Rocket Knight Adventures

Nostalgia's a bit of a funny thing. For some, it can mean the memory of an old flame, or perhaps something as simple as relaxing under a lovely sunset on a beach, kicking it back in your little deckchair with a knotted handkerchief on your head, the sound of the ocean lapping lazily at the white sandy shore before you. However, when I think nostalgia, I tend to instead think of Rocket Knight Adventures, a vastly underated action game that came out many, many moons ago on the ye olde Sega Megadrive (as twas known here in Europe - twas known as Genesis for all you American readers).

Starring a rather bizarre creature named Sparkster (who was apparently an opposum), Rocket Knight Adventures was a side-scrolling game skin to similar titles of the time such as Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog.  Sparkster had a few tricks up his sleeve though -  the unique difference this game offered over its similar counterparts was that our opossum hero had a nifty jetpack attached to his back that could be used to travel up, down, left, right and diagonally, offering some unique gameplay on the early Sega system. To use Sparkster's jetpack, one had to hold a button in for a while until it was fully charged - this would then send him flying around the screen in the direction specified with his sword stuck out before him ready to impale any enemy that was foolish enough to get in his way.

Speaking of his sword, Sparkster's weapon attack of choice involves using his sword to create beams of circular energy that slam into the various bizarre denizens of the 'Pig Army', Sparkster's apparently sworn enemies. Basically these guys have really annoyed Sparkster by stealing his favourite princess (sound familiar? *cough* Mario) and Sparkster, being a 'Rocket Knight' and general good egg, decides to go off on a quest to locate and rescue the princess. Personally I'm presuming the young lady has offered him 'cake' upon arrival - these early heroes really have a soft spot for the old jam sponge.

Thus begins a quest over several varied (and quite difficult) stages ranging from a simple field filled with mechanical enemies to the 'Pig Star', a clear Star Wars rip off that nestles comfortably in orbit around Sparkster's home world. Easily the best and most memorable experience of Rocket Knight Adventures is the stage where you must flee Axel Gear, your bitter rival and general bad guy as he jumps into an absolutely massive pig-mech, threatening to crush you beneath him if you don't run away fast enough. If you manage to get away in time, fleeing from the right to the left of the screen, Sparkster will then find his own giant mech and promptly hops in behind the controls. In true fighting style, the word 'FIGHT!' will then flash up on the screen and a battle will begin between the two mechs, with each trying to punch the other into submission. Even to this day I still consider this sequence to be one of the most epic and surprising in gaming - it just rocks. Seriously if you haven't tried it, this game must be located immediately and played.

A Battle of Epic Proportions

The stages themselves of Rocket Knight Adventures are a wide and varied bunch. Even after the ones I've already mentioned there's all kinds of other stuff ranging from battling through a laser-infested flying ship to fighting a boss while falling down fast-moving rapids.  If you want even more variation than that, some levels bridge the gap between other stages by offering 'travelling' levels where Sparkster will utilize his jetpack and actually take to the skies properly, dodging, attacking and battling through enemies as the level scrolls by at breakneck speed. There's also a couple of more unique travel levels, one of which involves perching precariously on a mine cart as it hurtles through the caves and winding tracks of a (quite poorly constructed if you ask me) railway system.

Another highlight of the game is the boss battles, each of which is different in some way and - at times - ridiculously difficult. The aforementioned mech-fight is absolutely brutally hard and requires a steep learning curve (but I've mastered it now and love it) and can easily be a way of sapping away all your lives quickly and efficiently. See, dear readers, Rocket Knight came out in a simpler time. A time when save games were just a pipe dream. A time when restarting a game every single time you popped it into the cartridge slot was the norm. Thus, particularly on harder difficulties, RKA becomes somewhat of a struggle to get through unless you know what you're doing. However, I feel that most modern games hold our hand a bit too much as gamers, so personally I love the challenge that retro games such as this present to the gamer - again, it's probably that niggly nostalgia feeling coming back.

Back on track, the boss battles of Rocket Knight Adventures consist of Sonic-esque mini-bosses and bigger boss battles to conclude the stages. Each boss attacks differently, behaves differently and will require great use of your sword skills and jet-pack flying to beat. The key to success in this game is to always use Sparkster's jet pack to escape danger, either by using a static spin-attack or by blasting off to another corner of the screen. Of course this is easier said than done when you're hanging in an airlock about to be sucked away into space, but hey, give it a go!

Don't Want To Spoil Anything, But This Is Not a Good Present

You know, considering this is a Megadrive game, Konami really did a lot with the platform. There's a lot going on in this game at once, including multiple enemies and fast-scrolling levels, and the stages themselves look crisp, sharp and well designed even to this day. For a by-gotten era game, this was an absolutely stellar effort from the good people at Konami, crafting an experience that - even to this day - holds up as an extremely fun and good-looking game (not by today's standards, but you can see it looks better than a lot of games of that era). The sound design is also top notch, with several incredibly memorable themes that you'll probably be playing in your head for many an hour after beating the game. I still hear the boss theme in my dreams. Seriously. Scary.

Overall Rocket Knight Adventures is a classic piece of gaming history that should really be experienced by anyone looking for a great old-school side-scroller. It's a lot better than the recent remake, which in my opinion lacked the flair and charm of the original. Yeah I'm biased - but deal with it, that's my nostalgia drive kicking in.

Written by Senior Ed Dan ' Awesome Opossum' Curtis

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