 Some of you older folks watching probably remember Pitfall, one of the most popular games to ever come out for the Atari 2600, 12 years later in 1994 we get Pitfall the Mayan Adventure, where you're actually playing as Pitfall Harry Jr., the son of the main protagonist from the first game, and the crappy Super Pitfall game for NES. And Harry Jr. is out to rescue his dad. This is one of those games that received tons of ports. There's a Genesis version, Sega CD, 32X, Windows, Atari Jaguar, and later Game Boy Advance. However, it was first released for 16-bit systems, although I'm not sure if the SNES or Genesis version came first. Either way, I'm just going to be looking at the SNES version, obviously. Pitfall the Mayan Adventure is an action platformer, and as you can immediately see here, one of the game's biggest strengths is your character's sprite. It looks freaking great, there's many, many different animations here, and they all look fantastic. And the best part is that they don't really slow the game down. This isn't one of those games where you're forced to wait for the animation to conclude. Your character here handles fluently and smoothly. It's pretty impressive. Also, this game does a great job making use of the entire controller. B jumps the Y button sling stones, hold down Y for a stronger attack that you can aim. A is a whip melee attack, X is a boomerang, L and R throws smart bombs, and Select floods you toggle between all the weapons you can use. So yeah, that's a formidable arsenal and a lot of weapons at your disposal. And you can collect more ammo for each as you progress throughout each of the game's 11 levels. One interesting touch here is that instead of a life bar, you've got a picture of your character about to be eaten by a crocodile. The closer you are to being eaten, the closer to death. There's also gold pieces here. It wouldn't be a proper platformer if there weren't something gold to collect, right? Collect 50 and earn an extra continue. The game has you climbing and swinging from vines, crawling, riding ziplines, using these weird plants as bungee cords. At one point you're even riding a mine cart. What does this guy hang out with Donkey and Diddy Kong or something? The thing is though, these levels sprawl out all over the place in every direction. It kinda reminds me of Genesis action platformers like Vectorman and the X-Men games where you're climbing and jumping and wondering where the hell to go next. It's rarely just point A to point B. What's nice here is that while you might get lost, there's still stuff you can find like Mayan artifacts, there's the hourglass which can freeze time, and the Mayan chili pepper which allows for a temporary boost in strength and speed. In addition to that, there are a couple hidden bonus areas you can find. One is a secret vault, but the other is the actual original pitfall game. How cool is that? Remember to watch out for those scorpions. This game isn't perfect though, one aspect I have to point out is the boss fights. Holy crap, these are tough. Even the first one here is way too fast. I only have a chance to dodge, how am I supposed to hit this guy? And then later on you fight two of them at the same time? There's also points of frustration like this section that reminds me of the disappearing blocks in Mega Man 2, and you have to make these blind jumps, ugh. There are checkpoints here though so that helps, but no password system and no battery save. Another thing is that your mileage may vary when it comes to the level design. The first level can get a bit tiresome figuring out where to go or what insane jump you're supposed to do. Even with these statues that point in the direction the game wants you to go, it can be a bit of a chore to finally grab onto that vine or whatever the case may be. This game would be a lot more palatable if those freaking vines had more forgiving hitboxes. The only thing I have to say regarding port differences is that I prefer the SNES version over the Genesis game. The latter has a split second delay that simply doesn't exist on the SNES version, so because of that I'd go with the Super Nintendo game every time. So yeah, Pitfall the Mayan adventure looks great, the sprite animations are incredible, like Earthworm gym level great, the music may not stand out on its own but it fits the game well, and your character controls well and consistently, plus it's always fun to have a variety of weapons to choose from. The only issues here are the sprawling level design and the difficulty, especially with the boss fights. Other than that, Pitfall the Mayan adventure is certainly worth playing today. It's not going to be top tier along the lines of stuff like Donkey Kong Country or even Aladdin or Mickey's Magical Quest, it's closer to games like Artie Lightfoot or Plock or Indiana Jones Adventures, it's a worthwhile playthrough.