085 · SUPER PITFALL

• Introductions
• Pitfall
  • Pretty much the first platformer
  • Still fun
• Development
  • Made by Micronics, Published by Activision
  • NOT made by David Crane
• First Impressions
  • Many ladders and pits are death traps. The first ladder you see in the game leads to a spike trap with a bat.
• Tales from the Manual
  • Super Pitfall is a loose remake of Pitfall II: Lost Caverns
  • In the manual, The best way to get through the cave is to explore it.
• Objective
  • In Super Pitfall you must locate a diamon, niece, and pet Quickclaw through deep caverns. Although you’re given no map you must explore the cave with zero guidance to find these things. You’re limited to jumping, climbing ladders, and shooting a gun. One hit and your dead. Similar games we have played are Spelunker and Metroid.
• Gameplay
  • Controls
    • Jump
    • Your Gun
    • Many of the enemies are too small to hit with the gun.
    • Limited ammunition
    • Hitboxes
  • Exploration
  • Secret Warps - only way to travel around
    • a bird enemy you have to jump into which looks no different from every other bird in the game.
  • Offer to play in another world
    • The new world refers to another game of "Super Pitfall" with all the hidden items switched to different locations.
• Let’s fix this mess
  • No traps not seen on screen
  • Maps found throughout the game similar to Legend of Zelda
  • An above ground area you need to deliver things found in the cave
  • More boobytraps and not cheap deaths. Think Indiana Jones
• Super Pitfall 30th Anniversary - http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/3060/
• A review in Computer Gaming World derided the game as "a [Super Mario Bros.] rehash that most NES users will be able to play in their sleep. Certainly, there is nothing in the game itself to keep them awake."
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • A sequel titled Super Pitfall II was planned, but then was cancelled a short time later. It was going to be the localized version of Sunsoft's Famicom title, Atlantis no Nazo.
  • Pitfall the Mayan Adventure SNES 1994
  • Pitfall 3D Beyond the Jungle PSX and GBC 1998
  • Pitfall - The Lost Expedition 6th Gen GCN
• EGL (Mike, Sean, Joe, Sam)

Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.

00:00 Super Pitfall! Join Pitfall Harry as he searches a vast subterranean cave dwelling high in the Andes.

00:21 NOSTAGIA And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sam. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. What is up, guys? NOSTAGIA It's Friday.

00:36 NOSTAGIA It is. NOSTAGIA It is, yes. NOSTAGIA Oh, yes. NOSTAGIA It's always Friday. NOSTAGIA Friday in the appropriate year of the Roman calendar. NOSTAGIA That's my favorite year. NOSTAGIA It's the day you're listening to this. NOSTAGIA Yes, exactly. And that's the best day of all. It is. NOSTAGIA We always like our listeners listening on the correct day that they choose to listen to.

00:54 NOSTAGIA In the present. So far, nobody has complained about listening to this in the past or the future. NOSTAGIA And so today we're going to talk about Super Pitfall, but I feel like we can't really talk about Super Pitfall before we talk about the non-Super Rise version of it. You know, like the normal version. NOSTAGIA They're going to say Pong. NOSTAGIA Yeah, Pong is like the normal version of all video games. NOSTAGIA Like, you know, it's like, oh, can you give me the normal version of Mario Brothers? That's just Pong. NOSTAGIA

01:29 And I played it just before we did the podcast and everything like that. And I think it's still fun and still holds up. We don't have to go like into the history and everything like that. But can I just get some general feelings about the first entry, Pitfall?

01:57 NOSTAGIA NOSTAGIA NOSTAGIA

02:27 the original Pitfall with the original Prince of Persia in my headcanon, because I was expecting something a little bit closer to Fidelity when I played it. But no, I mean, I remembered that from when I was playing on really old systems in my childhood, but it's been like two decades.

02:51 I've never really had any experience with this game before, but I'm glad you said that about Prince of Persia, because that's the first thing that I thought of when I was playing it. It obviously didn't look like it, but you go from screen to screen, and there's a different little obstacle that you need to take on in each screen. I thought that was cool. I think I would have enjoyed it.

03:07 Admittedly, I didn't get to actually play this one. I just watched a video of it, but it looked fun. Yeah, I definitely get to play it. I think everybody who likes video games should play this game, because it's simple enough that there's no entry, and you can go play it on the internet. It's available in a browser. You might need Java. Not sure about that. Ooh, Java. Yeah, Java's on the way out, but not the coffee. And I will kind of call my coffee Java from time to time.

03:29 I think I get that from the road. I've never met anyone. Would you say a cup of Joe? Cup of Joe? Yeah, I like cup of Joe as well. I don't know why Dunkin' Donuts has like a... A box of Joe? No, yeah, yeah. They almost have a copyright on that now. You can't say it without people thinking about Dunkin'. That's my name. Sorry. Welcome to the club. Take a second. I've got something in my eye.

03:54 Fuck. Fuck, I just want a pitfall. There's a seltzer. I've got to like pour the seltzer in my eye. There's an SCP, which produces a liquid... It's a coffee machine that makes a liquid version of anything. Mm-hmm. One of them... One time someone asked it for a cup of Joe. And the guy in the room named Joe started feeling sick. Oh. Because he was dispensing his innards. Yeah, that sucks. That's a cool SCP. I know that one. Yeah. Cool. Here we go. We're going to start with development, okay?

04:28 And I think that's enough about pitfall. Now we're going to make things super. We're going to talk about... I prefer you wouldn't. Yeah, yeah. I was saying you don't look very amused over there on the other end of the table, Sean. But we have to talk about it. It is today. It is the game of the week. And we'll start with the development. So this game was made by Micronics and published by Activision.

04:48 Activision's kind of like all over the place with us recently. But I think I'm also confusing them with Acclaim. Like, because they both start with... The games blend together for me. And they're both just publishers. I think that the true red flag here is Micronics. Okay. Because they don't really have a solid track record with us either.

05:06 Mm-hmm. I don't quite remember the game that I'm thinking of. But it was very bad. But the name... Just the fact that the name is sticking with you is also not a great sign of, like, things to come. And also, Pitfall was made by a guy named David Crane. And he has nothing to do with Super Pitfall. So it's just kind of like Activision cashing in on the Pitfall name and saying, Hey, we can do this. Let's do this. So they do.

05:34 And what do they really take from Pitfall? You can fall? You can jump? Well, also, like, in Pitfall you were searching for 20 treasures. And in this one you're searching for, like, three different things. Right. So the idea of still, like, searching for treasure counts for something. Even if treasure is now your niece and your pet. Pet lion. Yeah. And all those other things. Also, Sean, you're thinking of both 1942 and elevator action. There it is. But Ghost and Goblins.

06:06 So, I mean, but that groundwork was laid out in the arcade version. And the arcade version is better. So, I think, like, even though... Those were not Micronics in the arcade. No, the arcade was Capcom. Yeah. There we go. And also, like, some other things I'm noticing now. Ikari Warriors, they also did. Tiger Heli. So, things were made by Micronics around 87. They're all over the place.

06:27 Let's do some first impressions for Super Pitfall. Sean? I feel like with Super Pitfall, it was, like, sort of stepping into somebody's, like, chewed-up gum. Because it looks like it was good in its original form. And now it's just this mass of just, like, icky garbage. And I'm sort of coloring the rest of my reaction to this game. But I think that the fact that it's an open world is great. As far as an open world game can be at this level. It's just filled with garbage. Garbage enemies. Garbage platforming. The jump is bad.

07:05 And this is my first impression. Because this is just thrown at you in the first 20 seconds. All of these terrible mechanics are just thrust upon you. And he shoots a gun that doesn't hit anything. All right. Joe? Yeah. My first impression was definitely a lot about the controls kind of not feeling great. And also about, like, the lack of direction. Like, I wasn't really sure what I'm supposed to be doing. Am I supposed to get that? Am I supposed to get the gold? There's a bunch of little things that I just feel like. Did you read the manual? I read the manual. The gold gives you points. But, I mean, I just felt like after a while I was just, like, lost. And I was just, you know, it wasn't, I don't know. It didn't, um...

07:44 The gameplay did not make up for the fact that I'm wandering around this world I don't want to want. Like, there was no fun to wandering around. Like, if you're lost in a game like that. Like, think of, um... Think of Metroid. You can get lost in that, but you're having fun searching. In this, I was not having fun off the bat. Yes. And my first impression is discovered right away when the first ladder in the game is actually just a spike trap with, like, a bat.

08:12 Like, it's just a pit of death. Like, the ladder just ends. You can't see what's about to happen, but when you drop down from the ladder, you fall into a pit and die. And I was like... What kind of pitfall? Yeah, on the one hand, like, that's, well, that's pretty realistic to what would probably happen in a real cave if you followed ladders around.

08:29 But on the other hand, I don't need that in a video game, and I also wish that that information was communicated better on a screen. Of, like, being able to see what you're going to fall down to. This is going to be a huge problem throughout the rest of the game, but I just think it's so weird that in the very first thing you're introduced to is don't trust ladders. When climbing ladders is most of the game. It is good advice, though, for this game. I get the feeling that they were trying to do the tutorial like Mario does in the first few seconds of where it's like, oh, this is what you need to do. But instead, it kind of just comes off as, like, this game's going to suck.

09:04 Don't try anything. Don't try anything but funny. It comes off as, like, you can't trust what you're seeing, and, like, there's not really going to be a clue to what you're supposed to, like, what you can climb down and what you can't. You can't trust what you see. You can't trust what you do. Right. You know, it's, you can't really trust this game. And that goes straight through to the end of the game that you can't trust what's happening. It's like, we'll get into that later, I'm sure. All right. So I, as I do, I like to read the manual first. So while I was looking up the manual, this is, like, before our first impressions. These are, like, pre-impressions. I looked up Super Pitfall.

09:39 And the first thing, one of the first things that comes up is map or, like, route. And so I'm thinking, okay, cool. This is, this is interesting that there's, you know, a specific way you have to go through. So before I even read the manual, I knew that it was some kind of open world-ish kind of game. And then I read the beginning of the manual, which said that there are over 270 different screens in this game. And that's when the red flag started to come up. Because with a game with that many screens, they can't all be good. You know, it's got to be just a bunch of useless stuff.

10:17 And then my suspicions were pretty much confirmed when I got in. But I think the most jarring thing off the bat is that, I don't know, 15-second song that repeats. Not the best song either. Like, 15-second songs can be okay certain times. Not when they're not clutch.

10:36 Besides that, one positive thing that I liked was that depending on how quickly you press the A button, your character jumps different heights. Which I thought was, you know, they did it in, you know, Super Mario Bros. But for a game that looked and felt this bad, I thought that that was kind of a cool thing right off the bat. You can kind of do little jumps if you want to not hit your head on something.

11:03 Sure. But whoever programmed this game did not think it through. Because I think the controls are some of the poorest that we've played other than wrestling games. It's real bad. Yeah, that's the one silver lining. It's like, oh, I can control my jump height. Right. That was it. And so since you mentioned the manual, we might as well go into a little Tales from the Manual section because I have two points of information that I'd like to talk about. The first has nothing to do with the manual, so I really got to think of a better name for this Tales from the Manual section.

11:31 Tales from the Marketing. Yeah. Tales from Marketing. Well, Super Pitfall is actually a loose remake of Pitfall 2 Lost Caverns. And from what I can tell, it must have been a very loose remake. Maybe only the plot was carried over. Because Pitfall 2 Lost Caverns seems like a decently playable game that Pitfall fans probably liked. It was sort of like Pitfall in some way? In some ways, but also the idea that you're exploring caves and stuff this time instead of a jungle. Okay. Pitfall 1 is all in a jungle. Yeah. And then in the manual for Super Pitfall, there's a tips and tricks section, you know, towards like the end of it.

12:09 And it tells you like a bunch of things that, of pieces of advice that you might need to play the game and to get through the game properly. And we've seen this before in other manuals. Sometimes it gives you like a riddle or like a vague hint. Or there's that other one about the Medusa in Starforce that was like, it's worth a million points. Can you find it? Well, in Super Pitfall, the manual just tells you that the best way to get through the cave is to explore it.

12:35 That's not even, like that would make sense if it was in the objective or in like the beginning of the manual. But in the tips and tricks section, it's the only thing you can do. Didn't we just have another game like that where it's, it's, it's directions on how to play were just like, beat the game. No, it was, it was, it was over, it was just over description of like pressing A button will do what the A button does.

12:57 Whereas, yeah, if to get the best way to get to explore the cave is to explore it. And it's like, thanks. Yeah. And then they do it again. There's only, but there's only one way to play the game, right? Like you would have to explore the cave. It's literally the only, it's, no one ever got confused about that. No one started the game, dropped in the cave and said, I shouldn't be here. And like put down the console and control it. And then right after that, they have tried to discover the shortest route. You may just uncover an unexpected shortcut in the process. So by searching for the shortest route, you may find the shortest route.

13:29 Or an even shorter route than you were expecting. Yeah. Right. I was always expecting very long routes because, you know, and we'll get into this in the gameplay section, but navigating your way through this cave is kind of like, if you fall deep enough into the cave, you're kind of stuck there for a while.

13:43 Like, you know, you're not about to just be like, oh, it'll just be like the second, you know, a couple seconds before I'm back up at the top, then you're down there. If you fall off of like one level, but there just happens to be the right kind of, or the wrong kind of area below you, you'll just fall for like 40 minutes. You'll fall for 40 minutes and then there's nothing you can do about it. You're passing things that it looks like you can land on. You can't. You can't move your player, correct?

14:07 Right. You have a certain amount of jump control, but that's only once you've hit the top of your arc. Not once you fall. No, yeah, but once you're falling, you can't like will yourself a certain way. Like in Super Mario Bros., when you fall from any height, you can still control Mario's momentum. Not so in Super Pitfall. You are locked to a free fall, straight down. Like, put the controller down, have a bathroom break. You're going to be falling for a while. So real fast, I'll do the objective here. In Super Pitfall, you have to locate a diamond, your niece, and your pet quick claw, who is a lion, as Sam mentioned earlier. And you do this through a vast set of cave, of one cave. I was going to say caves. Vast set of cave.

14:48 Honestly, you know what the way these translations work out sometimes? That might have been in the game. Yeah. You're given no map. You must explore the cave. And there's zero guidance to find any of those things. So if you want to find the diamond, the niece, your pet quick claw, the manual wasn't telling you anything. But the game isn't also telling you anything either. There's no character in the game who says, like, hey, I think your niece is this way. Or, like, a sign with your niece or something like that. Like, anything that would help you. You just have to kind of explore the cave and figure out where those things are. You're limited to jumping, climbing ladders, and shooting a gun.

15:22 One hit and you're dead. Similar games we've played are Spelunker and Metroid. I think that's my objective setup. So now that everybody understands the game that we're talking about, I'm sure they're picturing it vividly in their heads, we can talk gameplay. Who wants to start? I'll start real quick. While you may be vividly imagining what the game is like, it's very much not that.

15:43 Because if you were thinking, like, okay, you go around, you search for keys, and then they'll unlock doors. Like, yeah, there are keys and there are doors, but you can't see the keys. And you really can't see the doors. And you also don't really see much of anything. Because everything that you're trying to find does not have a sprite until you jump and get it. Like, you won't even get it just walking around.

16:10 They're hidden so poorly. Like, it's not even a fun experience, I think. I feel like maybe some people did, but... It's not because here's why also. Like, so you said with enemies just kind of pop in, right? Like, all of a sudden a frog is like mid-jump, even though you didn't see him a second ago. And then you just take one step back and he despawns, right? It's like, oh, great job, programmers. Like, I'll just glitch my way through the cave that I'm clearly hallucinating.

16:36 Yeah. The thing that got me the most, I think, was the waterfalls. Because the waterfalls are really glitchy on their own. And I don't know if this happened with you guys. I know exactly what you're going to say. But the sprites were, like, jumping back and forth. And I couldn't time my way through because the sprites kept jumping. And I didn't know where the hitbox was. It's designed so you have to time your way through. And then also it glitches in a way that you absolutely cannot.

16:57 Yes. There's a certain part where I think, like, you're walking over a log and two waterfall sprites just, like, perfectly sync up over and over and over again on loop so that you can't get through anything. And so in that situation, you have to kind of, like, leave that area and come back and hope that the waterfall, like, sets itself properly. Yeah. And so, like, good job there, too. I think we can talk a lot about, like, the glitches and errors of this game, though. Because even just...

17:27 Even when it's performing... Even when it's acting as it should, it performs terribly. Right. Nothing about this game's controls are satisfying. Because even shooting your gun, right? Like, you would expect, like, okay, I shoot the gun. The bullet comes out. There's the spider. And then it just goes right past the spider. It's like... Yeah. And then I realized, oh, no, that's just something that can never be killed. Yeah, you can kill spiders. You're supposed to... I don't know if it works on spiders or not, but you're supposed to, like... There's little dips that have, like, a small ladder or a small area you can, like, go in. And if you go in there, jump up a little bit and shoot. The bullet will be at the right level to hit those lower things.

18:04 Those situations are so rare. But at that point, you're better off just jumping over the edges. Yeah, really. They're also harmless. It's weird, because you can crouch. And I thought maybe that's why you would tell you to do that. What does that do? It doesn't do anything, because your hitbox, even when you're standing, doesn't affect your head. Yeah. Well, I guess there's, like, the bats that, like, fly in that little swoopy pattern. The hitbox is the same. Yeah? The hitbox is the same. Those bats really angered me.

18:28 So, I think, like, one thing, though, is, like, we're talking about frogs, we're talking about spiders, we're talking about bats. The cave's got a variety of enemies. The problem is that there's no way to handle these enemies. Yeah. The only thing you can do is shoot a frog in the face. If it's a net jump. On the scorpions, too. Those things got me. Yeah, and they charge at you, too. They run at you. Yeah, so they give you, like, a nice variety of enemies, but the problem is, is that the way that the game controls itself, you can't really handle any of these enemies properly.

18:56 Maybe if they were, if it were less crowded, because it's a very crowded cave, and I sometimes will just have to avoid just going anywhere where there's any kind of resistance, because I just die so often, and you only get three tries, so you don't really want to risk it. Like, the design of the game actually punishes you for exploring in some ways. Yeah. Well, I think the biggest thing that punishes you for exploring at all, and, you know, to Pitfall's, like, you know, credit, this is one of the things that the original game had going for it, was, like, the traps and the, you know, like, avoid the alligators when their mouths are open, or, you know, like, don't fall into the pits, you know?

19:39 Like, that makes sense. It kind of telegraphs that stuff to you. Right, it telegraphs that stuff to you. In this game, it's filled with different kinds of traps, but none of them you're prepared for because they're a screen over that you fall into, or they're, as you're coming up to them, like, a new enemy is there. The ceiling will just spontaneously fall with no, like, when you're under it. Yeah, all of a sudden, a, you know, there's a part where the top of the ceiling of the cave kind of collapses onto you, and, like, cool idea, you know, I think, like, also that would kill anybody and should realistically block the path back the other way.

20:13 But if you want to do it in the game, I'm fine with that, but also it's just, it was never communicated to that point, so you're absolutely going to die the first time it happens. And is it only the one spot? I feel like maybe I just, like, backtracked. I think there's more than one. I feel like it just happens at some spots, and there's no way of knowing what's going to happen. It's not really a puzzle, it's just, you're going to die.

20:30 That's it. I don't think they're random, but I definitely think it happens, like, in multiple places throughout the game. I think the game exposes you to a lot early on in terms of exploration. Like, you can go a bunch of different ways and experience a bunch of different things, but after a while, you've kind of seen the cave. Yeah. And now you're just kind of like, where is any of the things I need to find? Right? Like, how did people do on finding the diamond, the niece, or the pet? I found the diamond. That's it. I didn't find anything.

21:03 Also, I just wanted to note that in the manual, even when you find Rhonda, it says that she's been turned to stone, and so that you have to find a flask of medicine also. So that's not even... Yeah, but that's like, yeah, that's like the twist early on. Yeah, but it tells you that first thing in the manual also. Right. But I guess, like, you know, it's the prologue of the game. Not that anybody would stick around for longer than the prologue. Yeah. I wouldn't recommend it. So we have issues with the jump. We have issues with the gun.

21:35 There's a lot of enemies, but they're too small to even hit with your gun. We didn't even talk about the limited ammunition. So in your gun, you get, I think, 12 bullets? 20. 20? Who cares? Yeah. That's how I, when I ran out of bullets, I was like, all right, I just won't shoot anymore. It hasn't done anything for me. They tried to make it like a use them carefully because these are precious and you're going to need them. And it's like, I don't think I really need them. Like, I'll just, honestly, I'll just, with the frogs, I'll just go the other way.

22:04 You know, like, honestly, in this cave, I'm thinking about how do I get back up to where I came from and just leave? Yeah. And it's not like the bullets work. Also, I feel like the hitboxes were so bad on the enemies that I would have to shoot the bat three times before we even get hit. Yeah. And then you're down to 17 and good luck finding more ammo. There is more ammo, but. It's hidden the same way that the keys are hidden, where you don't really see it until you jump up and accidentally touch it. Right. And that's even how the secret warps are dealt with in this game. Did we mention there's secret warps? Yeah. There's secret warps to better manage your trip.

22:36 Secret, is that what they say in the mail? I don't know. Okay. Secret warps in this game work a little differently, though, because sometimes secret warps are, like, required to get back to other parts of the cave that you maybe fell from or that you want to get back to.

22:50 That doesn't seem like that should be the case. It should be that any way to get to this cave should be completely explorable. There should never be, like, a drop-off point unless it was going to act like a Metroidvania where it's like, once you drop off, you can only get back to the top with the new item. Yeah. You know? That level of design understanding is beyond the developer of this game. Yes. One of the warps is actually an enemy that you have to get hit by. And what's the problem with that, Sean?

23:22 The problem with that is that you have been trained from the beginning of this game to either avoid or destroy enemies. I mean, it would take you forever to figure that out, even by accident. Or, like, if you're intentionally doing it, you still don't know which enemy or anything. Surely the bird is colored differently or looks different. The bird looks exactly like the other birds that can kill you, Mike. No way.

23:46 It is true. And I only found this out by watching a video thing later on. I can't believe that. That is the kind of stuff that when people say Nintendo hard, that's what I really think about.

23:58 No, Nintendo game is designed that way. Yeah, I know. But I'm saying, like, that's the kind of bullshit I expect from these kinds of games. But this is the first, like, example I can think of where a game has, like, mandatory parts of it. Like, sometimes you will need to use that secret warp if you forgot something earlier on to get back to that area. And it's like, how would that be communicated to anybody? Were they trying to sell a guidebook later on? I don't know. That has to be something along those lines because I know that they did exist. Like, there were strategy guides. It's not even clever.

24:29 No. Nowhere, you know, secret warps existing in an otherwise totally realistic world is, you know, mind-boggling enough. But then to think, like, oh, and one of those secret worlds would just be a bird that you jump into. It would be fun if that were, like, an Easter egg. Or maybe there was... Takes you to a treasure room. Yeah. Something like that. But if it's actually necessary, then no.

24:52 No. There was a thing in The Goonies, too, that had that same thing, right? It was hit the woman five times. Oh, yeah. And then you get an evident required item. I don't know if it was a woman, but I think it was. I think it was, like, an old woman. It was an old lady. Yeah, an old lady, and you got to hit her five times. All right, whatever. Whatever. And so, you know, we touched lightly on the exploration thing, I think, for the most part. I feel good about that. But can we talk about how there are no cave exploration items to be found in this game? I felt like a flashlight would have been nice, maybe some hiking gear, like, you know, a hookshot. Where were these things? So, all right.

25:27 Do you, Mike, you know the trademark swinging ropes, right? Yes. So those are from Pitfall. They're also in Pitfall 2. Super Pitfall, I'm sorry. Yeah. Well, this is a loose adaptation of Pitfall 2. Did you notice that they made, that they were sort of, like, phasing in and out of existence?

25:46 Everything in this game, at one point or another, will phase in and out. But no, I didn't notice this specific instance. I think that this, they pushed the engine, I mean, I don't even know if it's an engine that they built this game in, but they pushed the software so hard just to get the ropes to exist in some dimension that I don't think that there would be any processing power left to create, like, a hookshot. Let alone an inventory system, too. You know? Like, I don't think so. Yeah. But it's something that I would have liked. And then, what happens when you beat the game?

26:23 Joe. Well, let me break it to you here. I didn't beat the game. Okay, that's fair. Do you know? I did watch the playthrough, and I saw that at the end, you get to, um, you get to, what, your niece that you're trying to rescue? Mm-hmm. You get her, and then that's, you're still playing the game. Yes. So you don't even get out, right? You have to go back somewhere.

26:43 But, like, it didn't seem clearly indicated, even once you got there, why you've now, why it's over. I would imagine that you have to get out first. I don't know the exact clear conditions. I just know that when you clear, and we can find out the clear conditions in a minute, but once you clear the game, all you get is just offer to play in another world. Oh, yeah. That's the actual ending. Yeah. And it's just, this new world is just another game of Super Pitfall, but all of the items are switched to different locations. Which are already hidden. So, yeah. Like, no thanks.

27:16 It was hard enough to find out in the first time without any indication of anything. This is the equivalent of, like, solving a puzzle, you know, like an actual jigsaw puzzle. And then after you solve it, they give you the option to solve the same puzzle. Like, you'll complete the same picture, but they change the shape of the jigsaws inside, you know? That's not helpful. That's not interesting. It's also not another realm or another dimension or whatever they said. Right. It's just things moved, things in different places.

27:46 Let me give you the description of, like, how I watched the game end. A lot of the things that I've learned about this game, I watched by, I learned by watching an AGDQ run. What is AGDQ? Awesome Games Done Quick. A little speedrunning marathon that's done two times a year. Yeah. He got awesome, and then he got Summer Games Done Quick. Very good. I don't know which one this was. I think it was awesome. But it did it in seven minutes.

28:15 And the way he beat the game was he got his niece, and then he just died three times and ran out of his lives. And then he got to the title screen and waited for, like, the demo to run. And that pretty much works the same as whatever the other endgame, like, flag is supposed to be. Because the game is programmed so poorly that it thinks that the first frame of the demo, of the, like, attract mode, is you completing the game. And that's how the game ends, to me. I'm trying to even figure out how those are, like, accidentally connected. It's just poor, like, script programming.

28:56 And so I'm watching it now, and it's kind of incredible. You do have to leave the cave. You find out that you've been in Egypt this whole time because every game takes place in Egypt at one point or another. One stage is going to casually reveal to you that there's pyramids in it. So you see the pyramids, and then the game just all of a sudden just starts, like, fluttering between, like, a black strobe and the actual gameplay. And then it just comes up and says, please try another world.

29:28 That sounds like you've got the wrong number. Yeah. Like, you've been playing the wrong game, and they tell you once you've finished it. Like, oh, wait, this wasn't the game. That was somebody else's niece. You have to go back and find your niece. You don't recognize your own niece? That was also, like, a gumshoe problem, right? Later that same day. Yeah, later that same day, she's kidnapped.

29:50 That was a good game. Not. Let's, um, let's fix this mess. Would you guys join me in fixing this mess? Let's think about what we would want in this game to make Super Pitfall a game that you would actually play. Because I think this is a game that is so bad in terms of how it actually controls and in terms of, like, what they chose to include. That if we think about what is possible in the realm of the NES, I think I can do this. I thought this one through. And so here's what I have, okay?

30:54 No traps that you can't see on screen beforehand. So there's, like, a warning or a cue that something's going to fall apart or that. A rumble. Yeah, a rumble or something. Or that, like, a ladder leads to, like, a pit. You know, so you can at least go down there and then be like, I don't really want to fall into that and climb back up. Things that don't necessarily, like, auto-kill you for a mistake that you wouldn't have made had you have known more information. Because if you think about it, if you're exploring a cave, there's nothing stopping a guy on a ladder from looking down and saying, oh, that's a pit, and then going back up. Because we the player can't see that. I don't think it's fair that our character dies.

31:32 Next, I don't think there should be a giant map. But I think that there should have been maps found throughout the game that lead you to the next area you need to go to. So there's a clear sense of direction that, you know, okay, cool, I've completed, you know, like, the upper right portion of the screen, and now I need to move down, you know, like, just kind of like, here's where you've been, here's where you need to go next. Something like that.

31:57 I would have also liked an above-ground area that you need to deliver things found in the cave. So, obviously, there would be more here than just your niece, the diamond, and... You want to introduce more backtracking? And the pet. But, yeah, well, here's the reason why. It would have made me become more familiar with the layout of the cave, rather than thinking, like, that the cave is just... I don't know where I am compared to where I'm going.

32:20 You'd have to learn the routes between, like, if there's something in the top right of the game, you'd have to figure out, okay, now how do I get back to the main starting point to deliver and drop off these things? I'm not saying there would be, like, a marketplace where you actually, like, barter and sell things, but just almost like... A home base. Yeah, a home base. You know what's funny? What you're describing sounds so much like SteamWorld Dig. Yeah, this is SteamWorld Dig right now. Have you played that game? I've played SteamWorld Dig, yes.

32:48 But they have marketplaces. That's funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, no. No marketplace. Just, like... I'm thinking more like the Game & Watch octopus game. Yeah. Where, like, Mario goes down and he can loot the treasure. It's not Mario. It's Game & Watch in that one. But I'm thinking of the Game & Watch gallery for Game Boy. But you loot the treasure for as much as you'd like, but then your character gets heavier and smaller as you come back up. And then you just drop off all the coins that you've collected.

33:13 Otherwise, if you get caught by the octopus, you lose everything. So what are your other... Do you have any more, like, big points? The other thing I was thinking was more booby traps, not cheap deaths. Think more, like, Indiana Jones-style booby traps in the cave. They can shamelessly take, like, a rolling rock. I would have liked that. That exists in sort of a... The Moai Head. Yes. Which is in every game.

33:39 We need to talk about the Moai Head. Every game should have a Moai Head, like, section. I didn't want to talk about the Moai Head. It scared you? I'm scared of the Moai Head now. Well, this one is rather, like, large and... Imposing. Imposing compared to the other Moai Heads we've faced. But other than the Moai Head, they also have, you know, the stereotypical action movie Vice Room, where things just sort of try and crush you. Yes, which is also in, like, Castlevania. Yeah. So, I mean, they do exist. They're just not very well executed.

34:11 Which is, yeah, just down to, again, the poor programming of everything in the game. I do think, though, that with your changes, you would also have to change several different core concepts that govern a lot of these early NES games. Like the idea of one-hit deaths and limited lives. Because if you're going to be doing... I feel like the mode of exploration that the designers, in quotes, of this game were expecting you to do was, you learn the beginning by dying over and over, and you have to go through it over and over. When you introduce, well, you have to go back anyway to deliver your goods. I think that if you have both the limited amount of lives and the, I guess, like, restart,

35:03 the amount of times that you have to restart and start from the beginning anyway, I think that adding more backtracking will be annoying. But if you have, like, maybe a health bar and unlimited continues, then maybe, yeah, that would work. To be fair, I completely stand by that every NES game should lose lives and have a health bar instead of a one-hit death. However, in this game, I'm cool with a one-hit death because, like, you're just some random dude just down in a cave.

35:30 Scorpion stings you. You're dead. Is there still a gun? There's still a gun, yes. And it works. It kills all enemies in my version of the game. I think that there's a precedent for a health bar, though, because in the very first pitfall, that's how, it's not a health bar, but it's, like, a health number. Yeah, yeah, you get, like, three, I think.

35:48 Three? Before you're, like... They're basically lives. Right, but when you, like, hit the ground too hard, your number goes down as well. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I didn't even connect that. Yeah. I didn't really know what it did. I thought it was just my score. Oh, I assumed that was health. Maybe I was wrong. Yeah. But, I don't know, I think a health bar, I agree. Yeah. That's what I gotta say. I agree. Yeah, no, I would like a health bar in every NES game, and as you guys know, sometimes I try to, like, track down ROM hacks that have fixed this in games.

36:16 And, lo and behold, there is a super pitfall ROM hack that goes above and beyond any ROM hack I've seen for an NES game so far. Is this the one that was just released? It was released pretty recently. Let me check the date for you on this. Because it's also, like, a remastered version, right? No, this is September 5th, 2016. Okay. But, this is the remastered version. It does work on a regular NES. If you have, like, a flash cartridge that can work on a regular NES and you plug with this ROM hack in, it will play properly on original hardware. The crazy thing is, it redesigns almost everything about this game. It's called Super Pitfall 30th Anniversary Edition. This is what I'm talking about. And it's by, it's a hack by NES Rocks.

37:05 I thought he would be known for more because this is such an amazing ROM hack, but he's just known as the Super Pitfall guy. It looks pretty great, too. I played it. And it is fantastic. It's got completely new graphics, a new soundtrack, a new menu that's more colorful and plays, you know, like, looks more like Pitfall and shows the pyramids right off the bat so there's no, like, confusion about that. When they say that there's improved performance, they mean it because even the jump is fixed and you can move while you're falling down mid-momentum.

37:38 That's cute. The only thing that was kind of weird with Super Pitfall was that the gun, even though it still exists and stuff like that, it doesn't always seem to trigger when you want it to. So that was maybe just like a... That's just keeping with the Super Pitfall heritage, though. Yeah, yeah. But there's no more hidden items. Warps are now doors instead of just, like, things you run into.

38:00 There's a new HUD inside the game that explains more things to you. There are little, like, level design adjustments to make sure that the very first ladder doesn't lead to a pit of death. Like, that's nice. And if you can believe it, it's also...

38:16 It's available in English and Portuguese. So it's not even just a one... I've always been looking for that Portuguese experience. Right, right. And the last thing, a seamless, fully automatic save feature. You just hold reset while shutting down and it will avoid save file corruption. That's fun. Wow. Good job, NES Rocks. Crazy. I love it. I also hope, because I need to go back to more bugs, that they fixed this particular issue. I think they found a bug, decided they didn't want to fix it, and then just made it canon.

38:57 But there is... You notice that you'll just fall off ladders, right? Yeah, I've noticed. I don't think that that was designed. I think that that was a problem that they did not fix. But it is in the manual. It is in the manual. So maybe they retroactively were like, let's just make it look like we planned it. So they have to fix that. But also, if there are... This is another thing that I learned from the speedrun. If you are in a screen where there are any moving sprites at all, whether it's an enemy or a moving platform or something in the background, you can just phase through walls if you walk in that direction for long enough.

39:35 And it's just all these bugs means that this game wasn't even playtested, I feel like. But Super Pitfall 30th Anniversary Edition proves that this is all possible. Like, remember when you were talking earlier about the... I didn't want to spoil it, but when you were talking about the ropes and how they were kind of like glitching in and out, that's just like... That's just because they didn't know how to code this game properly. Exactly, yeah. You know, granted, this is in 2016 where we know a lot more about programming, but one guy was able to completely fix this game and make it into something that's, at least for Pitfall fans, something more faithful.

40:09 I'm not saying that anybody who likes NES games should try this, but I definitely think this is more true to the Pitfall franchise than Super Pitfall ever was. Yeah. And it's not like by 1987 there hadn't been other games that were at least as big as Pitfall that did better. Yeah. So it's not like, you know, it's not like they're like, ah, we gotta give them a break because they, you know, no one knew how to do this yet. Like, it's... Oh, yeah. No, I didn't give them a break of any kind. I just imagined that... When I said engine, I thought I... I meant sort of like a... This is beyond their capability. Oh, right. Capability. Yes, completely.

40:42 And while we're on the subject of the ROM hacks, I just also wanted to talk about, because we didn't talk about this in the Goonies 2 episode, but NES Rocks, that same guy, also made a Goonies 2 redesign, which... Cleaning up the entire... Yeah. All the bad ones. Yeah, that one I'd be pretty interested to play, because I liked Goonies 2. Yeah. Already. I mean, it had a lot of problems, but... So I'll just tell you a few things. The text is now faster.

41:05 Pressing the select button toggles between hyper and jump shoes, if you have any of those. This is Goonies 2. Yeah, Goonies 2. The start button goes to the map screen, and pausing has been removed, because obviously, like, you're paused on the map screen anyway. There's a better password screen with more information on controls, and also way more intuitive controls. There's a new map screen showing the location of some important items right off the bat, so this way you don't have to just look around for things. You know, some people say it's not necessary, but I think in today's day and age, it's important to have, like, something to start from, not to just start from the bare minimum.

41:41 And you only need to hit the lady once instead of five times. So that's a big improvement. It's much nicer. It's still not great, but it's a little nicer than five times. A review in Computer Gaming World, this is in 1987, hated Super Pitfall and said that it was a Super Mario Bros. rehash that most NES users will be able to play. in their sleep. Certainly, there is nothing in the game itself to keep them awake. I could agree with the second sentence. I have no idea how this is like Super Mario Bros. I am Jump. And he looks like Super Mario. This is a lazy review. The color scheme kind of looks like the bricks. Yeah, the bricks, I guess.

42:28 And Pitfall Harry kind of looks like Mario in Wrecking Crew. You know who he reminds me of? He reminds me of Blue Luigi. Blue Luigi. The alternate costume in Smash Bros? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, ah. I'm still wondering, though, why they thought this game was so easy. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I was confused, too. People could play it in their sleep. I mean, I think it's difficult.

42:47 I think it will put you to sleep. I don't think this is a game people today would say. We've had the same sort of questioning the reviewer of the past where they think something is so easy and it's actually very hard. But maybe that's just our modern sensibilities getting in the way. Yeah, maybe it's not that it's particularly difficult to avoid enemies, but it's just difficult to get your objectives done and play this game in general.

43:14 Yeah. I mean, it's also not that easy. It's not crazy easy to avoid enemies either. Yeah. So this is where Pitfall ends on the NES. We will not be playing another one. No. But I just wanted to talk about the sequels and spinoffs section for Super Pitfall and Pitfall in general. A sequel titled Super Pitfall 2 was planned, but then was canceled a short time later. I think it was probably because of sales. Yeah. It was going to be a localized version of Sunsoft's Famicom title Atlantis Nonazo, but I don't think that would help. Just stealing another game and then saying it's Super Pitfall 2. If anything, it would confuse fans of Super Pitfall, of which there were none.

44:06 Then we get Pitfall the Mayan Adventure on Super Nintendo in 1994. People like this game though, right? People like this game and it also plays a lot more like Prince of Persia. Okay. So I think that's why at this time Prince of Persia is now a big deal. Prince of Persia came to Super Nintendo as well as it got ported to everything. Yeah. So I think now that was more like, oh, Prince of Persia, Pitfall, they go hand in hand. Let's make a Pitfall that's more like Prince of Persia.

44:33 Then you get Pitfall 3D Beyond the Jungle for PlayStation and emphasis on 3D here. Please tell me it's like Tomb Raider. You know, I should tell you what it's like, but I wanted to say emphasis on 3D here because it's also on the Game Boy Color. Oh. Okay? And I'm confused. I don't really know what that means. Yeah. So just like in Pitfall the Mayan Adventure and the original Pitfall for the Atari 2600,

45:01 the Mayan Adventure is a game set. Oh, no. It says just as in its... I don't know what this is trying to tell me right now, but it's trying to tell me that the original Pitfall for the Atari 2600 is available as an Easter egg for Pitfall the Mayan Adventure. Why that would be the first thing mentioned in the gameplay section of anybody's notes?

45:21 Just the Wikipedia? Yeah. The official Wikipedia article lists what's included as an Easter egg before it ever talks about what the game is about. It must not be that good then. The Mayan Adventure is a game set in a 3D environment which allows the player character to move in any direction. Wow. Nobody played this game. The player character also has a much wider range of attacks, some of which must be acquired through item pickups. Finally, item pickups are a thing. Is there cover-based shooting?

45:50 There is not. That was invented in Gears of War, right? There's cover-based shooting in this game. You jump into those pits and you jump up and you shoot. Oh, you shoot the spiders. Right. First instance of cover-based shooting. I wish we could capture how annoyed Sean looked. Sean looked alarmed. He was looking around like confused. I just know that cover-based shooting was not invented by the Gears of War people. I just know that. Oh, you were annoyed at that. Yeah. I thought you were annoyed at the... No. The real people who invented it. But since I can't give you much about the gameplay, I will tell you that the plot to Pitfall 3D is that Pitfall Harry Jr.

46:28 meets a girl named Myra who enlists his aid in freeing her people from the Scourge. The Scourge? Who sounds like a tribe maybe or like an alien entity. Yeah. Maybe a Scourge. It refers to just one evil woman bent on controlling the world. Oh, okay. Huh. So it's a little bit of like a step up in the stakes. Yeah. And I'm getting... It's set in a magical parallel universe where there are no...

47:01 No, this is all garbage. They were like, if you think about Crash Bandicoot, this is like such... What? This is just a million out of thoughts. I mean, it's just like a fan just wrote this. Right. Somebody just went on like a rant one night and said, oh, if you think about Crash Bandicoot, this is way less linear. It wasn't even meant as the Pitfall Wikipedia page. They just wrote something and like, maybe I could tie this in and include it in the Pitfall Wikipedia page. So the last game we get is Pitfall The Lost Expedition. It's for the sixth generation consoles. It's GameCube, PS2, and Xbox.

47:37 I don't want to even look at what the gameplay is for this kind of game, but I imagine that like... My opinion is that GameCube and PS2 and that stuff is where things kind of got okay, but I'm kind of done with that gen of things. Fifth and sixth generation games to me at this point in my life are unplayable. I disagree, but we can get into that at some other time. Great. I think we should. Maybe offline. Maybe I'll talk to you offline. IRL? IRL. If we're still friends. That's all I have for Pitfall sequels. That's all I have for Pitfall development. I think it is now time for the Essential Games List.

48:15 Sam, I am dying to know how you're going to vote for this game. So can we just get on with it and give me your vote? This game sucks. But is it essential? Yeah. Nobody's ever done this before. This is like a pretty. Yeah. You have to phrase it correctly. But maybe he'll turn on us and say, this game sucks and I'm voting it. But all games suck. Everyone needs to experience how bad this game sucks. It's an essential experience of suckage. No, it's not. This game is real bad. It's not essential. The mechanics are bad. This is a bad game. Sean? Super Pitfall is inessential. It's a great example of how not to design a video game, though. So check it out if you want to know that. Joe? Have you ever had a nightmare?

49:06 And this game is like playing through a nightmare in a lot of ways. So you're trying to run somewhere. It's hard to get there. You're trying to jump. You can't really jump where you were trying to go. Enemies are just popping out of nowhere. The ceiling's falling on you.

49:22 I have more and I can't think of it now. The pyramids just show up in people's dreams a lot. The pyramids just show up. You have a weapon, but you can't really attack. You're trying to attack. You can't actually attack anything. And then at the end, you finally finish it. And it just says, please try again. You just have to start over. And meanwhile, that haunting song. Yeah, one song over and over again. There was just nothing enjoyable about this game. So I'm going to say no. Super Pitfall is now officially our second Fever Dream game.

49:56 Sean, do you remember our first? No. It was you who made the allegation that... What was it? The burger game. Oh, Burger Time. Burger Time. Yeah. Burger Time is just a chef's fever dream after a day of cooking burgers. That the ingredients turn on him. I do recall saying that, yes. I will just say that I am not voting Super Pitfall into the Essential Games list. And I'm not going to justify why. I'm just going to tell you that so far we have played 86 games or 85, give or take. I put this one at number 81 on my list. So I think only five games are worse. You got to say them. Winter Games. Mm-hmm. Deadly Towers. Mm-hmm. Tag Team Wrestling. Yeah. Karate Champ. And everybody's favorite, Stack Up. Oh, yeah. Stack Up is awful.

50:53 That's not really good. Yeah. Stack Up's less essential than this game. Yeah. Super Pitfall is at least a game. We can all agree that Super Pitfall is a game. It is debatable if Stack Up is a video game. Right. That's all the time we have for this episode of Nostalgia. Join us next time for Top Gun. And we'll see you there, Maverick.

51:16 I'm Michael Esposito. You can always find more Nostalgia on www.nostalgiacast.com or our Twitter at NostalgiaCast. Or if you want to really get in touch with us, you just use that little contact button on the website or hit us right up at NostalgiaCast at gmail.com. We love hearing all your thoughts. I'm Michael Esposito. You can find me on at Esposito Film on Twitter. And we'll talk to you soon. Are you Michael Esposito? You're Mike Esposito. You said earlier you're dropping Michael Esposito. Yeah, yeah. I'm dropping the mic. I can't remember if that was in the show or not. It's in the pre-show. Okay. All right. Good night.