Super Pitfall

Clones. Retrospective reviews of the NES game from game critic Brett Weiss and Stuart Hunt of Retro Gamer found the game a step down from the previous Pitfall games on the Atari 2600, with both faulting low quality graphics and game design. Activision initially was going to distribute Sunsoft's Atlantis no Nazo in the United States in a rebranded form as a sequel to Super Pitfall, however, this release did not happen.

The game features Pitfall Harry as the player character. Equipped with a gun, he seeks to recover the Raj diamond from a vast subterranean dwelling in the Andes Mountains and rescue his niece Rhonda and cat friend Quickclaw the Lion who are trapped deep in the caverns. The goal is to move Harry through a nonlinear cave maze finding the two trapped friends and collect the Raj diamond and return to the starting point. While playing, Harry will find that Rhonda has turned to stone and Quickclaw is trapped and both require items to be freed. To return home, Harry must collect a photograph of the Underground Kingdom for a clue on how to return entrance. Harry begins with three lives and on touching an enemy or a hazard he loses one. Lives can be earned from collecting 50,000 points, and then 80,000 the next. Points are collecting by shooting and defeating enemies and collecting gold bars and other items. Harry is maneuvered with the directional pad to move left and right and can climb and swim upwards with the up arrow. He can jump and fire his gun with the A and B buttons respectively. Harry can collect items shaped like playing card suits to open rock doors as well as spare pistols and items that make him invulnerable to enemies. Items in the game are invisible and can only be grabbed at certain moments while jumping.

Super Pitfall was developed by the Japanese company Micronics. Micronics predominantly did work in outsourcing tasks and generally made Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) versions of popular arcade titles such as Ikari Warriors (1986) and 1942 (1984). Stuart Hunt of Retro Gamer described the game as a loose port of the Atari 2600 game Pitfall II: Lost Caverns (1984). In Japan, the game was released for the PC-8801MKIISR model in the PC-8800 series of home computers. It was designed by Makoto Ichinoseki. Steve and Monique Bjork contributed to the Color Computer 3 (CoCo 3) port of Super Pitfall. Steven had written the code for it and over 20 Tandy and Color Computer programs, while Monique contributed to the graphics in the game. The CoCo 3 version, three difficulty options are made available, in expert mode: the items Harry seeks are invisible while in explorer mode Harry has unlimited lives and treasures remain visible.

Super Pitfall was released in Japan for the Family Computer on September 5, 1986. Super Pitfall was the first game published by Activision that was released on the NES. It was released in the United States for the NES in November 1987. It was later released for the Color Computer 3 and required 512K of memory to operate. Activision was going to release Sunsoft's Atlantis no Nazo (1986) rebranded as a sequel to Super Pitfall, but never received a release in the United States. A fan remake of Super Pitfall by Nesrocks was released in 2016. The new version of the game changing the visuals, redesigning levels and a new score.