The Lost Expedition is the sixth game in the Pitfall! series and a Continuity Reboot of the first two games, marking the return of Pitfall Harry, Sr. as the main character. It was released on the PS2, Xbox, and Nintendo GameCube and later ported to the Wii as Pitfall: The Big Adventure.
It's 1935 and Pitfall Harry, the fearless, rough-and-ready treasure hunter, returns to help a beautiful archaeologist rescue her father and thwart the evil Jonathan St. Claire from claiming the lost Incan city of El Dorado, which in the game, is built upon Machu Picchu in Peru. As Harry, players encounter various animal enemies scorpions, bats, piranhas, alligators and even penguins as well as human adversaries under the leadership of the sinister St. Claire throughout your expedition in the mighty South American rainforest. Numerous abilities are at the player's disposal as Harry recovers pages of the Heroic Handbook. With his various items, Harry is equipped for almost anything. Harry will also find lost explorers and be rewarded with golden idols for his trouble, which he can then use as currency with the Shaman.
Pitfall: The Lost Expedition contains examples of:
- Action Prologue: The game begins with Pitfall Harry fighting for his life against a demonic fiery jaguar while supercharged with powerful magic... 500 years in the past! After he exchanges a few blows with the beast, it pins him to the ground, and Harry has a flashback to how he got into this mess in the first place which makes up most of the rest of the game.
- Asshole Victim: St. Claire, near the end of the game.
- Bag of Holding: By the end of the game Harry is carrying around a canteen, sling, raft, torch, shield, gasmask, large book, a pair of pickaxes, unlimited amounts of TNT, various idols and four round artifacts twice the size of his head...in a backpack that's smaller than his head.
- Big Damn Heroes: Quickclaw fights the fire-jaguar-demon off of Harry at the last second near the end and wins.
- Book Ends: Begins with a Hopeless Boss Fight against the Demon Jaguar, in which Harry is pinned down and about to be killed, then it flashes back to how he got there. Near the end of the game, you fight the Jaguar again, and he pins Harry down like before, but Quickclaw steps in and saves him.
- Butterfly of Transformation: Micay uses these type of butterflies, and one of her butterflies gives magical powers to Harry at the end to help him battle the two Final Bosses.
- Butterfly of Death and Rebirth: Due to the powers given to him by one of Micay's butterflies, Harry brings Micay back to life by holding her and then Nicole as well by kissing her at the end.
- Cowardly Sidekick: Quickclaw, just like his Saturday Supercade and Pitfall II incarnations, though he switches between this and Plucky Comic Relief.
- Damsel in Distress: Nicole. She even refers to herself as one while stuck in a tree.
- Darkest Hour: Has the game spiraling down toward Cerebus Syndrome territory towards the end of the game. To wit: Harry and Nicole find her father's corpse in the temple where the last artifact is missing. Harry then gets himself captured (as planned) and the remaining artifacts taken from him along with his equipment. While reclaiming every item and artifact, he eavesdrops on the conversation with St. Claire and Pusca, then sees the latter kill the former for refusing to give him the artifacts, which Harry now has. After the artifacts are set in their slots and the gate to El Dorado opens, Nicole steals the artifacts and hands them over to Pusca in the hope that he would send her back six months in time to save her dad. She is unaware that Pusca has no more use for her now and kills her before kidnapping Micay and taking her through the time portal. As Harry follows them, he gets cornered by the demon jaguar in a circle of flames; and Micay sacrifices herself by Pusca's magic, releasing her magic butterfly that grants her magical aura to Harry, giving him magical powers through his hands. After the battle, we see him nearly get eaten (just like in the beginning of the game) before Quickclaw shows up to save him; and Pusca tops it all off by placing the artifacts in their slots, allowing the power of El Dorado to grant him godlike powers, turning him into a nigh-omnipotent being whose only weakness is getting stone pillars flown at him. Darkest Hour, indeed!
- Disappeared Dad: Dr. Kevin McCallister (Nicole's father), whose dead corpse was later found in a temple.
- Disney Death: Nicole and then Micay near the end of the game. Thankfully, they get better.
- Embedded Precursor: You are required to play the original 2600 game to a certain point to get an idol.
- Faux Action Girl: Nicole is said to be a competent explorer, but while very intelligent she still always ends up getting captured.
- Flame Spewer Obstacle: Beginning in Part 10, timing-based flame-shooting traps appear as obstacles.
- Forceful Kiss: Harry pulls this with Nicole in the prologue. Oddly enough, no one ever makes any mention of it, even Nicole herself.
- Game Within a Game: Had both the original Pitfall and Pitfall II as bonuses.
- How We Got Here: Opens up with you fighting against the demon jaguar, the semifinal boss, 500 years in the past, only to wind up pinned and about to get your head bitten off, while Harry says "They say that when a giant demon jaguar is about to terminate your existence, your life flashes before your eyes..." The movie then pauses before flashing back to twenty-four hours previous, in present-day 1935, and the game up until you reach the demon jaguar is buildup to that point.
- Idiot Hero: Harry. He's said to have several PhDs but acts like a complete moron.
- I'll Kill You!: One guard in the native village is a tad obsessed with killing. Played for Laughs though, as he never does make due on this threat.
- Item Get!: Each time Harry picks up the artifact in the first three temples, he sings his own personal Item Get! theme, lifts it above his head... and falls over from the weight.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Harry is brash and self-centered, but also a genuinely nice and noble guy.
- Jiggle Physics: Nicole and Micay's ample chests bounce, though it is only really noticeable in select cutscenes or if you play as them with cheats.
- Kissing Discretion Shot: Happens at the very end of the game, when Nicole places the black veil on the screen before she and Harry finally kiss.
- Madness Mantra: The explorers you rescue whistle, hum, giggle to themselves, and ramble about the guard at the village (see "I'll Kill You!" above).
- Mama Bear: The monkey-mothers really don't like Harry holding their kids. Later, when he swaps places with a monkey baby in the monkey temple, the player has to take advantage of this to beat the challenge.
- The Man Behind the Man: All this time, Pusca is the sorcerer behind St. Claire and had been mind-controlling him like he controlled Kevin, tricking them into getting the artifacts so that he could get back in time 500 years ago and take over El Dorado, which he had betrayed to the Spanish.
- Mentor: Dr. Bittenbinder, to Harry.
- The Name Is Bond, James Bond: "Harry. Some people call me, heh, Pitfall Harry."
- Never Smile at a Crocodile: Though oddly enough, it's often necessary to use their backs as jumping platforms.
- Parachute in a Tree: Happens to most of the explorers at the beginning. Harry just landed onto the ground.
- Pietà Plagiarism: At the end of the game, Harry tries lifting Nicole's body in this manner in his attempt to revive her before setting her down and realizing that he has lost his magical powers the butterfly had given him... or so he thinks. In his Heroic BSoD, he lifts her up again in this manner, thinking he has failed her, before giving her the Magic Kiss of Life, bringing her back to life again.
- Piranha Problem: Moving too slowly through piranha infested bodies of water will slowly drain Harry's health.
- Plucky Comic Relief: Quickclaw switches between this and Cowardly Sidekick.
- Ring of Fire: Both at the very beginning and towards the end of the game when Harry fights with the demon jaguar.
- Shout-Out: "Great, so now I'm a monkey. I bet this never happened to that Jones guy."
- Squashed Flat: Happens to Harry in the snowy mountains when natives roll themselves into giant snowballs and run over him, or when he gets crushed by stone pillars during the final battle. Thankfully, it costs him a bit of his health before he gets better.
- Studio Audience: In-universe: Happens during the final battle with Pusca, as the crowd arrives to cheer Harry on. They would also be heard "Ohhh"-ing in shock whenever Harry gets hit, or worse... loses.
- A Taste of Power: You start off the battle with the demon jaguar with the magical aura power given to you by the butterfly sent by Micay, and you have unlimited health, but no items. This was before the scene flashes back to hours earlier, when you become normal. The second (and hopefully final) time you fight the jaguar, you have the same magical aura, but this time with limited health and all items. Oh, and the battle is tougher than before too.
- Tuckerization: Harry was fathered by Dr. David Crane, an unseen character named after the creator of the Pitfall series.
- Unusable Enemy Equipment: Enemies constantly assault you by throwing TNT. You pass by crates of the stuff throughout the game but can't use any yourself until a friendly character hands you some in a late-game cutscene.
- Unwitting Pawn/You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: This is the whole plot of Pusca: he pretends to be a guide who needs help getting back in time 500 years in the past so that he can save El Dorado from the Spanish, so he needs someone to help get the Animal Artifacts, after which he can kill them. Throughout the game, he has tricked Kevin McCallister, St. Claire, and later Nicole (Kevin's daughter) into getting the artifacts (the latter through a Deal with the Devil in the hopes of bringing her father back to life), unaware that Pusca has no more use for them once the job is done and kills them with his life-draining magic.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: The penguin enemies attack you in defense of their nests. If you smash the egg in the nest without killing the penguin, it will be horrified to find its egg destroyed upon returning to its nest. It will promptly start sobbing hysterically, and will not attack anymore.
