Konami had absolute mastery of the Genesis sound chips and the music in their games of this ear remains a highlight for me. And, not to take anything away from the composers of that music, but it all had such a similar distinctive sound across games that I’m betting there was an in-house developed tool they were all using with a phenomenal sound library to hand. Particular favourites apart from Rocket Knight Adventures: Tiny Toon Adventures, Zombies Ate My Neighbours and Sunset Riders, Castlevania and Contra Hard Corps (ok, that’s nearly all of them then). And clearly the staff who left to form Treasure took some of that technology/talent with them, for the soundtracks to Alien Soldier, Dynamite Headdy, Gunstar Heroes and more.
The irony is that pick it up today and rocket Knight just plays so smoothly, I went back to a sonic game from genesis days and it felt jarring, quick and then painfully slow, it's pacing felt annoying, not so with rocket Knight, truly one of the all greats.
You're on fire, dude. It's always good to chill and watch SLX at late night. Sometimes I get interested in games I skipped because of you and gamesack.
I hope Sega puts on another Genesis Mini (which I think ought to look like the Model 2, possibly with the CD attachment) with Rocket Knight Adventure on the Genesis since I think the only reason that Konami didn't also license it out to Sega for the first Genesis Mini was that the Rocket Knight Adventures brand didn't have quite the same name recognition as Castlevania or Contra. I'm glad that I managed to get a complete in box (save for the survey card and t-shirt promo slip) copy of Rocket Knight Adventures at a Value Village (a.k.a. Savers) thrift store for $6 Canadian in 2013 or 2014, back before Genesis cartridge prices really started heating up.
Love love love this game, the opening level has one of my favorite video game songs ever, love how clever the boosting/rocket mechanic is. A total gem of this era.
It's a bit weird. The SNES and Genesis Sparkster games are generally considered to still be great, even if not as good as the 1st. But the new XBLA sequel is generally considered bad compared to them. I also played it and thought it was a major disappointment. But SGX implies that the XBLA sequel may actually even be better than them and that its biggest flaw is that it didn't sell very well.
Konami was on fire with creating stellar games during the 90's. I think the majority of their games were excellent back then! Rocket Knight Adventures is no exception. I was introduced to this game during childhood and it is probably one of my favorite action games for the Genesis. I always wondered if the series would have been even more popular if the game had also been ported over to the SNES.
It's infuriating to think that this absolute gem has never gotten a re-release over the last 30 years. It'd be considered a timeless classic if more people had actually played it.
@@1edixo Thanks for the heads up, but I already pre-ordered it. I’m so glad they finally got around to actually letting people play it without resorting to the high seas.
This game has been on my “to buy list” forever now. It’s decently priced and looks and plays like a dream. Oh, and the graphics. Those are amazing. One day soon hopefully.
Mega Everdrive. One of my best purchases ever. You should get one! Play all the games! It also saves lifetime of the cartridge slot by not having to switch out my original games over and over. That's a big plus too!
Rocket night adventure is my personal favorite sega genesis/megadriver game of my childhood and i still got my rocket night adventure and i got get sparkster on sega genesis and snes version to have a blast
This was one of those great games I wished I had on Snes! It really is a marvelous game with ots own intriguing mechanic with a beautiful art direction!
@@PacDork Yeah, I totally agree. Sparkster on the SNES was almost as good as Rocket Knight Adventures, but just barely missed the mark. Rocket Knight Adventures just did so many things right, so it set the bar pretty high in terms of quality.
As an arcade kid I was always looking for those games that were accurate visually to their arcade counterparts. That or I was looking for the games that you could probably prop up in an arcade cabinet and would be none the wiser that it was a home release. I could definitely see this game running from a cabinet.
We all know that was Konami's doing for sure. It's a shame yet another game that's never been given a properly re-release anywhere else I don't even think it was on the Wii VC even. Hopefully that gets rectified eventually.
@@SegaLordX Love this game, love your videos, but there are a few things you got wrong or neglected to mention. A. The US Version changed the names of the difficulties: Children=Normal, Easy=Hard, Normal=Very Hard, and Hard=Crazy Hard B. The only difficulty you don't get the full ending is Children in the US Version which cuts out part of the final boss. Otherwise, the only difference between endings is a message telling you to try the next difficulty. C. Normal/Very Hard and Hard/Crazy Hard need be unlocked in the both the Japanese and PAL Versions by beating the game on Easy/Hard. D. Hard/Crazy Hard starting you off with no continues or extra lives is only the half of it, the other half is everything kills you in one hit.
One of my all time favs. There's a trick on the boss fight on the airship level. When he starts to spazz out and drops debris everywhere, you can spam the attack button and push right into his legs without taking damage. It thoroughly makes that fight easier
YES! I'm so happy you covered this one, my absolute favorite Genesis game that doesn't involve hedgehogs, a must-play on Sega's 16-bit machine as far as I'm concerned. I was honestly kinda let down that it didn't show up on the Genesis Mini. The game has still never been rereleased at all, not even when the 2010 game came out :(
Yeah this game is way overdue to get a re-release Hopefully it could be included in a Konami compilation of some kind. The fact it wasn't on the mini was a complete waste. It's one of the definingly great games of the console and it was missing.
This game is one of my favorite finds in the wild. I never knew about it growing up, so I just did a blind buy.. And man I am so glad I did......... Love this channel Mr. Lord X
I truly believe if the Sega Genesis was a full cd based console instead of needing an add on. I think Sega would be in a much better position facing Nintendo and Sony. They might have still been in the console market today if they had the patience to release "revisions" of the hardware at least 3-4 years after the launch models then release their new console about a year or two after their slim model of their current console releases while also not having a lot of internal conflicts behind the scenes, Sega would still be a force to be wrecking with especially with their classic library of games. I wish we went back to having at least 4 consoles on the market to even out the competition.
The had the Sega Pluto project back then! Maybe it would be a nice thing to have both Pluto amd Sega CD on the market because the next generation was knockin on the door
I just can't see that. I understand where you're coming from, but the problem with it being CD-based from day one would have been considerable cost. It would have saved them the headache of add-ons later, but they may not have been able to sell the machine in reasonable numbers if it was too much. All CD hardware was expensive in those days. I believe the TurboGrafx CD was $400 for just the add on in 1990. That was on top of needing the base unit. Sega benefited from falling prices for drives by 1992, but it was still expensive. I can't imagine they could have gotten the price down to even $300 in 1989, and even selling at a loss would probably have hurt too much. Being under $200 was where consoles needed to be then to have a chance in the market. Plus there would have been the added hassle of having to market memory upgrades and possibly memory cards. Memory was expensive in those days too, so the base unit could have been very memory limited. TG16 had that problem with the early CD games. Some games had cuts because there wasn't enough memory available to fit everything at once. In that way, cartridges had advantages.
@@ravagingwolverine Yeah, totally agree as far as it not being a CD console from the get-go. I think the biggest problem with the Genesis and the two add-ons was Sega was constantly at odds internally between the US and Japan. Japan was behind the CD whereas the US was all about the 32X. Meanwhile there was other stuff like the little add-on chip that made games like that 3D race game possible. (the name escapes me at the moment there's an enhanced version on the switch right now) Sega had a lot of problems and they were always rushing to new hardware or adding things and that was its biggest downfall. I feel like both the same CD and the 32X should have been skipped entirely and they should have held out for the Saturn and really focused on it. Everything after the original Genesis / mega drive was downhill as far as I'm concerned. First the add-ons then the disaster of the Saturn and sadly the great but sadly too late Dreamcast. The decisions they made during the 16-bit era led to their eventual downfall simple as that.
@@JohnDoe-yf9wk The chip is called the svp. Enhancement chip that was meant to challenge the snes super fx chip. Your right sega made a huge mistake releasing to two add-ons. They should have cancelled them transfer there resource to the Saturn and earlier with pc games.
Hey Sega Lord X, and thank you for this review! I agree with you on pretty much every point on this game, I owned it back during the day, and I had a hard time putting this one down. I have beaten this one on hard, as well. I've also owned Sparkster on Genesis; which in my eyes is every bit as good as the original; though I do wish it has inbetween-level cutscenes. I've even managed to beat Sparkster on hardest mode. I've played Sparkster on SNES but was underwhelmed by that one and don't remember much of it. I've also owned Rocket Knight on 360 a few years back and though that one was forgettable and mediocre at best, I've beaten that one too. It's the age of classic comeback, we've had some sequels arise almost out of nowhere including the almighty Streets of Rage 4 and a few revamps here and there, and I would love to see an unapologetic Rocket Knight Adventures 3 with upped 2.5d graphics(maybe a-la Rayman), and the direct continuation saga of Sparkster & Axel from the originals. Hopefully it'll come to fruition. Thoughts??
Of course you would be here… haha just kidding. Love this game! Everyone should be here! Also everyone should subscribe to your channel! Great stuff keep it up!!
Currently setting up a retro emulation pc and the Sega systems were something I didn't get to play a lot of when I was a kid. Your channel has become a wealth of great info and has helped immensely with what Sega titles are worth it. Can't wait to give this game a go!!
Somewhere in an alternate timeline, or dimension, Sparkster, and the Rocket Knight series got the love and attention it deserved, and became just as remembered, and/or popular as the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise is in ours. (Or that's what I'd imagined happened in one of those dimensions, or timelines.)
I'm a console collector. Every console I have in my display has my favorite game for that system in it. My Genesis has Rocket Knight Adventure firmly in place 🤘
My absolute favorite Mega Drive game of all time. And that’s saying something considering 1993-1994 had in my opinion, the greatest MD/Genesis action games from Japan, including: Gunstar Heroes, Ex-Ranza (Ranger-X), Castlevania Bloodlines, Dynamite Headdy, and Contra:The Hard Corps.
That last stage music though... LOVED EVERYTHING about this game when it came out and even still. I gotta play it now haha. Totally agree regarding sparkster as well
The person known, at the time, as the Happy Video Game Nerd introduced me to this title years ago, and I only wish I had known about it when I was a kid. Such a great game!
So the U.S. localization team goofed up the difficulty settings when they brought the game to North America. The US "Children Mode" is Japan's "Normal", US "Easy" is Japan's "Hard", US "Normal" is Japan's "Very Hard" and the US "Hard" is Japan's secret "Crazy Hard". That is why the US version appears to be more unforgiving than the European and Japanese versions. The modes are completely mislabeled in the US release. "Easy" mode in the US version is a comfortable challenge. Though, the game does spike in difficulty towards the end of the game.
I would believe that but it still feels like they did it so people couldn't beat it in a single rental. I mean that was incredibly prevalent during those days.
@@JohnDoe-yf9wk That's my understanding as well. Apparently, there was legislation in Japan preventing the rental of videogames in the country, where there was no such legislation in the US and Australia, meaning games were available to rent in your local VHS rental store. Knowing this, and the likelihood of gamers beating a game in a weekend, they increased the difficulty of the games when releasing them in other territories, encouraging people to actually buy these games if they wanted to finish them. Although understandable from an economic perspective, it actually ruined the experience for many games, which became way too hard as a result. Thank God for emulation.
@@JohnDoe-yf9wk Yeah, that was always pretty obnoxious when a developer would purposefully make the game harder so you couldn't beat it in a rental and were forced to buy it. I mean, I understand the logic, but I'm glad the gaming industry shifted away from that mentality as the gaming industry changed. Although, I also heard that some Japanese developers thought American gamers preferred an increased difficulty. Of course, there are major exceptions like the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros 2, which wasn't initially released to American audiences on the NES due to the game being deemed too difficult. There is also Mega Man 2 on the NES where the North American/Europe release has a difficulty select and the "Difficult" mode is Japan's default difficulty mode.
Really is a must own on the Genesis and it looks good enough to pass as an snes game. They did a great job utilizing colors, sound synthesis and visual effects. The snes installment does look great but it's pretty easy and doesn't impress me the way the Genesis version does, partially due to expectations of what the system is capable of. This is one of those games that I can still go back to without feeling like I'm playing a kid's game thanks to the hard difficulty being so demanding.
Man, this was a great game. Took me weeks to beat the highest difficulty. This music really brought me back, thank you for making this and other retro genesis videos!
@@brorianszk Yes! The way the game is built, it teases you really hard when you beat it to encourage you to try again on a harder difficulty... And it just kept challenging me to see the real ending and I kept going until I did!
@@kirktown2046 Nice! I have the same feeling. The game is so well made that I wanted to discover it with other difficulties. It's the first game where I tried something else than easy mode. Tried crazy hard mode and went far but didn't beat it. I didn't know that I could get another ending :|
When I got my first Sega Genesis back in 1995, "Rocket Knight Adventures" was one of the games that I got for the console, and it was my first time being introduced to Sparkster as well. :D
In fact, the Rocket Knight adventure game was the first game I added to my Genesis mini console. It is a great retro game from the great Sega Genesis catalog that you cannot miss.
Thanks for mentioning the 2010 Rocket Knight game. I've always wanted more from the franchise and never new the game existed. Just bought it on my Xbox series X and am looking forward to playing it through backwards compatibility (Xbox 360 title). I don't expect to like it as much as the original Genesis game, but its casting a vote that I don't want Konami to forget the series.
Opossums aren't vile! They're actually really decent little dudes, eating all kinds of insects you'd rather not have around. They are also immune to rabies, and are natural pacifists, their hisses and baring teeth are 100% an act.
Yep they really get a bad rap the poor little guys. They're just doing what comes naturally and they look how they look. Unfortunately people treat them worse than those rabies infested yet cute raccoons which unfortunately is just how people are.
Dude! Dude Dude Dude!!! That Intro that Intro is soooo AMAZING!!! I am back in the 90's and i love it. So sad that we had to go on. 90's Forever and ever!!!
This game was part of my childhood and even today makes me laugh, animation is really nice and funny. Think it is by far the best representation of Sparkster ever
A stone cold classic. Gorgeous graphics, varied stages, great music, tight controls, crazy bosses, and occasionally brutal difficulty. What's not to love?
A great game all around and one of the best looking and sounding games on the system of one of the rare occasions that Konami put Sega first with a true exclusive for the platform.
Nice! What a coincidence, in your last video I was wondering for the ost from Rocket Knight and you are reviewing it now. One of my favourite games of all time!
I remember buying this back in the day at a bargain price and really enjoying it. I think it was maybe even unappreciated then too. I think i paid under $10 for it new back then! Such a gem.
One of the greatest action platformers of all time. A superb game brimming with charm and clever design. I love how often it switches up the gameplay style. And Sparkster is adorable.
All of Konami's Genesis games had sound effects that sounded "defective" at times. I recall reading that while Konami used a nice custom driver for the music, they used the GEMS driver for the sound effects in all of their Genesis games. That would certainly explain it!
Games around that time were made arbitrarily more difficult to discourage rentals. Honestly feel I didn't miss out on some games by renting first. The Lion King broke kid me. Oof...
And on Hard you die in *one hit*, lol. The only saving grace is 1ups re-spawn when you die, so you have to learn where they all are to have any chance.
As a kid I had an illness that made me miss school for a few days and my parents bought me this for a new game to play. Right from the title screen I was blown away, probably even more than Sonic 2. Great vid for a true classic.
Thank you so much for this video! Rocket knight adventures is one of my top favorite Sega Genesis games. Truly a must down for any genesis fan. It’s a real shame it wasn’t included in the Sega Genesis mini.
RKA has to be my favorite of all of the 16-bit mascot platformers (including the speedy blue rat, who I've never been a fan of anyway). Just goes to show that at one time, Konami could do virtually no wrong. On a side note, how awesome would a Genesis-exclusive original Gradius game have been? Too bad that was never meant to be...
Man I got this game from my Grandma when it came out at first I was like wtf is this then playing I loved it and still holds up for some retro goodness
I remember getting this game when it was brand new. An incredible game to say the least. I'm still not sure how Konami was able to display all those colors on the Genesis. The soundtrack is typical Konami greatness of the time. You can tell a lot of love was programmed into this title.
This should have been on the Sega Genesis Mini, definitely a classic!
yea i loved this series. one of my favorites from this era.
Definitely. I made sure to fix this error with Project Lunar.
@@ph_stuff that was an immediate add for me. I bought the Sega mini just to add this game and play it.
Definitely added this one to my kids Mini, along with a group of essential games and of course the Sonic 3D Directors Cut.
@retro game fan it's an easy add with a quick little UA-cam search.
The boss music in this game is phenomenal. This game is phenomenal as a whole
YES
It might be my favorite regular boss theme ever, it or Freedom Planet's boss theme
Konami had absolute mastery of the Genesis sound chips and the music in their games of this ear remains a highlight for me. And, not to take anything away from the composers of that music, but it all had such a similar distinctive sound across games that I’m betting there was an in-house developed tool they were all using with a phenomenal sound library to hand.
Particular favourites apart from Rocket Knight Adventures: Tiny Toon Adventures, Zombies Ate My Neighbours and Sunset Riders, Castlevania and Contra Hard Corps (ok, that’s nearly all of them then).
And clearly the staff who left to form Treasure took some of that technology/talent with them, for the soundtracks to Alien Soldier, Dynamite Headdy, Gunstar Heroes and more.
One of the best game on the Megadrive. Had countless hours with this game decades ago and it has so much replay value. Good old days
This and SEGA’s Version of Ghouls 'n Ghosts
Surprised he didn’t do this one sooner. This one is one of the best games on the Gen.
Same. One of my personal favs of the 16-bit era.
I wonder why he didn't do Ristar? That's quite an underrated game.
One of the greatest platformers ever made. The fact Sparkster never became a big mascot will always puzzle me
haha sonic go brrrrrr
The irony is that pick it up today and rocket Knight just plays so smoothly, I went back to a sonic game from genesis days and it felt jarring, quick and then painfully slow, it's pacing felt annoying, not so with rocket Knight, truly one of the all greats.
yeah, there was a sequel that was not so good, and was also on the SNES
the SNES version is more a spinoff, the real sequel is the Sega genesis. :)
One of the best 16 bit games ever made, period.
It really is. Just a great, great game.
You're on fire, dude. It's always good to chill and watch SLX at late night. Sometimes I get interested in games I skipped because of you and gamesack.
I hope Sega puts on another Genesis Mini (which I think ought to look like the Model 2, possibly with the CD attachment) with Rocket Knight Adventure on the Genesis since I think the only reason that Konami didn't also license it out to Sega for the first Genesis Mini was that the Rocket Knight Adventures brand didn't have quite the same name recognition as Castlevania or Contra.
I'm glad that I managed to get a complete in box (save for the survey card and t-shirt promo slip) copy of Rocket Knight Adventures at a Value Village (a.k.a. Savers) thrift store for $6 Canadian in 2013 or 2014, back before Genesis cartridge prices really started heating up.
You literally just made my night. Its 1056 PM est. great time to go to sleep and watch Señor Sega X, latest video. =)
Glad I could help.
@@SegaLordX Yeah sir. Your videos are informative and you have a calm voice. 👍 Its perfect to binge watch.
Love love love this game, the opening level has one of my favorite video game songs ever, love how clever the boosting/rocket mechanic is. A total gem of this era.
Sparkster on Genesis was pretty good too. Shame I didn't discover it until I got until emulation years later.
It's a real solid game it's only flaw is being a follow up to one of the best games on the system.
It's a bit weird. The SNES and Genesis Sparkster games are generally considered to still be great, even if not as good as the 1st. But the new XBLA sequel is generally considered bad compared to them. I also played it and thought it was a major disappointment. But SGX implies that the XBLA sequel may actually even be better than them and that its biggest flaw is that it didn't sell very well.
only had sparkster as a kid and loved it !
Sparkster is Rocket knight adventures on Wish :D
Terrible game in my opinion. Everything was cheap and nothing's magical in this one.
@@brorianszk 😂😂😂
Nice! Diggin the new intro! I haven’t checked out your channel in a while. Rocket Knight is a masterpiece on the Genesis! I still play it to this day!
This is my all time favorite game
This new intro is FRESH, SLX!
Thanks. Glad you like it.
The true and original jewel of the series was sega genesis, great game.
I owned this and never knew till like 5 em years ago that there was a Super Nintendo game also …. This is my fav still though .
@@jtmarlin1739 on the SNES the game is less, and is a sequel that was also on the SEGA MD
I find opossum to be a very cute animal! I like their eyes and their cute snout :)
When one hisses at you, they aren't so cute and cuddly.
@@Bloodreign1 even my beloved dogs are not cute when they are afraid hahaha
But ok, they don't smell.
Konami was on fire with creating stellar games during the 90's. I think the majority of their games were excellent back then! Rocket Knight Adventures is no exception. I was introduced to this game during childhood and it is probably one of my favorite action games for the Genesis.
I always wondered if the series would have been even more popular if the game had also been ported over to the SNES.
people keep bringing this game up but I keep forgetting to try this one
Gunstar Hero's meets Sonic meets what The Rocketeer should have been. ... Oh yeah and melee weapons. It's nice.
On 93 and 94 Genesis releases got really sharp.
It's infuriating to think that this absolute gem has never gotten a re-release over the last 30 years. It'd be considered a timeless classic if more people had actually played it.
Well there was the Remaster at XBOX Live around 2010.
It's crazy cause I've never seen nobody play this game besides me. I couldn't really get far as a kid but it was a great game.
Re release just got announced for june
@@1edixo Thanks for the heads up, but I already pre-ordered it. I’m so glad they finally got around to actually letting people play it without resorting to the high seas.
This game has been on my “to buy list” forever now. It’s decently priced and looks and plays like a dream. Oh, and the graphics. Those are amazing. One day soon hopefully.
Mega Everdrive. One of my best purchases ever. You should get one! Play all the games! It also saves lifetime of the cartridge slot by not having to switch out my original games over and over. That's a big plus too!
More awesome than Awesome Possum by far.
The music in the pig city level proper though, unf. C'mon remixers, material right there!
Best game on the entire console my favourite game of the entire generation.......heck might be my favourite game of all time.
Rocket night adventure is my personal favorite sega genesis/megadriver game of my childhood and i still got my rocket night adventure and i got get sparkster on sega genesis and snes version to have a blast
And i agreed with you homie
This was one of those great games I wished I had on Snes! It really is a marvelous game with ots own intriguing mechanic with a beautiful art direction!
SNES got the sequel, Sparkster. Not quite as good, but still really good!
@@PacDork Yeah, I totally agree. Sparkster on the SNES was almost as good as Rocket Knight Adventures, but just barely missed the mark. Rocket Knight Adventures just did so many things right, so it set the bar pretty high in terms of quality.
Please don't be too harsh on possums. They eat lots of ticks which helps reduce the spread of Lyme Disease.
And they eat venomous snakes too. I believe I have Lyme so anything that kills ticks is a friend of mine.
@@SegaLordX
Yep they do like garbage one of the few things they have in common with raccoons.
I played this game so much as a kid man everyday before school I was playing this it was the funnest games I ever had classic
Another solid review video SLX. Might have to check this out one day.
Highly recommend it. Not just one of the best games on the Genesis, but one of the best platformers, as well.
@@thetribalist6923 +1 even with the steep difficulty, it really is a fantastic game
Definitely. This game sold me on the Megadrive/Genesis as a platform despite growing up with Nintendo consoles.
Do it, you won't regret it.
Great video, great game. Thanks for another quality release, Sega Lord X!
And thank you for watching it.
As an arcade kid I was always looking for those games that were accurate visually to their arcade counterparts. That or I was looking for the games that you could probably prop up in an arcade cabinet and would be none the wiser that it was a home release. I could definitely see this game running from a cabinet.
I had this game growing up and absolutely loved it, this was a travesty that it was not put on the MD mini.
We all know that was Konami's doing for sure. It's a shame yet another game that's never been given a properly re-release anywhere else I don't even think it was on the Wii VC even. Hopefully that gets rectified eventually.
I’d agree. It shoulda been there.
@@SegaLordX Love this game, love your videos, but there are a few things you got wrong or neglected to mention.
A. The US Version changed the names of the difficulties:
Children=Normal, Easy=Hard, Normal=Very Hard, and Hard=Crazy Hard
B. The only difficulty you don't get the full ending is Children in the US Version which cuts out part of the final boss. Otherwise, the only difference between endings is a message telling you to try the next difficulty.
C. Normal/Very Hard and Hard/Crazy Hard need be unlocked in the both the Japanese and PAL Versions by beating the game on Easy/Hard.
D. Hard/Crazy Hard starting you off with no continues or extra lives is only the half of it, the other half is everything kills you in one hit.
One of my all time favs. There's a trick on the boss fight on the airship level. When he starts to spazz out and drops debris everywhere, you can spam the attack button and push right into his legs without taking damage. It thoroughly makes that fight easier
YES! I'm so happy you covered this one, my absolute favorite Genesis game that doesn't involve hedgehogs, a must-play on Sega's 16-bit machine as far as I'm concerned.
I was honestly kinda let down that it didn't show up on the Genesis Mini. The game has still never been rereleased at all, not even when the 2010 game came out :(
Yeah this game is way overdue to get a re-release Hopefully it could be included in a Konami compilation of some kind. The fact it wasn't on the mini was a complete waste. It's one of the definingly great games of the console and it was missing.
This game is one of my favorite finds in the wild. I never knew about it growing up, so I just did a blind buy.. And man I am so glad I did......... Love this channel Mr. Lord X
My most rented game on the Genesis as a kid! Such a masterpiece and amazing.
I truly believe if the Sega Genesis was a full cd based console instead of needing an add on. I think Sega would be in a much better position facing Nintendo and Sony. They might have still been in the console market today if they had the patience to release "revisions" of the hardware at least 3-4 years after the launch models then release their new console about a year or two after their slim model of their current console releases while also not having a lot of internal conflicts behind the scenes, Sega would still be a force to be wrecking with especially with their classic library of games. I wish we went back to having at least 4 consoles on the market to even out the competition.
The had the Sega Pluto project back then! Maybe it would be a nice thing to have both Pluto amd Sega CD on the market because the next generation was knockin on the door
I just can't see that. I understand where you're coming from, but the problem with it being CD-based from day one would have been considerable cost. It would have saved them the headache of add-ons later, but they may not have been able to sell the machine in reasonable numbers if it was too much. All CD hardware was expensive in those days. I believe the TurboGrafx CD was $400 for just the add on in 1990. That was on top of needing the base unit. Sega benefited from falling prices for drives by 1992, but it was still expensive. I can't imagine they could have gotten the price down to even $300 in 1989, and even selling at a loss would probably have hurt too much. Being under $200 was where consoles needed to be then to have a chance in the market. Plus there would have been the added hassle of having to market memory upgrades and possibly memory cards. Memory was expensive in those days too, so the base unit could have been very memory limited. TG16 had that problem with the early CD games. Some games had cuts because there wasn't enough memory available to fit everything at once. In that way, cartridges had advantages.
@@ravagingwolverine
Yeah, totally agree as far as it not being a CD console from the get-go.
I think the biggest problem with the Genesis and the two add-ons was Sega was constantly at odds internally between the US and Japan.
Japan was behind the CD whereas the US was all about the 32X. Meanwhile there was other stuff like the little add-on chip that made games like that 3D race game possible. (the name escapes me at the moment there's an enhanced version on the switch right now)
Sega had a lot of problems and they were always rushing to new hardware or adding things and that was its biggest downfall. I feel like both the same CD and the 32X should have been skipped entirely and they should have held out for the Saturn and really focused on it. Everything after the original Genesis / mega drive was downhill as far as I'm concerned. First the add-ons then the disaster of the Saturn and sadly the great but sadly too late Dreamcast. The decisions they made during the 16-bit era led to their eventual downfall simple as that.
@@JohnDoe-yf9wk The chip is called the svp. Enhancement chip that was meant to challenge the snes super fx chip. Your right sega made a huge mistake releasing to two add-ons. They should have cancelled them transfer there resource to the Saturn and earlier with pc games.
Hey Sega Lord X, and thank you for this review! I agree with you on pretty much every point on this game, I owned it back during the day, and I had a hard time putting this one down. I have beaten this one on hard, as well. I've also owned Sparkster on Genesis; which in my eyes is every bit as good as the original; though I do wish it has inbetween-level cutscenes. I've even managed to beat Sparkster on hardest mode. I've played Sparkster on SNES but was underwhelmed by that one and don't remember much of it.
I've also owned Rocket Knight on 360 a few years back and though that one was forgettable and mediocre at best, I've beaten that one too.
It's the age of classic comeback, we've had some sequels arise almost out of nowhere including the almighty Streets of Rage 4 and a few revamps here and there, and I would love to see an unapologetic Rocket Knight Adventures 3 with upped 2.5d graphics(maybe a-la Rayman), and the direct continuation saga of Sparkster & Axel from the originals. Hopefully it'll come to fruition. Thoughts??
A new Sega Lord X intro?!?
Love it my man.
I remember playing this game as a kid, when it came out. It was one of the best games in Sega.
HELLLLLOO! Thank you for your public service on this one SLX!
Of course you would be here… haha just kidding. Love this game! Everyone should be here! Also everyone should subscribe to your channel! Great stuff keep it up!!
Currently setting up a retro emulation pc and the Sega systems were something I didn't get to play a lot of when I was a kid. Your channel has become a wealth of great info and has helped immensely with what Sega titles are worth it. Can't wait to give this game a go!!
Was about to take my dinner, what a perfect timming
Rocket Knight deserved a whole series of games. In fact a *Sonic Mania* style sequel / "remix" would be amazing Somebody, somewhere, bring him back!
Somewhere in an alternate timeline, or dimension, Sparkster, and the Rocket Knight series got the love and attention it deserved, and became just as remembered, and/or popular as the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise is in ours. (Or that's what I'd imagined happened in one of those dimensions, or timelines.)
I'm a console collector. Every console I have in my display has my favorite game for that system in it. My Genesis has Rocket Knight Adventure firmly in place 🤘
Thank you. I freaking ADORE this game.
SLX coming through again. You are a machine. I think fans wonder if you're overworking yourself, to be honest. We care about you, dude.
I’m good, dude. SLX is an outlet for 45 years worth of opinions.
My absolute favorite Mega Drive game of all time. And that’s saying something considering 1993-1994 had in my opinion, the greatest MD/Genesis action games from Japan, including: Gunstar Heroes, Ex-Ranza (Ranger-X), Castlevania Bloodlines, Dynamite Headdy, and Contra:The Hard Corps.
I love this game. Played it a lot as a kid, bought it again about 15 years ago, and I still play it quite regularly.
It's 2024 and they finally announced a Rocket Knight collection!
Have always heard great things about this game, I'll give it a shot, thanks slx!
beautiful game!
greetings from brazil sega lord !
I love sega's consoles!
stage 3 is awesome!
used Raytrace?
😊
Thank you for reviewing the games that had an impact on us kids back then
That last stage music though...
LOVED EVERYTHING about this game when it came out and even still. I gotta play it now haha. Totally agree regarding sparkster as well
This game is wonderful!
Waited 2 years for this my favorite Genesis game
The person known, at the time, as the Happy Video Game Nerd introduced me to this title years ago, and I only wish I had known about it when I was a kid. Such a great game!
That intro makes me shiver, I miss SEGA.
So the U.S. localization team goofed up the difficulty settings when they brought the game to North America. The US "Children Mode" is Japan's "Normal", US "Easy" is Japan's "Hard", US "Normal" is Japan's "Very Hard" and the US "Hard" is Japan's secret "Crazy Hard".
That is why the US version appears to be more unforgiving than the European and Japanese versions. The modes are completely mislabeled in the US release. "Easy" mode in the US version is a comfortable challenge. Though, the game does spike in difficulty towards the end of the game.
I would believe that but it still feels like they did it so people couldn't beat it in a single rental. I mean that was incredibly prevalent during those days.
@@JohnDoe-yf9wk That's my understanding as well. Apparently, there was legislation in Japan preventing the rental of videogames in the country, where there was no such legislation in the US and Australia, meaning games were available to rent in your local VHS rental store. Knowing this, and the likelihood of gamers beating a game in a weekend, they increased the difficulty of the games when releasing them in other territories, encouraging people to actually buy these games if they wanted to finish them. Although understandable from an economic perspective, it actually ruined the experience for many games, which became way too hard as a result. Thank God for emulation.
@@JohnDoe-yf9wk Yeah, that was always pretty obnoxious when a developer would purposefully make the game harder so you couldn't beat it in a rental and were forced to buy it. I mean, I understand the logic, but I'm glad the gaming industry shifted away from that mentality as the gaming industry changed.
Although, I also heard that some Japanese developers thought American gamers preferred an increased difficulty.
Of course, there are major exceptions like the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros 2, which wasn't initially released to American audiences on the NES due to the game being deemed too difficult. There is also Mega Man 2 on the NES where the North American/Europe release has a difficulty select and the "Difficult" mode is Japan's default difficulty mode.
Really is a must own on the Genesis and it looks good enough to pass as an snes game. They did a great job utilizing colors, sound synthesis and visual effects. The snes installment does look great but it's pretty easy and doesn't impress me the way the Genesis version does, partially due to expectations of what the system is capable of. This is one of those games that I can still go back to without feeling like I'm playing a kid's game thanks to the hard difficulty being so demanding.
It looks better than a Snes games, for me the best looking 16 bit game of all time.
Far too quick and action packed to be a SNES title.
Umm... more like a Neo-Geo game. SNES would choke on running a game like this, which is why they had to dumb down the engine for the sequels.
Man, this was a great game. Took me weeks to beat the highest difficulty. This music really brought me back, thank you for making this and other retro genesis videos!
You finished the game in crazy hard mode?
@@brorianszk Yes! The way the game is built, it teases you really hard when you beat it to encourage you to try again on a harder difficulty... And it just kept challenging me to see the real ending and I kept going until I did!
@@kirktown2046 Nice! I have the same feeling. The game is so well made that I wanted to discover it with other difficulties. It's the first game where I tried something else than easy mode.
Tried crazy hard mode and went far but didn't beat it. I didn't know that I could get another ending :|
One of the best Sega games. I wish we could get a remaster of it.
The best of Konami's 16-bit action-platformers across all platforms. It's that good.
When I got my first Sega Genesis back in 1995, "Rocket Knight Adventures" was one of the games that I got for the console, and it was my first time being introduced to Sparkster as well. :D
Loved this game, it was one of the first I had for my genesis
I played this game last year and its sequel and I enjoyed them both. I got a Sonic The Hedgehog ans Megaman feel out of this game.
Rocket knight Adventure one of my favourite mega drives 👍🕹
In fact, the Rocket Knight adventure game was the first game I added to my Genesis mini console. It is a great retro game from the great Sega Genesis catalog that you cannot miss.
Currently watching the intro.. effing nice dude. That is the high quality stuff Sega Classics should start with.
Hard to believe it came out almost 30 years ago. I still own the cart and always pop it into my Genesis when I took it up.
Thanks for mentioning the 2010 Rocket Knight game. I've always wanted more from the franchise and never new the game existed. Just bought it on my Xbox series X and am looking forward to playing it through backwards compatibility (Xbox 360 title). I don't expect to like it as much as the original Genesis game, but its casting a vote that I don't want Konami to forget the series.
Can't wait for Rocket Knight re-sparked to come out to play it again. Even if I have to get digital
o/~ SEEEEEEEEEGAAAAAAAAAAAAAA... LORD! Thanks for all the videos bro. :-)
Yeah man I'm in East Tennessee, opossums are disgusting nasty creatures. JUST LOOK AT 'EM!
Opossums aren't vile! They're actually really decent little dudes, eating all kinds of insects you'd rather not have around. They are also immune to rabies, and are natural pacifists, their hisses and baring teeth are 100% an act.
Yep they really get a bad rap the poor little guys. They're just doing what comes naturally and they look how they look. Unfortunately people treat them worse than those rabies infested yet cute raccoons which unfortunately is just how people are.
Dude! Dude Dude Dude!!! That Intro that Intro is soooo AMAZING!!! I am back in the 90's and i love it. So sad that we had to go on. 90's Forever and ever!!!
This game was part of my childhood and even today makes me laugh, animation is really nice and funny. Think it is by far the best representation of Sparkster ever
A stone cold classic. Gorgeous graphics, varied stages, great music, tight controls, crazy bosses, and occasionally brutal difficulty. What's not to love?
Bro between you and YSN you are the two most chill retro game reviewers, love your vids!
A great game all around and one of the best looking and sounding games on the system of one of the rare occasions that Konami put Sega first with a true exclusive for the platform.
Nice! What a coincidence, in your last video I was wondering for the ost from Rocket Knight and you are reviewing it now. One of my favourite games of all time!
Not sure you heard the news already, the original games are being re released in a collection both digitally and physically via limited run games
Great content as always.
Thanks, Paul.
I remembered this game is clear as day and I still love it I really wish I can play this game again
A very underrated classic. Always a fave of mine to play as a kid. I may have never beaten it, but it was a hell of a lot of fun.
I remember buying this back in the day at a bargain price and really enjoying it. I think it was maybe even unappreciated then too. I think i paid under $10 for it new back then! Such a gem.
How has this not seen a rerelease in recent years? I loved this game as a kid, should’ve never gotten rid of it.
So it’s worthy to play the Japanese version
Have you ever considered doing a series of videos on old copies of Sega magazine? That could be fun with a laid back approach
One of my favorite games along with light crusader.
One of the greatest action platformers of all time. A superb game brimming with charm and clever design. I love how often it switches up the gameplay style. And Sparkster is adorable.
My number 2 Genesis game just behind Gunstar Heroes. Absolute masterpiece.
I have to defend the opossum here... They eat a TON of ticks, they're very beneficial. Just keep your distance.
Awesome man. This game looks awesome. My only complaint is the sound effects just seem off to me.
All of Konami's Genesis games had sound effects that sounded "defective" at times. I recall reading that while Konami used a nice custom driver for the music, they used the GEMS driver for the sound effects in all of their Genesis games. That would certainly explain it!
1 Continue on Normal? Man, the US always had it the hardest.
You can thank blockbuster, video ezy etc for that
Games around that time were made arbitrarily more difficult to discourage rentals. Honestly feel I didn't miss out on some games by renting first. The Lion King broke kid me. Oof...
And on Hard you die in *one hit*, lol. The only saving grace is 1ups re-spawn when you die, so you have to learn where they all are to have any chance.
One of my favorite Sega games!
Up there with sonic to me and I still have my cartridge of this.
Great video man
As a kid I had an illness that made me miss school for a few days and my parents bought me this for a new game to play. Right from the title screen I was blown away, probably even more than Sonic 2. Great vid for a true classic.
Thank you so much for this video! Rocket knight adventures is one of my top favorite Sega Genesis games. Truly a must down for any genesis fan. It’s a real shame it wasn’t included in the Sega Genesis mini.
RKA has to be my favorite of all of the 16-bit mascot platformers (including the speedy blue rat, who I've never been a fan of anyway). Just goes to show that at one time, Konami could do virtually no wrong.
On a side note, how awesome would a Genesis-exclusive original Gradius game have been? Too bad that was never meant to be...
Man I got this game from my Grandma when it came out at first I was like wtf is this then playing I loved it and still holds up for some retro goodness
Castlevania Hard Corps is one of my all-time favorite games/game soundtracks Konami was on FIRE with the Sega Genesis
I loved this game as a kid! I was never good at games though so even on Easy I don't think I ever got beyond about stage 4...
I remember getting this game when it was brand new. An incredible game to say the least. I'm still not sure how Konami was able to display all those colors on the Genesis. The soundtrack is typical Konami greatness of the time. You can tell a lot of love was programmed into this title.