Rocket Knight

   

Rocket Knight is a sequel to the previous two games in the series Rocket Knight Adventures and Sparkster: Rocket Knight Adventures 2. Both games were released on the Sega Genesis (where I played them) and the sequel was also released on the SNES. The games were great side scrolling platformers with a unique mechanic. The main character, Sparkster, is a cute opossum in a blue suit of armor, armed with his trusty sword and jet pack. Not only can you run jump and slash, but using the jet pack, you can dash at high speeds with your sword outstretched. This is not only a unique attack, but also an important traversal mechanic, as you can dash in all 8 directions using wall ricochets to get where you want to go. There were also a few side scrolling shoot em up sections, where Sparkster take to the skies and shoot down his enemies. All in all, the original games are great platformers with a lot of charm. The things I remember most are collecting flashing swords to become a golden armored Sparkster, fighting your rival Rocket Knight Axel and riding and fighting in a giant robot with it's own special mechanics.

The story of the previous games hinged on the kingdom of opossums being attacked by the warlike pig empire. Outnumbered and outgunned by their porky foes, their only hope was our protagonist. Sparkster had to fight pig knights and their various contraptions to save his kingdom and the princess. In this sequel, after the war had ended, the pigs and opossums created an alliance. The pigs had used all their resources in their never ending wars, while the opossum kingdom (Zephyrus) was ripe in food. In exchange the pigs offered their mechanical knowhow and served as a deterrent for enemies. Sparkster, the cute lil' xenophobe that he is, refused to believe the pigs were truly peaceful and left his home to settle down on a farm and raise a family. However, after years of peace, the lupine republic of wolves decides to invade Zephyrus, prompting our hero to once again don his trademarked suit to fulfill his pledge to defend the kingdom.

Gameplay proceeds much like the previous games, Sparkster can jump, slash, rocket spin, rocket dash/drill and hang from horizontal pipes using his tail. Newly added are destructable objects that he must drill through to destroy (double tap the rocket dash button). The levels are made up in pretty much the same way, with lots of verticality, and sections where careful (but not necessarily precise) ricocheting is needed to proceed.The game is made up of 4 stages separated into 3-4 levels each, with each stage ending with a boss fight level. There are also a few mini boss encounters at the end of regular levels. There are the aforementioned platforming sections, as well as three shmup levels. This totals out at 14 levels, 7 platforming, 3 shmup and 4 boss battles. All in all the game took me about a couple hours to finish. At first the Arcade Mode starts in normal or hard difficulty, but after beating it on hard you unlock Gold Sparkster mode, a harder mode in which you have half the health. The game is also interesting since to continue to the next stage in hard mode you must find the weak point of the boss. This involves finding some environmental feature or performing a more skill based attack and adds extra interest to the boss fights. The free play mode allows you to replay any stage including these boss levels to try to figure out what their weaknesses are. The bosses are varied, and some of them can be really quite challenging on the higher difficulties. Even the regular levels add in some interesting challenges and ideas, so that each level is fundamentally unique.

One thing I really liked about this game, is that it has full controller support, not just Xbox 360 support. The game launches a little settings dialogue where you can choose your controls, but you can't choose which controller, of those plugged in, you'd prefer, at least I couldn't.

The game looks great. It's in 2.5d, which is fully three dimesional sprites locked in planar motion. It features a very cartoony style that really fits in with the content. The game also features nice background work that often incorporates the character models in action. For example the first stage has an opossum being threatened by a wolf, who upon seeing Sparkster leaves her to attack the rocket knight. Little touches like this really give the impression that you are saving the kingdom. Some of the textures on background objects aren't the highest res, but the animations and the depth more than make up for that fact. Sparkster's jet pack effects look really nice, with great cartoony puffs of smoke. All in all, it's a great take on the very cartoony style of the original games.

The strong graphical style is paired with some good sound work. Every slash, woosh and clank sounds great and the action is paired with some nice music. Listening to it now, and perusing the credits, it seems like it is sythesized using samples, but the tracks are catchy and the samples are high enough quality to feel like a real orchestra.

All in all this was a great game that, as a fan of the original two, I was thrilled to play. Although it's not the longest game, it is difficult enough on the hard difficulty and on Gold Sparkster (which I have not yet beaten) to give you some replayability. It also tracks scores and times and has online leaderboards for all your speed running needs. If you're a fan of side scrollers or adorable opossums, pick this up. If you want to see more of this Capcom-esque revitilisation of older franchises from Konami, definitely pick this up.