I almost missed the very important 2nd part of the video. Bringing up Hydlide and Dragon Slayer into a conversation about the evolution and creation of Metroidvanias? I wish more people had such a breadth of knowledge when discussing games and their history and I'm glad that you're helping to spread that via your various video series.
Thanks, yeah-this series has been looking at action RPGs as well as platformers, since they inform metroidvania design as much as something like Super Mario Bros. does.
I know it's not the 2600 version, but the 5200 and 8 bit computer versions had an additional level once the regular game was added. I'm not capable enough to get to it on my copy, but knowing it exist just adds more to the game for me. Love the series, and love how deep into video game history you go to share it.
Yay! I am so glad that you have returned to this series. This might be your most important contribution to the preservation of game history. Bravo, Jeremy.
Pitfall II was one of my favourite games as a kid. It felt absolutely infinite when I was younger, discovering new bits everytime you played. The arcade version is a lot more linear, also more influenced by Indiana Jones with all the minecarts Etc. But as for early Metroidvania games, you might want to check out Werewolves of London and Bride of Frenkenstein as well.
Such a landmark game, and it still holds up. My wife and I were just playing it again the other day, and she was too stubborn to shut it off until beating it (again). Our 9-year-old daughter was kind of impressed.
This game changed and shaped my life when I was a kid (it came out when I was in junior high). It had a profound effect on me. It is the quintessential proto-Metroidvania, I think. I hope you will keep continuing this series every once in a while!
Moving forward, I'm aiming to put together one of these every other month or so. It'll be a 50-episode series in total and I'd like to have it done before the first episode is a decade old...
I played this on Commodore 64 as a kid. I loved how you could choose your paths, how there was that mouse thing stopping me from getting to the terrifying monster seen right on the first screen (didn't know it was supposed to be his pet) and how the music would change into minor version when you got hit. Sometimes I bumped into enemies deliberately so that I could hear the sad version of the tune. The biggest thing for me was being able to see "the monster" right under the player but not being able to get there easily. I was never able to get there as a kid but the sense of mystery it gave to the game was amazing. Another game that lets you see the end goal right on the first screen before setting you on to adventure is Rasputin (1985 - Commodore 64 / Amstrad/ Spectrum).
Forget this series was a thing, but I’m glad it’s back. Especially since I just started playing Hollow Knight and Blasphemous, and that boss keys is in hibernation.
Awesome to see this little series back off of hiatus for at least an episode. I would love to see talk more about action rpgs like Hydlide as well. Games like Ys and the Mana series are some of my all time favorites.
Thanks for the memories! Pitfall II is a great game. I grew up with the Coleco version and remember being shocked as a kid that it was so much different from the first game.
This was the first exploratory game that really stuck with me. Taking a picture of my high score to send away for that "Cliffhanger's Club" patch was also my first real gaming accomplishment. It was amazing to get to meet David Crane in person last year and tell him so.
This is why I'll always have a soft spot for games on older consoles. They were usually very ambitious and had a lot of love and care put into them despite the limitations of the time. Unlike most cookie-cutter games that later console generations would get. **shudders**
There were 2600 games released after this, after all the system wasn't discontinued until January 1992. Some impressive games showed up then. www.atarimania.com/game-atari-2600-vcs-solaris_7475.html www.atarimania.com/game-atari-2600-vcs-radar-lock_11595.html www.atarimania.com/game-atari-2600-vcs-secret-quest_7464.html
I played the hell out of this game when I was a kid. I even have a picture of myself with my high score somewhere in a shoebox. I have no idea now if my score was any *good* but I was clearly proud of my ~8 year old self.
Pitfall II is definitely a gigantic game for its time, but I'm personally just happy to see someone talk about Hydlide & actually give it the credit it deserves. I'm not a big fan of it or anything, but the NES/Famicom port is honestly one of the worst ways to play the game. The original version, though simple, is grindy but works with its simplicity, whereas the NES port shoves in the magic system from the sequel, only for it to play no importance, except for being the way to kill one specific pair of enemies. I played through Hydlide via the Windows 95/98 remake, which was just like the PC-88 original (& even let you switch to those graphics on the fly) & also added in an "Overdrive" mode that made grinding easy, and I had a fun time with it.
I'm not sure I'd say Pitfall II had little influence on Japanese game design. It did inspire an arcade game by Sega, as well as Super Pitfall, which was Pitfall II's mutant brother chained in the basement. Can you believe there's a WORSE version of Super Pitfall for the TRS-80 Color Computer? The thought is enough to trigger my gag reflex.
One other odd little footnote: Pitfall II also contains the only example I can cite of characters created for the bizarre Saturday Supercade cartoon anthology show making their way back "upstream" to the games proper. Pretty wild, if you think about it.
I think Spelunker from the previous year was probably more advanced as an action-adventure game in basically all aspects bar the checkpoints and map size to be honest. The player was not passive like he is here, as you could scare off the enemies with weapons, there were limited resources that you had to replenish with pickups (including extra lives), and there were even blocked areas of the map which required you to find the required items to pass (keys). Because of those last two elements the non-linear design was far more rewarding as you had to make route choices based on your item needs at a particular time and your own personal skill level. If you were doing well you could take the direct route after you'd learnt it, if you felt like you needed extra items or lives you'd take a detour to go and get what you need.
Was Pitfall really 265 screens and not 256 screens? It just seems like a weird number to use when a single byte screen indexwould be far more logical for the hardware architecture of the time. I haven't done the research on this subject and you did, but this stood out as a potential typo so I had to ask.
Especially odd considering he clearly re-recorded that phrase (0:57). Maps that I find online show 255 screens (last value used technically for loop inner workings?).
I honestly had a dream like this when I was a kid but it was Punch-Out I dream that Little Mack want out the ring and he won on these kind of crazy adventures this was in my dream
Ohhhh Hydlide. I look forward to seeing your full retrospective of it on NES Works sometime in the next decade, but for now, let me say this: I have a list of every video game I have ever completed in my life along with what I'd score that game out of 10, purely based on how much I enjoyed it. This may not be the least bit surprising to you all things considered, but there it is. On that list you will find at least one game with every possible score from 0.5 all the way to 10 (the idea being that a true 0/10 game would be so unplayable as to render it unable to be completed). Hydlide is the only game I rated a 0.5/10. I absolutely loathe it. I never considered it in proper historical context, and I suppose it has merits in that regard, but if I never hear that faux Indiana Jones jingle again, I'll die a happy man.
David Crane himself once explained this amazing feat atariage.com/forums/topic/28149-pitfall-2-how-does-the-sound-travel-from-the-cart/?do=findComment&comment=2822036 This (Pitfall II) and H.E.R.O., another Activision game, were the two 2600 games I still think are enjoyable to a modern player. With Pitfall 2 I was always gobsmacked when I turned it on and heard that music. My brother and I finished the adventure multiple times but never got close to maximum points possible. Truly the best creations occur with the most constraints.
Pitfall II is amazing. You might also want to take a look at the similarly wonderful Mountain King, also on VCS (but also released on Atari 8-bit computers, and 5200 or 7800 I think?)
Oh, also, Sega released a weird kind of combination of Pitfall and Pitfall II in Japanese arcades. And I heard Super Pitfall on NES/Famicom was supposed to be a kind of update of Pitfall II (but was horrible).
Ooooh next time is one of those isometric European games! I don't know very much about those! I will wait patiently for the next video. Is it ready yet? No? Okay, I'll keep waiting.
Ah, that wasn't fair of me. ANN was a game that suffered more from ambition and a lack of proper design/technical chops for the task than from being genuine garbage. Stargazer or Super Monkey Daibouken would be a more fitting punching bag.
@@JeremyParish There's a warp in ANN that leads you to a level where you die immediately in a black void. That's not ambition or lack of proper design/technical chops, that's downright *evil*.
This was one of the most mindblowing games I ever played as a kid, always remembered it, and adored replying it on Atari 5200 a few years ago. I'll never forget this seminal entry in gaming; thanks for giving it the coverage it deserves.
5200 had the best version of this game with it's POKEY sound chip and includes a bonus map. I believe this was one of the first games with an actual ending?
It's a shame that "Metroidvania" started to be used for anything other that SotN-style Castlevania games. It made sense when it was exclusive to the series.
It came along after the console market had crashed in the U.S., so it's not as widely known. There was a real sense at the time that Atari was another of the era's dead fads, like pet rocks and disco, and lots of people sold or mothballed their consoles.
@@JeremyParish It's a shame, because it's amazingly innovative and a true breakthrough in console games, in a time when everything was point based and endless cycles.
For what it’s worth, Pitfall II was an object of obsession among my friends and I when it came out-everyone thought it was the best game of all time. (We were all 8, and nobody I knew had a computer at home.) It’s funny, given that games supposedly died off and were reborn, but I don’t remember a time when kids were not way into video games. We weren’t aware of a “crash,” but in retrospect there was a reason why a $10 allowance was good for several games at Goodwill or two good games at Toys R Us. Those “crash” years were also the time when arcades were packed, and every gas station, grocery store, movie theater, bar, and chain restaurant seemed to have arcade games. (The swimming pool I went to as a kid had a ton of games!) I do remember wondering, though, why the Atari was still around in the mid-80s, when Colecovision and Intellivision were so far beyond it.
@@mymangodfrey I was 12 when Pitfall II, and I can also agree that game was huge when it was released. My local Camelot Music had a Imagic 2600 kiosk where you can preview games on a timer limit- you can only bet a certain new game was played the most by the crowds! Nobody back then was aware of any crash back then. Like you mentioned, many stores liquidated their video game inventory like the Camelot store I mentioned above. The thing I did definitely noticed were stores were not replenishing their stock now. I was heavy into the Colecovision scene at this time. Montgomery Wards by me was the closest to get me Colecovision goodness - no more. The only store I knew was Toys r us with a antiquated inventory. No more new games coming down the 1985 pipeline - ugh! I want to also add that Camelot store replaced their video game selection with a C64. I'll never forget it demoing Crane's new Ghostbuster game. I was also into the arcade scene then. 1984 did kill off some of the smaller aracde companies like Universal et. al and most of the mom and pop arcades were no more. I do recall most of the department stores I visited with folks like Montgomery Wards, Sears, Zayres and Woolcos did remove their arcade sections but places like roller rinks, theaters and arcades like Aladdin's Castle chains were still rockin'
I’m personally very sure this game had a big influence on consequent Japanese games. Japanese game developers are very good at snapping innovative things up even if that particular thing isn’t popular in their home market. The worst part of this is they have a tendency to steal things and make it their own without even giving credit, like with the whole Streets of Rage 2 soundtrack. Maybe he thought it was ok because those songs weren’t known there, but it becomes very dodgy outside Japan.
System Shock is one of the finest 3D Metroidvania games. If the older (but still functional) control scheme seems off-putting you can just buy the most recent version from GoG and play with WASD + mouse freelook. Still better than its sequel in some ways (cyberspace and rocket boots FTW)!
I do appreciate the creative and interesting ideas in Pitfall II, but for me, the game was always largely unplayable due to the music, which I found extremely repetitive and annoying. Especially if you get stuck in a spot, watching Harry go back to the check point while the music plays again and again kept me away from it.
Uhg, I hate that a style Metroid did for ten years before Castlevania did is now called “Metroidvania”. The first 12 Castlevania games aren’t even Metroid-like.
I wouldn't call Pitfall a metroidvania. The genre is more than a 2D side scrolling and vertical scrolling explorable map. The locked areas and powerups along with a map system is one of the most iconic parts to metroidvania gameplay.
![Metroidvania Works #05: Pitfall [Activision, 1982]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YgzDMPNKUvE/mqdefault.jpg)
![Metroidvania Works #05: Pitfall [Activision, 1982]](/img/tr.png)
![Metroidvania Works #06: Montezuma's Revenge [Utopia/Parker Bros., 1983] That funky funky flow](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Mlib3aTni8E/mqdefault.jpg)
I’ll never not love the way the “Pitfall II” music becomes melancholy and then picks back up to its rousing version when Harry grabs a treasure.
I almost missed the very important 2nd part of the video. Bringing up Hydlide and Dragon Slayer into a conversation about the evolution and creation of Metroidvanias? I wish more people had such a breadth of knowledge when discussing games and their history and I'm glad that you're helping to spread that via your various video series.
Thanks, yeah-this series has been looking at action RPGs as well as platformers, since they inform metroidvania design as much as something like Super Mario Bros. does.
I know it's not the 2600 version, but the 5200 and 8 bit computer versions had an additional level once the regular game was added. I'm not capable enough to get to it on my copy, but knowing it exist just adds more to the game for me. Love the series, and love how deep into video game history you go to share it.
Yay! I am so glad that you have returned to this series. This might be your most important contribution to the preservation of game history. Bravo, Jeremy.
Pitfall II was one of my favourite games as a kid. It felt absolutely infinite when I was younger, discovering new bits everytime you played.
The arcade version is a lot more linear, also more influenced by Indiana Jones with all the minecarts Etc.
But as for early Metroidvania games, you might want to check out Werewolves of London and Bride of Frenkenstein as well.
Ayeee shout out to LBJ and Slopes!
I forgot P2 was ported to the arcade.
Such a landmark game, and it still holds up. My wife and I were just playing it again the other day, and she was too stubborn to shut it off until beating it (again). Our 9-year-old daughter was kind of impressed.
This game changed and shaped my life when I was a kid (it came out when I was in junior high). It had a profound effect on me. It is the quintessential proto-Metroidvania, I think. I hope you will keep continuing this series every once in a while!
Moving forward, I'm aiming to put together one of these every other month or so. It'll be a 50-episode series in total and I'd like to have it done before the first episode is a decade old...
@@JeremyParish Outstanding. I look forward to it, and remain your loyal sycophant.
That really isn't necessary, you can just like/share/subscribe or whatever
I played this on Commodore 64 as a kid. I loved how you could choose your paths, how there was that mouse thing stopping me from getting to the terrifying monster seen right on the first screen (didn't know it was supposed to be his pet) and how the music would change into minor version when you got hit. Sometimes I bumped into enemies deliberately so that I could hear the sad version of the tune. The biggest thing for me was being able to see "the monster" right under the player but not being able to get there easily. I was never able to get there as a kid but the sense of mystery it gave to the game was amazing. Another game that lets you see the end goal right on the first screen before setting you on to adventure is Rasputin (1985 - Commodore 64 / Amstrad/ Spectrum).
I'm really glad to see Pitfall II getting the recognition it deserves
Forget this series was a thing, but I’m glad it’s back. Especially since I just started playing Hollow Knight and Blasphemous, and that boss keys is in hibernation.
Awesome to see this little series back off of hiatus for at least an episode. I would love to see talk more about action rpgs like Hydlide as well. Games like Ys and the Mana series are some of my all time favorites.
Hydlide... starring the heroic Jim. Jim the knight. Pulled an all-nighter on that name, they did.
Thanks for the memories! Pitfall II is a great game. I grew up with the Coleco version and remember being shocked as a kid that it was so much different from the first game.
This was the first exploratory game that really stuck with me. Taking a picture of my high score to send away for that "Cliffhanger's Club" patch was also my first real gaming accomplishment. It was amazing to get to meet David Crane in person last year and tell him so.
You need more subs and views, your videos are so informative and interesting. Great work.
If you wrote a book on videogame history, I'd buy it!
And then I watched the video halfway and you show two books on Gameboy. Lol😁
This game blew my socks off when I was a kid.
Did you ever attempt the contest that was in the Pitfall 2 book? I think it was to send a picture of you perfect score.
@@Justagamerhere1We never got the contest in New Zealand sadly. Sounds like a cool idea though.
Did u ever get ur socks back?
@@UNIRockLIVE Nope David Crane owes me some Transformers socks
Lots of excellent information here. You never fail to impress and entertain and happy to see how RPGs contributed to the genre.
This is why I'll always have a soft spot for games on older consoles.
They were usually very ambitious and had a lot of love and care put into them despite the limitations of the time.
Unlike most cookie-cutter games that later console generations would get. **shudders**
It’s easier to be ambitious when you don’t have much to copy from or a multimillion dollar budget.
Another fantastic video!!
Small correction - the original Pitfall! contained 256 screens.
It really does seem ahead of its time. It’s a shame more 2600 games weren’t so ambitious.
To be fair to everyone else, this cart was stuffed full of extra tech and made by one of the system's most knowledgeable programmers.
And he always pushed the limits. Read about Pitfall 1 sometime, fascinating.
There were 2600 games released after this, after all the system wasn't discontinued until January 1992. Some impressive games showed up then. www.atarimania.com/game-atari-2600-vcs-solaris_7475.html www.atarimania.com/game-atari-2600-vcs-radar-lock_11595.html www.atarimania.com/game-atari-2600-vcs-secret-quest_7464.html
I played this on the 5200 and it blew my mind circa 1986. Love it!
Until watching this video I never realized how similar Pitfall 2 is to David Crane's later game, A Boy and His Blob.
I played the hell out of this game when I was a kid. I even have a picture of myself with my high score somewhere in a shoebox. I have no idea now if my score was any *good* but I was clearly proud of my ~8 year old self.
Pitfall 2 and Solaris are the 2 best and most advanced games on the 2600. Secret Quest is up there too
Pitfall II is definitely a gigantic game for its time, but I'm personally just happy to see someone talk about Hydlide & actually give it the credit it deserves. I'm not a big fan of it or anything, but the NES/Famicom port is honestly one of the worst ways to play the game. The original version, though simple, is grindy but works with its simplicity, whereas the NES port shoves in the magic system from the sequel, only for it to play no importance, except for being the way to kill one specific pair of enemies. I played through Hydlide via the Windows 95/98 remake, which was just like the PC-88 original (& even let you switch to those graphics on the fly) & also added in an "Overdrive" mode that made grinding easy, and I had a fun time with it.
Your video inspired me to watch AMCs Halt and Catch Fire! New fav show. 🔥
I'm not sure I'd say Pitfall II had little influence on Japanese game design. It did inspire an arcade game by Sega, as well as Super Pitfall, which was Pitfall II's mutant brother chained in the basement. Can you believe there's a WORSE version of Super Pitfall for the TRS-80 Color Computer? The thought is enough to trigger my gag reflex.
THAT last game that was represented looked conceptually alot like "Solstice" for NES....
Not a coincidence. It's Knight Lore, the inspiration for all those isometic adventure platformers from the UK.
One other odd little footnote: Pitfall II also contains the only example I can cite of characters created for the bizarre Saturday Supercade cartoon anthology show making their way back "upstream" to the games proper. Pretty wild, if you think about it.
I think Spelunker from the previous year was probably more advanced as an action-adventure game in basically all aspects bar the checkpoints and map size to be honest.
The player was not passive like he is here, as you could scare off the enemies with weapons, there were limited resources that you had to replenish with pickups (including extra lives), and there were even blocked areas of the map which required you to find the required items to pass (keys).
Because of those last two elements the non-linear design was far more rewarding as you had to make route choices based on your item needs at a particular time and your own personal skill level. If you were doing well you could take the direct route after you'd learnt it, if you felt like you needed extra items or lives you'd take a detour to go and get what you need.
Was Pitfall really 265 screens and not 256 screens? It just seems like a weird number to use when a single byte screen indexwould be far more logical for the hardware architecture of the time. I haven't done the research on this subject and you did, but this stood out as a potential typo so I had to ask.
Especially odd considering he clearly re-recorded that phrase (0:57). Maps that I find online show 255 screens (last value used technically for loop inner workings?).
It feels like A Boy and his Blob was highly influenced by Pitfall II.
Yep, same designer-ABAHB was definitely his next iteration on this concept.
My 2nd favorite game on the 2600 as a kid. Only Adventure received more playtime.
Oh hey, the video series that made me sub to this channel updated!
Love to see this series continued. Hope you cover Exile!
I honestly had a dream like this when I was a kid but it was Punch-Out I dream that Little Mack want out the ring and he won on these kind of crazy adventures this was in my dream
Ohhhh Hydlide. I look forward to seeing your full retrospective of it on NES Works sometime in the next decade, but for now, let me say this: I have a list of every video game I have ever completed in my life along with what I'd score that game out of 10, purely based on how much I enjoyed it. This may not be the least bit surprising to you all things considered, but there it is. On that list you will find at least one game with every possible score from 0.5 all the way to 10 (the idea being that a true 0/10 game would be so unplayable as to render it unable to be completed). Hydlide is the only game I rated a 0.5/10. I absolutely loathe it. I never considered it in proper historical context, and I suppose it has merits in that regard, but if I never hear that faux Indiana Jones jingle again, I'll die a happy man.
great work as always, jeremy
I feel like Jeremy jamms in footage of Dragon Slayer in as much videos as he can just for that bopping Slovanic Dances chiptune
Only a fool would fail to include Falcom jams in their works at every opportunity
I appreciate you a ton, Jeremy.
Can't wait to see Knight Lore next time.
David Crane himself once explained this amazing feat atariage.com/forums/topic/28149-pitfall-2-how-does-the-sound-travel-from-the-cart/?do=findComment&comment=2822036
This (Pitfall II) and H.E.R.O., another Activision game, were the two 2600 games I still think are enjoyable to a modern player. With Pitfall 2 I was always gobsmacked when I turned it on and heard that music. My brother and I finished the adventure multiple times but never got close to maximum points possible. Truly the best creations occur with the most constraints.
Dragon Slayer is what got me into Dvorak
wild stuff, a precursor to the MMC line of chips Nintendo would introduce to do the same thing with the NES. very cool.
Atari actually put extra chips in their cartridges starting in 1984. CBS Electronics put extra ram in tunnel runner for the 2600 in 1983.
Pitfall II is amazing. You might also want to take a look at the similarly wonderful Mountain King, also on VCS (but also released on Atari 8-bit computers, and 5200 or 7800 I think?)
Oh, also, Sega released a weird kind of combination of Pitfall and Pitfall II in Japanese arcades. And I heard Super Pitfall on NES/Famicom was supposed to be a kind of update of Pitfall II (but was horrible).
Ooooh next time is one of those isometric European games! I don't know very much about those! I will wait patiently for the next video.
Is it ready yet? No? Okay, I'll keep waiting.
Why Nintendo never had the two Pitfall games ported to the NES I'll never know. But what did we get? Super Pitfall. Fan-bloody-tastic.
We almost got Atlantis No Nazo localized as a Pitfall! sequel. Imagine how many American children would hate video games if that had happened.
I was NOT expecting that. The game so bad, you used it to represent the Japanese market's terrible quality control.
Ah, that wasn't fair of me. ANN was a game that suffered more from ambition and a lack of proper design/technical chops for the task than from being genuine garbage. Stargazer or Super Monkey Daibouken would be a more fitting punching bag.
@@JeremyParish There's a warp in ANN that leads you to a level where you die immediately in a black void. That's not ambition or lack of proper design/technical chops, that's downright *evil*.
That how they made 'em back then! I'm not saying it's good or right, just that it *was*.
This was one of the most mindblowing games I ever played as a kid, always remembered it, and adored replying it on Atari 5200 a few years ago. I'll never forget this seminal entry in gaming; thanks for giving it the coverage it deserves.
There is some argument about the first Metroidvania game. Impossible Mission is the most likely contender.
Holy cow, this music -- I distinctly remember this music but for the life of me could not ID where it came from.
Pitfall 2 got an ''expansion pack'' for the 5200 version.
Charming the golden rope is Pitfall Harry's only hope.
woah dragon slayer seems really sick
i had no idea that david crane made these games, but now that you mention it, a lot of it looks identical to A Boy and his Blob - the more you know!
5200 had the best version of this game with it's POKEY sound chip and includes a bonus map. I believe this was one of the first games with an actual ending?
9:48 Evangelion reference!
I’m assuming this version of Dragon Slayer is actually winnable on original hardware.
So I understand!
Im in the camp that we need to get rid of the term metroidvania, considering all the metroid and all the vania games have such different type of maps.
It's a shame that "Metroidvania" started to be used for anything other that SotN-style Castlevania games. It made sense when it was exclusive to the series.
Next Episode: = Yessss!
Yay I love when you post hunny
But wasn't the Pitfall 2, the Sega arcade game version, released in Japan?
If so then it could have been a bigger influence.
I love how the music in this Atari game sounds way better than in the Super Pitfall for Nintendo.
Oh wow, a VCS game with BGM!
Such a great game
Zx spectrum eh, I like it
Everybody knows Pitfall!, but I've seen Pitfall II less metioned despite being a bigger and better sequel, why is that for?
It came along after the console market had crashed in the U.S., so it's not as widely known. There was a real sense at the time that Atari was another of the era's dead fads, like pet rocks and disco, and lots of people sold or mothballed their consoles.
@@JeremyParish It's a shame, because it's amazingly innovative and a true breakthrough in console games, in a time when everything was point based and endless cycles.
I'm trying to figure out why James Rolfe skipped over this entry.
For what it’s worth, Pitfall II was an object of obsession among my friends and I when it came out-everyone thought it was the best game of all time. (We were all 8, and nobody I knew had a computer at home.)
It’s funny, given that games supposedly died off and were reborn, but I don’t remember a time when kids were not way into video games. We weren’t aware of a “crash,” but in retrospect there was a reason why a $10 allowance was good for several games at Goodwill or two good games at Toys R Us. Those “crash” years were also the time when arcades were packed, and every gas station, grocery store, movie theater, bar, and chain restaurant seemed to have arcade games. (The swimming pool I went to as a kid had a ton of games!)
I do remember wondering, though, why the Atari was still around in the mid-80s, when Colecovision and Intellivision were so far beyond it.
@@mymangodfrey I was 12 when Pitfall II, and I can also agree that game was huge when it was released. My local Camelot Music had a Imagic 2600 kiosk where you can preview games on a timer limit- you can only bet a certain new game was played the most by the crowds!
Nobody back then was aware of any crash back then. Like you mentioned, many stores liquidated their video game inventory like the Camelot store I mentioned above. The thing I did definitely noticed were stores were not replenishing their stock now. I was heavy into the Colecovision scene at this time. Montgomery Wards by me was the closest to get me Colecovision goodness - no more. The only store I knew was Toys r us with a antiquated inventory. No more new games coming down the 1985 pipeline - ugh! I want to also add that Camelot store replaced their video game selection with a C64. I'll never forget it demoing Crane's new Ghostbuster game.
I was also into the arcade scene then. 1984 did kill off some of the smaller aracde companies like Universal et. al and most of the mom and pop arcades were no more. I do recall most of the department stores I visited with folks like Montgomery Wards, Sears, Zayres and Woolcos did remove their arcade sections but places like roller rinks, theaters and arcades like Aladdin's Castle chains were still rockin'
Does anyone know where the ending song is from? It sounds like a remix of something familiar, like a Mario kart rainbow road.
It's the Evangelion Next Episode song
David Gusqui Loor thank you very much. Never watched that show so perhaps just me hearing things I wanted to hear!
I'm playing a perfect example of a metroidvania game right now, bloodstained ritual of the night
Riz2336 it’s up there with Hollow Knight, but I feel like they are different sides of the genre
What's the outro music in these videos?
Next Episode song from Evangelion
Great game.
Seeing that Activision made good games in the past is something that feels so unreal.
C’mon, man, you’ve got Works all over the place!
Reel it in! I can’t keep up with so many loose ends.
I believe in you! You can do it!
I’m personally very sure this game had a big influence on consequent Japanese games. Japanese game developers are very good at snapping innovative things up even if that particular thing isn’t popular in their home market. The worst part of this is they have a tendency to steal things and make it their own without even giving credit, like with the whole Streets of Rage 2 soundtrack. Maybe he thought it was ok because those songs weren’t known there, but it becomes very dodgy outside Japan.
These Atari 2600 games remind me of Famicom games because of both the custom cartridges and the custom chips inside some games.
Yep! There was some pretty cool innovation at the fringes of the 2600 era that would become standard down the road.
1:00 Pitfall has 254 Screens
256
Wait a tick...Alex Trebek isn't in this game!
System Shock is one of the finest 3D Metroidvania games. If the older (but still functional) control scheme seems off-putting you can just buy the most recent version from GoG and play with WASD + mouse freelook. Still better than its sequel in some ways (cyberspace and rocket boots FTW)!
and why are u mentioning top down games with rpg elements as some early metroidvania
steve sox because they overlap ideas.
I recommend watching this series from the beginning, as previous episodes have answered questions like these.
Pitfall II: The Squeakquel!
I personally think the arcade version is the best but that's me being a horrible SEGA worshipper. :v
That looks pretty impressive for a 2600 game
I do appreciate the creative and interesting ideas in Pitfall II, but for me, the game was always largely unplayable due to the music, which I found extremely repetitive and annoying. Especially if you get stuck in a spot, watching Harry go back to the check point while the music plays again and again kept me away from it.
Uhg, I hate that a style Metroid did for ten years before Castlevania did is now called “Metroidvania”. The first 12 Castlevania games aren’t even Metroid-like.
You'll be fine, I promise.
THIS IS AN ACT OF METROID ERASURE
Blatant genre-appropriation!
I wouldn't call Pitfall a metroidvania. The genre is more than a 2D side scrolling and vertical scrolling explorable map.
The locked areas and powerups along with a map system is one of the most iconic parts to metroidvania gameplay.
Kevin Vu Yes, I agree. That’s why this series presents these older games as influences that inspired the genre in an attempt to trace its origins.
the voice treatment is weird.