Super Pitfall

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Super Pitfall.

Super Pitfall is a 1987 Japanese game for the Famicom and NES developed by Micronics for Pony and Activision. It was the first game ever that Activision published for a system made by Nintendo and it was based upon Activision's earlier Pitfall series for the Atari 2600. This game was also ported to the Tandy Color Computer 3.

Super Pitfall is somewhat loosely based on Pitfall II: Lost Caverns, in that the object is to move Harry through the mazes to find the Raj diamond, and rescue his niece Rhonda and sidekick Quickclaw, both of whom have become lost in the caverns. In Super Pitfall, however, Harry must also return to his starting point after accomplishing these objectives. Also, unlike Pitfall II Harry has only a limited number of lives to do all of this in (the original game gave Harry infinite lives, with the only penalty for "dying" being a reduced score). This time, Harry is also equipped with a gun with which he can shoot the various creatures that inhabit the caverns; he has limited ammunition, however, and must find additional bullets scattered throughout the game. Gathering gold bars results in extra points. Completion of the game requires the memorization (or mapping) of numerous hidden keys and warp zones; revealing each secret requires a precise jump, so the exploration portion of the game is made extremely tedious.

Many fans of the previous Pitfall! games have strong feelings against Super Pitfall, citing poor graphics, unresponsive controls, and Harry's sudden and inexplicable resemblance to Mario. The decision to give Harry a gun was also highly controversial.