I bought this game for a staggering amount of money back in the day. During lessons in school, I always discussed with a friend how to solve a nagging puzzle (Knossos, I’m lookin’ at you!)
What is it that makes this game such a classic?
There was a lot of originality and variance to the puzzles, like trekking the desert/hot air balloon travel, having to be a scary ghost in the hotel, reading the lost dialogue of Plato, collecting Oricalchum beads and so on. In particular, the three paths was an awesome design choice creating a lot of replay value, offering completely different locations, in some cases, and puzzles on the way to Atlantis.
A good example would be getting the stone disks in a completely different order depending on the path you take, and various ways you both get into and escape from the labyrinth on Crete. That was the really neat stuff on a second or third playthrough.
What makes this game so immersive? As I wrote elsewhere, for me it’s the fact that Indy and Sophia move together, comment on each other’s actions, tease each other, and bond during the game. It’s the sensation to be a team.
Another big source of immersion, IMHO, is the amount of gestures they make during dialogues.
These two things work so well that they make the difference.
The graphics is of course excellent, and is a big part of the immersion. And the music too.
The puzzles are also great, but not as good as Monkey 2. Indy 4 is more story-centric than puzzle-centric, and maybe that’s how it should be.
A perfect game, I think.
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Various places, many artifacts, parts of history, Indy vs Sophia strong humor and Nazi. Film looking like adventure game done with professionalism. Story starts at Barnett college and goes far far from this place to the lost Atlantis. Perfect all the way!
I know this was impossible for so many reasons, but when I heard they were making an Indiana Jones 4 I wanted it to be based on the Atlantis story. Think of how much better than Crystal Skull that it have been…
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Definitely would have been a better story than what they used! The Sophia character would have been great to see in a movie as well.
One of my absolute favourite LucasArts games, so much gameplay and lovely graphics.
Back then I did not realize that there was an Amiga version of the game, and we did not have a PC at home. My dad had his own company at that time, so he’d actually drop me off there for a few hours each weekend, so I could play the game.
Last time I replayed it, I did do it on an Amiga emulator, but I was a bit disappointed how bad it looked compared to the VGA version, and how long the loading times were. I think they didn’t do a good job in converting the graphics, especially the metallic, bronze tones ended up a dull brown. The Amiga could certainly do better than that!
As for the game itself, one of my favourite all time P&C adventures for sure. It was such a huge game, with a great story, and the replayability was great too!
Also, Indy4 was a bit too easy. Monkey2 is like twice has hard.
You should read this, it explains well why Fate of Atlantis was so good! 
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As all of the LucasArts adventures it had a great story, great puzzles, great graphics and it always kept you wanting to continue, so when you got stuck you kept trying until you solved the puzzle.
But what made this game special for me was the possibility to play three different stories in one game. I thought that was such a great idea, and loved it. Having new places to discover in each story was great.
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Back then, I tried really hard to like Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Everything was perfect from a technical point of view: beautiful graphic, great “classical” Indy story, nice puzzles.
Unfortunately, I get pretty frustrated when adventure games let the player die, because to me dying and being forced to load a savegame is something extraneous to the gameplay and that feels just a cheap way to increase the difficulty level. Additionally, if dying is a consequence of losing some action sequence, my frustration becomes fury, because I don’t play adventure games to exercise my finger dexterity.
When I played Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis the first time, many years ago, I was killed by some NPC and I immediately closed the game. More recently, I purchased and played the game again because, you see, my memory sucks and I forgot that you could die during an action sequence. And it did happen again: a guard in the final maze beat me and I cursed both the developers (for putting in an adventure game action sequences that kill the character) and me (for having such a bad memory).
So, to me Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is a very good adventure game that I could like immensely if only it would follow Ron’s adventure game design philosophy (which means, among other things: no deaths).
“No death” only works in comedy. For drama, the possibility of death can be necessary to create the right atmosphere. What really matters is that you don’t die through no fault of your own, as in Space Quest, King’s Quests, etc. If you are clever, it should be possible to win the game without ever realizing you can die. It is bad design if you need to die once to understand how not to die.
Does “possibility of death” mean that a game could make the player believe
that dying could be possible while in reality it can’t happen?
Anyway, I wouldn’t like someone to take away the book I’m reading, I
wouldn’t like someone to switch off the TV set while I’m watching a movie
and for similar reasons I wouldn’t like someone to stop the game and, with
it, the storytelling.
I don’t see how it could do that. If the player does something stupid, what can you do? If you save him, he will stop believing he can die, and something will be lost.
The whole voodoo ending of LeChuck’s Revenge was quite tense despite assuming I couldn’t die and that’s about as good as it got in recreating what is usually lost in not having survival threats present. I find it thrilling to wrestle control amid madness and with various pressures, whether it be survival or time. I do think generally that these elements simply aren’t achieved in adventure games where you can’t die.
Perhaps a lot of adventure gamers need to feel like they’re in control all the time?
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if you picked “wits” path the action was minimal. But I see your point.
For me, it’s I don’t like pressure. I don’t like to think in a hurry. 
No problem if I can die, but if time can run out it’s a big problem.
That’s a problem many had with Majora’s Mask. Generally, time tends to be a tetchier subject than survival threats, even though many of the situations in games that come from survival threats are directly related, just that your time limit is also influenced by your actions rather than it feeling fated or destined. I’ll put it this way though: An adventure game without deaths won’t ever really get my heart rate up. Uncharted on the other hand, well that was thrilling. But a game can’t have everything and I guess needn’t should it try to please everyone in every way.
Compared to the Last Crusade, it was really, really hard to die in Indy4. I believe you can always weasel-word your way out if stopped by guards in the maze, or one-hit knock them out.
As someone who usually objects to death in Adventure games, I never really had any issue with that in Fate of Atlantis. I once even played the “action” path!