Atari's classic adventure is back to Samsung's adventure, a silver club
Blog Andrew Joseph 19 Jun , 2025 0

I really admire the retro regression that Atari is doing now, whether it is the rise of the Lunar Lander like Wayforward's completely gorgeous and charming Wayforward. These games imagine the world around their Atari Originals, using them to build the foundation for new games while celebrating what was before. It's a neat idea and I hope other publishers can learn it from it. Needless to say, when I was invited to sit down their latest retro rejuvenation, I accepted it even if I didn’t know what that was.
What I got was Samsara's adventure, which is a new sight for Atari Classic Adventure on the Atari 2600. Adventure was before my time, but due to its simplicity, it was amazing. But that doesn't mean it's not interesting. Seriously, if you are not familiar, go check out the adventure game; it's amazing what you can convey through very simple graphics and some of the player's imagination.
However, this is not Samsara's adventure. The game is amazing with simple and evocative pixel art, some of the most shocking I've ever seen. I didn't appreciate how much it captured the visual atmosphere of the original game until I went back to see it, but once you saw them, it's easy to see how Samsara's adventure understands its visual roots. My presentation begins with a bunch of bumping into the planet, resurrecting a fallen hero and covering him with golden armor. The first thing I have to do is help a guy named Ombro get it out of the cage. “But,” you might be wondering, “how do you transform games like adventure into the modern era?” Well, dear reader, I’m glad you asked. The answer, of course, is that you use it as a silver horn with soul-like elements (resting on the golden anvil will restore your healing flask and reborn enemies). I know, I know, but please listen to me. This actually works very well.
See, the initial adventure is about browsing the world and finding the way forward, whether that means solving the maze, finding the key to opening the locked door or taking the right thing to the right place. There are a lot of backtracking and learning how to browse the environment. It sounds like silver horn, right? Well, 45 years later, we're here.
Anyway, I had to take my guy Ombro out of the cage, but I didn't have a sword. So I walked into a shiny room behind me (Ombro was basically like “Hey, look at that room”), grabbed the sword and shield, and came back. In between, I tasted the adventure of a Samsung battle for the first time. I won't be slow, but it's intentional. Moving, jumping, dodging and swinging the sword is a heavy experience and once you take action you will be trapped in doing it until it is finished. When you are in a fight, you want to make sure you do the right thing.
Samsara's adventures also have Parry, but again, this animation is long, so if you try to parry at the wrong time, you'll be hit. Do it correctly, though, and you will be regarded as one of the most satisfying parrots you've ever seen, as the solar champion (that's you) uses their sword to knock out the opponent and then knock his own, causing huge damage to the huge damage of the bigger enemy and killing the basic mux.

Once I defeated Ombro with a fancy new sword, he told me that our people, orphans, were attacked by necromancers. No large, just a regular Tuesday. It sounds like a solar champion problem, so I set out to the nearby village.
As you would expect, this is my adventure that I demonstrated most of my time with Samar. Besides fighting, this kept me on my toe attitude due to the deliberateness of each option, I jumped mainly from ledge to ledge to ledge (stick to things you can do manually, which allowed you to do some more complex platforms, find new ways to get to the place, and discover hidden secrets, and discovery of such data Cubes (think of the mural of pixels), referencing the original adventure. At one point, I had to help orphan's crypt goalkeeper Potisto, who also got the spoiled elixir in the cage (noting the pattern here?), which meant finding it in the nearby chest. Once I did, he gave me the key to the next area.
Shortly thereafter, I fought with my first boss. The Meatless Giant is a great test because I can't just rely on my Parry to beat him. I could parry twice in his three attacks (the third was a magic spell that I had to avoid), but only one actually did the damage. The reception of the other party allowed me to avoid damage, but brought me backwards. The trick is to find the spacing, I can avoid this attack and let myself Parry attack on another attack. It's not a complicated battle, but finding the right spacing feels good. Even better, I don't have to play that way. I could have avoided and beat him up. I just want to try it out.

Once the guy fell off, I started to walk to the whole “Looking for Orphan Village” stuff, so I started exploring. I found a ability to manipulate torches (which is one of the fun things about Samsung's adventures; you wield your sword, but there are automated metal doors and elevators scattered around), and burned the weeds. The spell I got made me push the enemy away and teleport back to the last golden anvil I used. I encountered more enemies. Hit me instead of attacking spiders, so I can't put them out! The handsome guy I had to skip! These really annoying worm poisons! No matter what new I get, I have to stay on my toes.
I did eventually find orphan villages and encountered more orphans. I only saw one early segment, but I did appreciate Samsara's writing adventures. Each character speaks in a unique voice, and you will never mistake one of them. Whether I’m learning the sacred tree of orphans, I can help nourish the upgrade flask (I meet you, video game mechanics), learn about the lost friends of Black Smith, or just get the keys to the next area, it’s fun to explore the town. Other orthodontics even joked that I was a strong, silent type. When people are really happy goodbyeyou know?

But maybe the most interesting thing in my demo happened at the end. After leaving the village, I met the dragon that looked like an astronaut, a jetpack fighting a dragon that looked like the adventure, just… you know, more detailed. I got hits a few times to help but we didn't get him. He disappeared, and the jetpack astronaut warned me that he (and the dragon) was from another world. They shouldn't be here. I need to be alert to ambush. My demo ended shortly thereafter, but I had no shortage of problems, and that's where I wanted to be at the end of the preview.
Bringing 45-year-old games into today's era is a challenge. I just caught the adventure that Samsung Adventure offers, but it feels like doing a great job of being true to adventure while guiding it to a new era. I don't know anything about this, but I'm obsessed with the original game and this spiritual successor (if that's cool for you, there's a demo now). But that's the magic of such a game, right? You always tear apart between the present and the future, balancing what you see with what happens next, wondering what is around the next corner. The only thing to do now is to see if developers Ilex Games and Atari can stick to the whole sense of adventure.