Adventure is the single celled organism The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy sprang from.
The gameplay of Adventure seems deceptively simple at first, and while it’s never as challenging, as say, Metroid Prime, it is an intelligently designed game. You play as a dot. A square-ish dot. A squarish-dot who haphazardly carries items around and occasionally gets into nasty duels with ducks, or seahorses, or dragons, or surrealist art, whichever your prefer. Mr. Dot can only carry one item, and that’s where the strategy comes in, picking up the item needed to solve your current puzzle in your current castle. What does what? It’s also worth noting you have to pick and choose your battles, as you can’t carry a sword AND a key at the same time. It’s also worth noting that this game contains the first Easter Egg of all time. The game’s developer was fed up with Atari’s stance considering people like him. The developer’s wanted their name on the product, to get a little respect and credit for what they had done, but Atari said, “I don’t think that would be a good thing. Instead we will endeavor to keep your name off of the product.” So, after the game was completed, he snuck his name right in there.
The graphics? At the time they were expansive, but now they aren’t to speak of. A dot, some more dots, a comically large key, and an androgynous monster. That’s about it. I’ll give it props for what it was back in the day, but I can’t reel all the way back to the time it was new, like with that Super Mario Bros. review I JUST CANT DO IT!
The sound? Atari sound. I wasn’t really around back then, I came with the NES generation, but I honestly can’t tell you how people from the Atari days put up with the sound quality even then. I guess they must have, though, since Atari went down as a success. It’s fondly remembered, that’s for sure. I even have an Atari sticker on my PS2!
The value of Adventure is surprisingly high. The game is just fun. It’s that solid gameplay. It’s fun enough to get into, then deep enough to keep you playing! This seriously is probably one of the top three games on the 2600 system and why? Obviously because of the gameplay. It doesn’t have a long-winded story that may want to keep you away, and it isn’t so complex it gets droll. It’s a great combination, I’ll tell you what.
There you have it. Adventure. Pure puzzles, pure combat, pure fun. It remains the epic for the Atari 2600 system, and probably always will.