[played on the SNES9X emulator]
While I absolutely love the Mega Drive Rocket Knight games and have replayed them quite a few times, I've rarely revisited Sparkster's outing on the SNES. All that time away from it made me think the game wasn't very good, but after going through it again, I rediscovered how great it is!
A key aspect of this series is the movement, and Sparkster SNES especially excels here! It's very similar to the original Rocket Knight Adventures, although lacking the risk vs reward mechanic of the regular sword attack doing more damage compared to the beams it shoots, as they deal the same amount here. However, there is a fantastic new move that more than makes up for this loss: the rolling. By pressing the shoulder buttons, Sparkster will do a fiery roll, manuevering himself in the air and allowing him to get out of the typical free-fall. This adds a lot of strategy, as you can also use it as an attack, meaning you can either be super risky or roll out of danger after landing a hard-hitting rocket boost to the enemy. It's a fantastic addition that really increases the gameplay depth, even though it seems fairly small.
Excellent movement would mean nothing if the level design wasn't suited for it, but fortunately this game's levels are! Each stage is quite varied, and they offer a lot of options for how you want to tackle them, whether that's taking your time with the platforming or rocketing through without a care in the world. In particular, I really love how open the second stage can get, and how many paths are available. The rest are fairly linear, but they still use Sparkster's kit effectively. There's also a few levels where you don't do as much platforming, like Stage 3's robo-bird riding and Stage 7 becoming a space shooter, but they end up feeling like fairly nice changes of pace more than anything. Each level's also incredibly well-paced, with very little downtime but also enough time to flesh out the various gimmicks.
The game also looks and sounds fairly nice! Konami's 16-bit games almost always excelled in these categories, but Sparkster especially so. A lot of the soundtrack is lifted from the Mega Drive sequel, and it all sounds really good with the Super Nintendo's sound hardware, although I still prefer how they sounded on Sega's machine. Sparkster's also an incredibly good-looking game, with smooth animations, colourful sprites, detailed backgrounds and some really neat graphical effects.
Although with all that said, a few criticisms come to mind. Some of the boss fights near the end-game (particularly Stage 7's boss and one of Stage 8's minibosses) are a bit tedious to fight, as the former's a massive difficulty spike and the latter's got way too much health for it's own good. There's also a lot of slowdown, which isn't as big an issue if you use the right settings on an emulator, but can be a little annoying since most of it happens during regular gameplay.
Despite these small blemishes, Sparkster's a damn good SNES platformer! It brings the Rocket Knight formula over to Nintendo's system really well, and even improves on things the Mega Drive games did. I'm so glad it'll be getting a second chance in the Resparked collection, which also seems to be adding a Boost Mode that removes the lag! Once that's out, I'd say that'll be the best way of playing this one. Regardless, this game (as well as the MD duology) are worth playing any way you can!
While I absolutely love the Mega Drive Rocket Knight games and have replayed them quite a few times, I've rarely revisited Sparkster's outing on the SNES. All that time away from it made me think the game wasn't very good, but after going through it again, I rediscovered how great it is!
A key aspect of this series is the movement, and Sparkster SNES especially excels here! It's very similar to the original Rocket Knight Adventures, although lacking the risk vs reward mechanic of the regular sword attack doing more damage compared to the beams it shoots, as they deal the same amount here. However, there is a fantastic new move that more than makes up for this loss: the rolling. By pressing the shoulder buttons, Sparkster will do a fiery roll, manuevering himself in the air and allowing him to get out of the typical free-fall. This adds a lot of strategy, as you can also use it as an attack, meaning you can either be super risky or roll out of danger after landing a hard-hitting rocket boost to the enemy. It's a fantastic addition that really increases the gameplay depth, even though it seems fairly small.
Excellent movement would mean nothing if the level design wasn't suited for it, but fortunately this game's levels are! Each stage is quite varied, and they offer a lot of options for how you want to tackle them, whether that's taking your time with the platforming or rocketing through without a care in the world. In particular, I really love how open the second stage can get, and how many paths are available. The rest are fairly linear, but they still use Sparkster's kit effectively. There's also a few levels where you don't do as much platforming, like Stage 3's robo-bird riding and Stage 7 becoming a space shooter, but they end up feeling like fairly nice changes of pace more than anything. Each level's also incredibly well-paced, with very little downtime but also enough time to flesh out the various gimmicks.
The game also looks and sounds fairly nice! Konami's 16-bit games almost always excelled in these categories, but Sparkster especially so. A lot of the soundtrack is lifted from the Mega Drive sequel, and it all sounds really good with the Super Nintendo's sound hardware, although I still prefer how they sounded on Sega's machine. Sparkster's also an incredibly good-looking game, with smooth animations, colourful sprites, detailed backgrounds and some really neat graphical effects.
Although with all that said, a few criticisms come to mind. Some of the boss fights near the end-game (particularly Stage 7's boss and one of Stage 8's minibosses) are a bit tedious to fight, as the former's a massive difficulty spike and the latter's got way too much health for it's own good. There's also a lot of slowdown, which isn't as big an issue if you use the right settings on an emulator, but can be a little annoying since most of it happens during regular gameplay.
Despite these small blemishes, Sparkster's a damn good SNES platformer! It brings the Rocket Knight formula over to Nintendo's system really well, and even improves on things the Mega Drive games did. I'm so glad it'll be getting a second chance in the Resparked collection, which also seems to be adding a Boost Mode that removes the lag! Once that's out, I'd say that'll be the best way of playing this one. Regardless, this game (as well as the MD duology) are worth playing any way you can!