Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure

This is the long-awaited sequel to the 1982 classic and boy is it an upgrade, no longer is it a bunch of crude pixels depicting an Indiana Jones knock off traversing flat jungle areas, we now have the son of that protagonist rescuing him from the vibrant jungles of the Mayan culture.

The graphics is what stands out here, they're some of the best the Sega genesis has to offer (even though I grew up with the pc version which is identical to the console version.) The level design takes full advantage of its setting as our hero has to navigate through abandoned mines, slippery waterfalls and even the tombs of the ancient Mayans in order to find his father whilst facing off against the wildlife and ancient spirits who guard the temples he explores. One downside I do have for those game is its difficulty, like most genesis games, this game relies on a password mechanic, meaning that you can only access the start of a stage once you run out of lives or are using said password system. This is frustrating as there's a hidden ending that requires you to collect all of the letters of the game, there being one letter per level, which the password system doesn't account for, meaning you have to complete the game in one playthrough while finding these letters to get the good ending (which is pretty lame if you ask me.) Thankfully this game can be emulated, so it's possible by modern standards, however good luck if you're going with traditional methods. The game also comes with the original game which appears as a bonus mini game in one of the levels, to give a comparison to how far the franchise had come between both games.

It's a well-presented update if a classic arcade game with admittedly crushing difficulty to go with these levels. If you're looking for a hard genesis game to play, pick this up as it'll deliver with said challenge.