps jumping the player by a great number of zones), or vice versa. A time limit exists for each level, and the timer displayed on the lower part of the screen begins counting down from 999. Failing to reach the next zone during the time limit results in a loss of one life. The player also loses a life if their character touches an enemy, gets hit by an enemy attack, falls into a pit, or is caught in the explosion of their own dynamite stick. The game over screen appears once the player has no lives remaining.
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Items

Items that aid the player can be found in certain locations in each zone. Item effects continue up until the player loses a life, but certain ones may last even longer. The items the player currently has are displayed at the start of each level. The light-bulb item causes the screen to light up in dark areas whenever Wynn throws a stick of dynamite. The shoe item allows Wynn to walk on clouds, and the "S" item causes damage to all of the enemies on the screen whenever he throws a stick of dynamite, even if it falls into a pit or goes off-screen. The "↑" item causes the player's points to increase by 3 points whenever the player presses up on the keypad. The "2" item causes defeated enemies to yield points and the value of treasure boxes to double. The clock item slows the timer countdown, and the microphone item allows the player to stop enemy movements by speaking into the second controller's microphone. The star item causes Wynn to become invincible to enemies and projectiles, but the player can still lose by falling into a bottomless pit or running out of