Pitfall II: Lost Caverns

The Good
Everything. PC at those times was very popular but it was known as 'not-so-good' for arcade games. There were lot of arcade game ports on PC, but almost everything was in much poorer quality compared to other platforms. But Pitfall II shown that arcade can be made in top quality also on PC. This was not possible without using new PC hardware of 1984 year. It means PCjr or Tandy. And indeed, Pitfall II was using those new capabilities perfectly. I'm not talking only about graphics (320x200, 16 colors), but also about sound and music (PCjr/Tandy 3-way sound support, no annoying speaker beeps!). Together with joystick support (can be easily emulated in DOSBox with any controller), I found playing Pitfall II very enjoyable even now in 2023. Can't wait to setup new HTPC and to run it on 50+" TV with controller! Graphics perfect, sound/music perfect, controller support perfect, gameplay perfect.

The Bad
Really nothing. I tried lot of oldies-goldies PC titles from that era, and this one stands out. At least between arcade games. Many PC arcade ports were really lazy and were using just CGA+beeper even if better HW was already available (probably business decision to earn lot of money by addressing most of PC players). In contrary Pitfall II is great port which is doing everything right.

The Bottom Line
Just don't forget to setup DOSBox / DOSBox-x as Tandy machine (and enable Tandy sound). Plus I found that game has ok speed even on fast emulation but joystick reading is crap with lot of cycles. Setting cycles to around 400 fixed that. Then I was just enjoying this quality arcade game.