Under the microscope: Atlantis: The Lost Tales (Saturn, PlayStation)
Richness in wonder and sophistication
In this edition I’m examining Atlantis: The Lost Tales for Saturn and PlayStation.
This Myst-like adventure/puzzle game was a hit in Europe — the DOS version sold well. But the console ports were not terribly well reviewed — Sega Saturn Magazine’s reviewer offered “Condolences to those of your who have purchased it already.”
Point-and-click games like this were never my cup of tea, either. But I decided to check this one out in the hopes of finding something interesting. Good news — I did! There are special names that allow you to start the game from any scene for both Saturn and PlayStation. Details are below…
The Saturn version
Start a new save. At the Name Entry screen, put in:
AlainTheDark
Normally when you start to play your new save you’ll be taken to the first scene automatically. But with this cheat, you’ll have the chance to choose your starting scene:
You can do this trick on either disc. If you use disc 1, you can only go up to the last scene for that disc. If you use disc 2, you can choose an scene — the game will prompt you to insert disc 1 if needed.
The PlayStation version
You can do the same trick on the PlayStation version. Enter your name as:
ALIBODIN
This name also works:
FREDNESSStart a game and then pause. You can then choose any scene from the Select a chapter screen:
Technical details
I start wondering whether a game has hidden cheat codes any time I see a name entry screen. I like to:
Put in a distinctive name.
Locate where the game stores it in memory.
Set read breakpoints for the associated memory addresses.
Inspect the code that reads the name.
The Saturn version of Atlantis reads the name buffer in a function (at 06031d60) that compares two strings. That function is called with a pointer to the name buffer as the first argument and a pointer to the string AlainTheDark as the second argument.
Here’s Ghidra’s decompilation of the first disc’s logic with my labels added:
(&alain_cheat_effect)[save_index] = 0;
compare_result = compare_strings(local_54,special_name_AlainTheDark);
if (compare_result == 0) {
(&alain_cheat_effect)[save_index] = 52;
}The first disc allows you to choose your starting scene up to number 52, the last one on that disc. The second disc goes all the way to the end, scene 116.
There’s similar logic in the PlayStation version (starting at 8002d15c). It checks the ALIBODIN name first, and if it’s not a match, it checks the FREDNESS name. If either of them matched, it enables the stage select effect.
Outro
For more posts about finding new cheat codes in old game data, see my archive.
I’ll be back with more this week! Comment with your suggestions on which games I should be examining.
