Watch your step, for you’ve just entered theGraveyard. Inside, we’ll be digging up games that have long been without a pulse. You’ll see both good and bad souls unearthed every month as we search through the more… forgotten…parts of history.
Rocket Knight Adventures was an early ’90s gem on the Genesis, and despite being a third-party game, didn’t get a release on the SNES either. It was an era where third-parties would have a lot of multi-platform releases, but also release exclusive games and Konami did that with both Castlevania: Bloodlines and Rocket Knight Adventures for the Genesis. The series would eventually hit the SNES with the sequel Sparkster, but those were each unique games for each platform. The franchise was dormant after that release for many years – and it took sixteen years for the next entry to hit digital storefronts. The rise of digital releases on console and PC allowed Rocket Knight to get a sequel many thought it would never get and it didn’t get much love in its time, but it’s one I enjoyed more than even the original game, which was held in higher regard by most. Rocket Knight is a sleeper hit that has been lost in the shadow cast by the 16-bit classics in the franchise.
In its time,Rocket Knightwas a low-key PC release that succeeded thanks to its XBLA release and it coming out during a time when XBLA releases were above Steam releases. It was an interesting era because the 360 releases were seen as the main versions no matter what due to how big the digital storefronts on 360 were in its era versus even Steam at that point. Pop culture-wise, XBLA was much bigger and Rocket Knight was seen as a big get for digital storefronts since it was reviving a long-dormant franchise that was beloved and had no duds in its lineup. The usage of a polygonal world and art style was controversial at the time, but in hindsight, it’s a move I’ve grown to love since it made the newest entry stand out instantly visually compared to the prior games.
Rocket Around
Gameplay-wise, Rocket Knight nicely sticks to the formula of the first game – with the mix of sword-slashing, rocket boosting and longer-range attacks allowing the player to feel like they’re in complete control of Sparkster the rocket-powered Knight at all times. The heavy emphasis on diagonal movement for the platforming thanks to ricocheting off of platforms is something that no series has replicated since and in playing this now, it makes me think that whole mechanic was influenced by Ninja Gaiden’s wall jumping - only taken to a whole new degree of speed and precision. Going through it now with the Xbox Series controller feels better than it did on 360 with that pad’s wonky d-pad and the gameplay flow is so much better without that issue.
Graveyard: Super Monkey Ball Deluxe
Super Monkey Ball Deluxe was the first SMB compilation - and winds up toppling the latter-day Banana Mania in some ways.
On 360, it was a fun adventure that was held back by that controller, and without that obstacle, the core gameplay of Rocket Knight shines brightly. Playing with a newer controller with a far better d-pad and more responsive analog stick for movement helps a lot. I’m not much of an analog stick fan for most 2D platformers, but Rocket Knight has so much variety that it can come in handy. For the side-scrolling platforming sections, the d-pad is better while the analog stick is better for moving around during the side-scrolling shoot-em-up sections. Those are a low-key great thing that plays into the original RKA but with more stage variety than before and they keep the gameplay variety pretty high.
Blast a Bunch
The core platforming sections shine thanks to having both a short-range sword slash and a longer-range beam attack to work with to deal out damage and your rocket boost can also damage enemies as well. Given that it sends you flying around the screen, it needs to be used as both an offensive tool in the shed alongside your primary means of traversing the world rapidly. The rocket boost enables you to zoom across the screen and engage things like a railing in new ways. Normally, those are used to hang and attack from either above or below - but if you dash on one, it allows you to build up enough speed to spin around and zoom up to a new area in most cases or just take out a large room full of enemies for a prize. The gameplay of Rocket Knight is very much the best of the prior entries, but with a snappier pace to it and things like frequent checkpoints help make it a modern-feeling experience that also improves upon the experience players of the early ’90s entries had. Rocket Knight has a cool parry system in place too that allows you to lob sticks of dynamite back at foes with a well-timed sword slash that ensures you’re always on your toes.
Rocket Knight is a sleeper hit that has been lost in the shadow cast by the 16-bit classics in the franchise.
The action is snappier and allows the platforming to stand out more, which can be more hit or miss due to the art style used here instead of the pixel art games. One upside to pixel art was everything having perspective represented better, so the background and foreground were more distinct. With Rocket Knight, the polygonal art style does lead to enemies blending into backgrounds more, and while it’s still a colorful adventure, there was more color variety in the pixel art games than in this one. The overall art style is clean, but enemies getting lost in the backgrounds leads to cheaper deaths than usual and it’s the wrong kind of cheapshot in a game like this. It’s made more tolerable due to the frequent checkpoints available, but it’s still an issue that hurts this incarnation of the series and would probably be solved now by an accessibility setting for boldly-colored outlines on characters or enemies.
The overall graphics are eye-pleasing and have aged shockingly well for a download-only release. The clean look of everything helps in that regard because it’s like a lot of GameCube games where they went for a sharp art style instead of cutting edge, and as a result, they’ve aged nicely as time has gone on. They might look “old” to an extent, but not bad in any way. The animation is smooth too and better than it was on the 16-bit games, which stands out more now playing them all in the past year thanks to the Rocket Knight Adventures collection. Like a lot of pixel art to polygonal entries, there’s a risk of the game losing its visual luster – like Rondo of Blood’s PSP remake, but this is more like Mega Man: Powered Up with the vibrant colors being retained. There’s a greater emphasis on story with between-level cutscenes here too and the soundtrack remains addictive as well.
Graveyard: Toybox Turbos
We step into the past to take a look at a hidden gem in the Codemasters lineup - an homage to the Micro Machines franchise known as Toybox Turbos.
It has a great blend of cheery bops and more foreboding songs for boss battles or more perilous situations, with some remixes of classic series songs in the mix too. The soundtrack in particular gains a lot from the stronger sound design as a whole – with the best part of the game audio-wise being a war-torn stage with guns going off from soldiers you see fighting in the background while rains falls all around you that you’re able to see and hear and you have enemies shuffling around that you can hear changing positions and getting ready, allowing you to use the sound design of them getting guns ready to get the jump on them. There’s a lot of attention to detail in the audio design and it shows how much care went into it – and as a result of that care, it’s aged nicely.
Rocket Knight is a gem of a game and my personal favorite entry in the series due to the snappier gameplay. The original was my favorite before replaying this, but all of the minor gameplay improvements and tweaks alongside the better sound design make it a more fun experience. I would put the original game as the best-looking in some ways, and while this uses a polygonal art style, it didn’t lose much color vibrancy as a result. The audio got a big upgrade from more modern hardware and that allows this to age far better than one might expect for a now-fifteen year old downloadable gaming experience. Luckily, it’s one that’s still readily playable thanks to Konami allowing it to be on the Xbox Back Compat program with Xbox Series consoles and you can still buy it on PC via Steam too – usually on a good sale in the $2-3 range too. It’s an incredible value and feels like a modern game today.
