I bloody love Rocket Knight Adventures, me. Pinging that possum all over the shop is an absolute treat, and its set-piecey Treasure-esque gameplay is tremendously exciting. There's been no way to buy the game since its original Mega Drive release, so I'm delighted that Konami have seen fit to reissue it (and its sequels) in Rocket Knight Adventures: Re-Sparked! Hopefully a whole new generation of gamers will be exposed to this 2D action game masterpiece. And its sequels.
And its sequels.
Ah, there's the rub. See... in addition to RKA, you get two versions of Sparkster here. The Mega Drive follow-up subtitled Rocket Knight Adventures 2 and its SNES counterpart, a totally different game. Now, I have fond memories of playing the Mega Drive game on emulator. Collecting all the Secret Swords and becoming Gold Sparkster, ala Super Sonic. Good times, you know? But revisiting it as part of this compilation I was somewhat crushed to discover that it sucks. At the risk of jeopardising my journalistic integrity, it really sucks a fat one.
Level design is flat and bland. The bosses are primarily excruciating; either dull or annoying with no inbetween. There's a baffling feature wherein collecting gems triggers a slot machine that can drop either power-ups or little bombs on you, forcing you to pay attention to the top right of the HUD when there's dangerous stuff happening on the ground. It's weird, unwelcome and adds nothing but frustration to what already isn't a good enough game to wear the title of Rocket Knight Adventures.
Thankfully its SNES sister is much better, though it doesn't reach the heights of the original. Excellent graphics and sound distract from somewhat messy design, with some bosses feeling like RNG, especially on the harder modes. There is one stand-out sequence in which you battle rival Axel Gear before launching into space to continue the fight, but that climaxes in a giant robot battle so difficult I genuinely don't know how you're supposed to do it legitimately.
So the original RKA is by far the main event, then. But this is a compilation. And it's quite a nice one - there's a fantastic museum full of high resolution concept art, box art, key art and manual scans (plus more), and a complete music player with a lovely illustration to go with it. There's also a brand new animated intro which is fun, and - yes, I'm about to say this - a fantastic title screen. The boss rush modes for each game are a cool idea, but I'm not crazy about the execution; they seem to use save states to snap you to each battle, and it feels a little rough as the cut-off is usually a second after the "victory" theme starts playing. Also, they missed the Axel Gear battle in Mega Drive Sparkster but it's possible that's just not considered a boss for some reason.
I'd also like to briefly, petulantly complain about the lack of Rocket Knight, the 2010 downloadable title from Climax Studios. I get why it's not here, but the collection is incomplete without it! The game is far from bad, and certainly superior to Mega Drive Sparkster.
Fluctuating as this series is, quality-wise, it's very cool having them all available again and treated so nicely. There were some issue with the music, but a patch has fixed them to my ears, so play is just as you'll remember it. Or, if you're discovering RKA for the first time, prepare for an absolute blinding 16-bit bangerama.