Magnificent game that holds up well. And contrary to an earlier post, I feel like the level designers managed things well with limited assets. After a couple of refamiliarization playthroughs, I pretty much knew where I was going thanks to things like enemy placements and the tunnel layouts themselves.
I also mixed in some Colecovision Pitfall 2, which is somewhat of a disappointing port. I've been spoiled by the great port of H.E.R.O. on the system that stays faithful while upgrading it at the same time for the much more powerful hardware. But Colecovision Pitfall 2 plays it safe with little in the way of upgrades. Cleaner music and slightly graphically enhanced waterfalls are about the extent of it.
But at the same time you get stuck with a much less pleasant color palette (Pitfall Harry's clothes and the gold bars that are now white are the worst offenders), the beautiful sunset above the trees is absent, scorpion jumping is much more difficult (I never screw that up on the 2600, but you need to be much more precise here), and the bats move a bit faster.
The trick of staying on a ladder until a bat flies overhead and then climbing up and running to the opposite edge of the screen has very little leeway on the Colecovision. It's basically a guarantee of safe passage on the 2600, but here you'll find the bat has time to wrap back around if you're not exact on your timing.
And you're stuck with a controller that simply isn't up for the task.
