rocket knight always seemed like one of the cooler mascot platformers of its era, while the steampunk stuff doesn't do much for me, sparkster himself is just so cute and cool, like his little jetpack and armour is adorable and his games are super pretty and with some amazing music, but i'd never gotten a chance to play them, a very expensive second and third game combined with the hardware needed to play them was just a bit much for me, but when this year LRG did a release of a collection of all 3 on current gen i jumped at a chance to play them and i'm super glad i did, they're cool games! albiet with some asterisks attached.

rocket knight adventures does earn its name though, it's levels all form together to really feel like one in ways a lot of platformers just don't manage for me, it really feels like an adventure, you have caves with cool reflective water, shmup stages in steampunk cities, castles, ships and even space, it really feels like a journey and all the levels are pretty solid, the cave system has reflective water that kills you and stalagtites that block your view, so you have to use the dangerous waters reflections to navigate, ridable vehicle thingys and a very cool water stage where you hang and swing from plant vines and a cool plane stage where you hang from the bottom of it or how in the minecart stage you have to hit enemies on other minecarts on both your track and the other track, it has some cute gimmicks like that keep the game super fresh, though the story in these levels isn't much to write about, you have a cool edgy rival though! he's like you but darker and cooler and his fights are the best in the game, the other bosses weren't super memorable though beyond one other one that is a non combat boss that just has you dodging!

the thing that i think gives me the most issues with this game is the controls, mainly the jetpack itself, it requires a charge to use and while it is super fun to corkscrew into enemies or fly across the screen and it's used really well for combat and platforming, it's a super well realized idea and it does make the game standout very well, like a cooler version of sonics spindash, but the issue is you have to hold it down every time and with how its used constantly for both combat and traversal it becomes very annoying to me very fast, it's something the sequel manages to fix at least but i do think it makes the core gameplay a lot less fun to me, combined with the games pretty high difficulty, it can be a frustrating game sometimes even with save states and rewinds, the bosses and instakill platforming bits being the worst for it and the long stretches of things.

the music has had a ton of talent working on it and it shows with how good the OST is, you have people like Michiru Yamane who worked on games like SD snatcher, castlevania games like bloodlines, symphony of the night, lament of innocence and curse of darkness and even aria and dawn of sorrow, tokimeki memorial, sword of etheria and even rumble roses which i covered very recently. you had hiroshi Kobayashi of bust a groove, bomberman jetters and lethal enforcers. there was love de lic alum Masanori Adachi who worked on games like moon, ufo and endonesia, plus games like snatcher, super castlevania , contra 3, red ninja, little kings story and Dillons rolling western. there was also Aki Hata who worked on games like dynamite heady, sailor moon for mega drive, soul blade, bangai-o and some haruhi games. lastly there was Masanori Ohuchi who worked on moto toon grand prix, pop'n'twinbee and snatcher! it's a really solid composer list and the OST reflects that, stage 1-1 being the highlight, it's such a catchy opening track, the music in the kingdom stage 1-2 is also so good, it'd fit so well in some of the systems best rpgs and there's a really good track on the shmup stage too!

where the first game stumbled a little for me, mega drive sparkster really flies, it fixes pretty much every issue I had with the original, and while it has one downgrade with its boss fights, the rest of the game is so much better than the original and it ended up being a personal favourite mega drive game for me. the main change this time around is with the jet pack and the levels. the jetpack now charges automatically instead of needing to hold down a button so it's nowhere near as annoying to have to constantly charge it up now, it does it for you on up to 2 levels, this also means it can be used a ton more, you pretty much never have to touch the ground if you know what you're doing here, it's so cool and it makes things like the dash attack so much more useful, it's the best change they could have made to it and it makes it flow so much better too. the other big change is in the levels, there's less of them but its made up for with them being a ton more complex and exploratory with secrets and multiple rooms and stuff to search in, it's not a metroidvania or anything and is much closer to say, a sonic game, but it flows much better and the levels themselves were just nicer here too, though the shmup segments that were a highlight of the original are gone here, which is a huge shame and you do need to scour these levels for the hidden swords if you want the true ending and some of these were very hard to find, it was really the only difficult part of the game because the rest is quite easy which was a very welcome relief! easier platformers are far more my speed.

the stages are also super varied, you'll platform along a moving train one level before exploring a desert and ruins in the next and then destroy a huge ship after that, not as varied as the original but still some really cool locals, but the boss stages here and the bosses themselves aren't great. now the music here is a huge step up and it's by Michiru Yamane who also worked on the first game as well as an early work by Akira Yamaoka of silent hill, rumble roses, kensei and shadows of the damned, you probably already know who he is, the first level theme is very easily one of the best songs of this whole console generation and it showcases the mega drive sound chip at its absolute blast but even beyond that there's the castle stage music which might be as good as the opening stage song or the cool, and very chill end credits theme. story again isn't much to write about, but it is a sequel technically and it does expand with stuff like super sparkster which you get for collecting all the swords and the cool rival comes back for some of the games coolest moments.

one weird thing is how the sequels work, there was this which is seen as the "real" rocket knight adventures 2 which is why it has that title, the other sequel just called "sparkster" for the snes is more of a spinoff since it doesn't concern the same kingdom and has different enemies in it, but it seems just as good and is i think considered the better one, that was about it for decades though until the ps3 when a full new game came out on PSN with "rocket knight" which seems cool! i bought it years ago and played a bit but never finished, so it's the one i think i'm the most excited to try, but it seems very divisive also. for ports you have really only those original mega drive ports as well as a carbon engine port by LRG which is how i played it, it's a really solid port and it adds some cool things like an animated intro, save states and the physical version comes with a reprint of the uk sparkster comic, its really cool! it's also the cheaper way, these games can be pricy at least in pal regions, for rocket knight its about 30 or so but sparkster ill run you between 80 and a hundred, so getting this version for about $35 for the physical copy is a steal, plus it comes with the SNES game to boot!. while no team is credited for the game you can see individual team members and some went on to do some really cool games, like the first games director Nobuya Nakazato ho worked on games like contra 3, hard corps and the very cool rogue corps (god i neeeeed to play it) as well as vandal hearts, neo contra, MGS5 and the remake of Dracula x! the director of the sequel Yasushi Takano would work on games like castlevania bloodlines, mitsumete knight and gradius 5. both games will only run you an hour each and that collection is super affordable, so go and check them out of any of this seems appealing at all!