Undeniably, Pitfall: The Lost Expedition (GBA) has some big shoes to fill. The Pitfall series, which began its life way back on the Atari 2600, is fondly remembered by many hard-core gamers and widely regarded as a true classic. Now, Activision wants to captivate gamers all over again. Clearly, they’ve aimed to maintain the same classic vine-swinging, pit-hopping action that characterized the original, while including a couple of new gameplay features and wrapping it all into a nice, visually upgraded package.

The structure of the game is classic for 2D platform games, in that it is based around a small hub area from which the 6 different environments can be entered via portals. At the beginning, most portals are closed because certain items are required to activate them. The environments themselves contain approximately five levels each and are varied, spanning from lush jungles and underground caverns to snow mountains and ancient cities. The levels can be divided into three types. Most levels are in standard 2D where you move from left to right. These are generally the most fun. Other levels incorporate a top-down perspective ala Golden Sun. The last category involves racing. Here, the camera takes on a fixed route and you have to avoid obstacles, while shooting down enemies that stand in your way. These are often quite challenging and more intense than the other levels and, thus, provide a great sense of variation.

The presentation is also respectable. The story is told through some nicely animated cut-scenes, and the dialogue is often quite funny and will likely bring a smile to your face on a few occasions. Harry is also animated well. The movement of the creatures is generally smooth and often quite comical. For example, when a scorpion dies, you see a white image of his soul ascending to heaven.

Once the intro sequence has ended, though, the flaws really begin to present themselves. First of all, the camera is placed far too close to the action, meaning that your view is very limited. Especially when dashing, you may suddenly fall into a pit without getting a single opportunity to react. Enemies throwing pebbles can hit you even though they stand outside the eye of the camera, leaving you with little chance of taking them out before you are hit. Likewise, you often have to rely on leaps of faith in order to proceed, since you simply can’t see what lies ahead. You cannot help but feel unfairly treated, and the end result will be a lot frustrating deaths. Entire sections will have to be repeated over and over again until you learn and memorize the exact placement of traps and enemies.

Generally, level design is pretty mediocre. On the positive side, the levels are not strictly linear. There are plenty of secret passages, and finding every treasure will no doubt take a lot time. Unfortunately the game is horribly unrewarding – especially when compared to Nintendo’s 2D platform offerings. When Mario or Samus discover a hidden item – whether it’s a Super Mushroom or a Weapon Upgrade - you immediately feel that you have gained something. Your strength may have been increased or new combat possibilities may have become available. In Pitfall Harry your typical prize is a coin. That’s it! Granted, these can be traded in for some new moves, but you have to collect quite a lot of them in order to get something useful. In this way, the game simply does not encourage exploration, which arguably is one of the most integral elements of any adventure game.

Controls are fiddly at best. At the beginning, A is used for jumping and B for shooting. However, in the top-down levels you can’t jump, so only the control pad and the B-button are used. The amount of moves at your disposal here is staggeringly low. Fortunately, you gain new abilities allowing you to hurl beehives and bombs at enemies later on, but inexplicably these are carried out by first holding the L Button and then pressing B, which is an unnecessarily complex button combination. Likewise, pressing forward on the control pad and then holding R will make Harry dash. However, pressing the R-button first and then a direction on the control pad will activate a completely different move – The Tornado Spin. The action commands for these two moves are almost identical, which is highly confusing for the player.

In conclusion, the game simply has too many design flaws for it to get anywhere near the quality level of its predecessors. While technically respectable and occasionally exciting, the gameplay is far too generic and the controls are far too unintuitive to make this game a worthy purchase.