Retro Review - Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure
Sometimes the most entertaining video games are those that do not seek to have a plot and pretentious mechanics, but those whose premise is simple, and that their mechanics despite being basic are quite dynamic and according to the type of game in question. Platform games meet these last requirements, at least most of them, have simple mechanics to learn and are quite fun, and likewise do not have an extremely deep plot, since the main focus in many of these games is its playability. Today I will talk about a platform and adventure game from a very past era, which was quite fun to play.
Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure is a sequel to the Atari classic: Pitfall. In which we control Pitfall Harry, a courageous explorer, and help him go deep into the jungle, overcoming obstacles of all kinds, from dangerous animals such as crocodiles, but also obstacles such as quicksand or holes in the ground of great depth that meant instant death for our protagonist, always with the aim of obtaining treasure.
In this sequel this time we control Pitfall Harry Jr, son of the protagonist of the first game, and like his father, he will have to go into the danger of the jungle, but this time he will have to rescue his father who has been kidnapped. So this dangerous but fun adventure begins for him as well as for us.
Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure was a game that was released on different platforms, being the main ones Mega Drive and SNES and although in these two versions the graphics vary a little, I'm going to talk in general terms about the graphic aspect of this videogame.
Graphically, it's a video game that is visually pleasing to watch, with well-designed scenarios, full of details, and with a color palette that's a little dark but still looks great. The scenarios are very varied, in this adventure we will be able to go through all kinds of places, but basically all these scenarios are related to the same common point, such as jungles, temples, caves and clearly you can see that they were inspired by the Indiana Jones movies, since in addition, the protagonist of the game, has a very similar clothing to the main character of that classic film.
And since we're talking about the main protagonist of this game, which is Pitfall Harry Jr, this one has a pretty good design, a big sprite from which you can visualize some interesting details, like the one of his clothes, which presents, as I said before, a dress that is a clear reference to Indiana Jones, even he also wears a pyjama like the protagonist of the movie does.
The music in this game is very much on par with the whole setting, as Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure has a pretty good, varied musical set with melodies that really match the type of game it represents. Mysterious, intense music with lots of sound effects that reminds us once again that we are on an adventure in a jungle. There are certain tunes that remind me of games like Crash Bandicoot or Donkey Kong, because in many of the scenarios of these two games our adventure also takes place in jungles and jungles, so they use tunes with a lot of use of drums.
Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure is an adventure and platform game with quite conventional mechanics, but it is also a quite fun title, due to all the scenarios we can go through. It's a pretty simple game, but extremely simple, but sometimes we will be tested on our skills in controlling our character.
Besides jumping over several platforms and going through scenarios, our main character will also have to climb on certain places like the vines that hang in some places. We will face different enemies, being most of these wild animals, the difficulty curve is quite right, climbing as we go through the stages, but even so it is not an extremely complicated game, and that makes it quite addictive to play. Pitfall Harry Jr, you'll be able to use weapons to attack the enemies and also your whip, just like you did with Indiana Jones, as I said before, the inspiration for this game towards the Indiana Jones movies, is quite evident.
Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure is a game that didn't have much impact compared to its version of Atari, yet it's a good sequel to a video game classic.
