I just finished the first stage of Pitfall and I can definitely see the similarity between Aladdin which I played as a kid (I think it was on a big CD of pirated games one of my relatives gave me when I was really little and had no concept of pirating so I thought all the games just came on that CD lol) as far as the difference in the flow of the animation compared to other games. I like the way he swings up and spirals down the vines instead of just inching and sliding down them in a less creative but perhaps more logical way. I wasn’t a fan of the boss at the end because the boss was fast and it was hard to see it coming from off-screen but eventually I was able to get into a loop of jumping over it and pelting it with slingshot rounds until it died.
I lost my save state for the first stage so I had to redo it but this time I actually looked at the info option on the opening menu and I didn’t realize those red things were hearts and give you health, they looked more like tongues to me and I didn’t realize what they were for (to be fair I wasn’t playing in fullscreen before, just a tiny window). I also just realized the alligator (crocodile?) thing in the upper right corner indicates your health (the closer the gator/croc is to eating you, the closer you are to running out of health).
I finished the first stage again and then the second stage which seemed easier, or maybe I’m just more used to the controls now, and I really liked this waterfall background. It looks cooler in motion though. (Also yes he does this meditation thing when you wait around too long.)
Also want to give kudos to @Reset_Tears for your introduction of the games, I like that you give more background than just “this is the game, this is the year it was made, this is what it’s about” - like the detail about how the game was animated, it makes me appreciate the visuals of the game much more when I know the back story. It also helps me consider all the context surrounding the game at the time it was made which overall enhances the experience of playing retro games rather than just jumping in knowing as a side note that the game is old. You’re a great Retro Game Club leader!
Beetle Adventure Rally didn’t click with me. I’m not that into racing games to begin with and I couldn’t care less about BMW beetles or any other car so the gimmick doesn’t get it any points in my book. So the only thing the game does for me is surprisingly long races with repetitive music.
I haven’t experienced that. I’m playing with N64Plus FZ on Android and haven’t had much of any issue. tried with Mupen64Plus in Retroarch and had low performance and glitches, though. There are some posts on the internet that say that recent releases of Mupen64 came with many problems, so that might be it? Retroarch is kind of losing me, to be honest. For some consoles it works well and having all the retro gaming on one place is convenient, but both for PSP and N64 now I had to go to dedicated apps to get any good performance.
I have to echo @LauraMFrench’s praise of @Reset_Tears.
The work you’re putting into the Monthly Retro Game Club is outstanding! Selecting games, compiling the info, keeping it fresh. It’s a lot of work and I thank you immensely!
Even if you loved the VW Beetle, those two aspects could ruin it for anyone. Who thought that a track with an average time of 6-7 minutes was a good idea?
I might try that. I’m using Sixtyforce and while the game works there are issues. I should mention that various forum posts I read usually indicate that n64 emulation is quite difficult and even the best emulators don’t pull off every game very well. Regarding the exploading cars, it only happens when I ran cars at full acceleration directly from behind. Usually out of the gate. You can sideswipe or clip one side of their bumper and it doesn’t happen. I’ll try the same action while running it in a different emulator.
Just realized I didn’t respond to this directly. Never too far away, I don’t have an expectation regarding when we should play it, just thought I’d offer it up in case you were ever looking for suggestions. I thought that, since I planned to play it anyway, it would be worth sharing with the group.
I always find it interesting to read up on that stuff. Why is it harder to emulate some consoles and not others. Pokemon Snap, for example, doesn’t seem to work
Grey monkeys on on grey backgrounds, not well thought out
Oh good, there’s a hard mode
The sound design is phenomenal, especially the way environmental sounds compliment the soudtrack. Have you pushed the cart in the mine? Chef’s kiss, my compliments to the sound designer(s) on this game.
Why does the GameBoy Advance version look worse than SNES/Genesis?
Limited continues = no respect for the player. Thank god that era is over. If I have to use save states to progress through your game, you failed your audience. I am not pumping quarters in your arcade machine, so cut it out. Playing the same levels over and over again because you messed up later in the game does not make for quality time spent.
Between SNES and Genesis. I like having the additional buttons on the SNES but the weapon switching isn’t a big problem on Genesis. You get used to either one pretty fast. GBA has been the worst so far.
I agree that the limited continues is a scam especially after just having finished the second boss battle, which was nearly unbearable. You know what’s more fun than one big cat that just won’t die? Two big cats that just won’t die! Luckily I’m using save states. I usually only save at the beginning of the stage so that’s the furthest I’ll be sent back if I run out of lives, meaning I don’t save at each checkpoint, but I noticed if I do have to go back to the beginning of the stage it doesn’t actually me take too long to get back to where I was once I know what’s coming. For the most recent stage I made a save state right before the boss battle though once I knew what I was in for lol.
I’m doing the same but it’s not the most enjoyable way to play a game. I’m glad it’s not something we have to put up with for contemporary games. Even roguelikes are more forgiving.
Fought the two Jaguars/Leopards in the temple. What a pain. Aside from the relatively attractive graphics and smooth animation, I would say that overall Pitfall is a pretty mediocre platformer. It’s kind of a messy game, with poor combat and so-so platforming. I saw one reference to a review at the time that said it was a fine game for hardcore platformer players. I feel like it is only hardcore because it’s not particularly precise as a platformer and there is too much going on. In the mine stage there was a section that I kept getting hit by mine carts because they came from nowhere. They would come from left screen, but there was no gap between me and the left screen. It took multiple tries just to get the timing of the first jump down because I wasn’t reacting, I was predicting. And the only way you can predict is if you die a couple times to learn that something was about to happen. That’s terrible design for a game that has limited continues. They want you to learn from your deaths, yet you have to start over if you die. The game isn’t hard because it’s a challenge, it’s hard because it’s messy. I found this quote from a review cited on Wikipedia:
Next Generation reviewed the SNES version of the game, and stated that “Run of the mill graphics and sound combined with gameplay that is, at best, tedious and uninspired, leave Pitfall interesting as a novelty, but not much else.”[96]
Yeah the cart thing was annoying, there’s something like that toward the end of the next level too, heads up. You either need to move very slowly and carefully to prepare for any unknown hazards, which is no fun, or let yourself die a few times so you know exactly how to avoid death the next time, which is a pain. There’s just not enough time to react if you don’t know what’s coming. Still, I’m steadily chugging along so maybe I’ll be able to finish this one. I’m not the biggest fan of racing games but maybe if I finish this one I’ll try out the punch buggy one.
Im having the same experience and I didn’t even manage to beat the first level. That single cat keeps killing me. It jumps basically from off screen, there’s o my the tiniest window of invulnerability after being hit and even when I jump to avoid it I still get hit.
But you can’t say that that is inconsistent. The first enemy you encounter is a snake that appears from nowhere milliliters away from the character. After amost every jump you fall right next to an enemy. The game is not meant to be played, is meant to be memorised.
Well, I guess I’m done. Apparently there are secret letters that spell Pitfall that you can collect. Nothing in the game notifies you of this, so I guess it’s meant to be top secret. Hell of I’m going to bother going back to collect them.
While I’ll admit there is some great art in this game, overall it’s a pretty dismal game. Combat is terrible. If you manage to hit something you’re lucky. The boomerang is a bit over powered but it’s limited in availability. Every other weapon has the tiniest margin for error. If you’re on any kind of incline or decline you can forget about hitting an enemy in front of you. The game is also highly repetitive. There are only about four types of stages, and any additional stages are just a palate swap of those same four. There are only a handful of enemies that repeat. There’s really only two bosses, with variations on the same thing repeated. Lastly, good luck seeing half of what’s on the screen because the palate chosen for enemies matches the palate of the background a good portion of the time.
The devs clearly expect you to die frequently because nearly everything is impossible to see before you get hit by it. As @killerstar said above, you’re meant to memorise the game. Nowhere is this better exemplified than the second mine cart level. That level can eff right off. What a horrid level that is less a test of reflexes than memory. You’ll die there incessantly. And because the game limits both lives and continues, you’ll have to start over and over just to reach that level. It shows a lack of respect for the player’s time. Thankfully we have save states, but anyone playing this at the time of release was simply being punished.
Also let’s not forget the not so subtle racism and colonialist mythologizing surrounding everything “Mayan” in the game. Naturally we can chalk that up to the time the game was made, and by whom, but it still feels uncomfortable to see this kind of depiction as something that was part of the norm.
This isn’t a fun game. It’s an ok diversion for a few levels and then it’s something that you’re better off walking away from to devote time to more worthwhile things.
