RKA on Genesis was a smash original for Konami, and they intended to bring their success over to SNES. But one thing led to another and their RKA SNES port became its own game, titled 'Sparkster', with less emphasis on rigid enemy setpieces and more high-speed vertical platforming. Not wanting Genesis owners to be left out, Konami produced another similarly-titled follow-up, with a proper '2' in the name - unfortunately, it's the weakest of the 16-bit trilogy, with pretty low production value and oddly-cheap restructuring of the core game philosophy.
Like Sparkster on SNES, RKA2 brings vivid JRPG colors, new character design and rocketpack-focused platforming. Movement is the floatiest of the series here - which is nice during hallway and open sections. Sparkster doesn't enter a fall state post-jettison, and your rocketpack auto-charges; with careful aim and rebounding, you can 'air-bounce' through levels freely. It's a very neat, alternative approach from the other two, where movement is conditional to making big gambles from safe point to safe point.
On the downside, combat wasn't rebalanced with these physics changes in mind, and most levels don't give you much movement freedom. Sparkster has really slow running acceleration and a huge wind-up time on the sword; it feels really bad to use and I opted for dashing 90% of the time on instinct, even when slashing gave me better damage investment. There's also just not a lot of platforming centric levels: Stage 3 is an abominable mess that's one-part pipe maze, another-part auto-scroller, Stage 4 is the mech level, and Stage 6 is the final boss.
But moreso than anything, RKA2 is just really diminutive in design: No overwhelmingly-powerful moments and even its better moments don't feel properly playtested. Sprites have more immediately-appealing designs and better use of animation frames and posing, but are much smaller and often less-detailed than both other games; same goes for the background art.
Unintentionally, RKA2 reminded Jenny and I of the Master System Sonic games, with its slower approach, smaller sprites, chaos emerald-like collectibles, and thematic branches between stages. I have a soft spot for its ability to at least feel fully-realized in that compressed vision. I just wish it didn't have so many hiccups along the way.
Like Sparkster on SNES, RKA2 brings vivid JRPG colors, new character design and rocketpack-focused platforming. Movement is the floatiest of the series here - which is nice during hallway and open sections. Sparkster doesn't enter a fall state post-jettison, and your rocketpack auto-charges; with careful aim and rebounding, you can 'air-bounce' through levels freely. It's a very neat, alternative approach from the other two, where movement is conditional to making big gambles from safe point to safe point.
On the downside, combat wasn't rebalanced with these physics changes in mind, and most levels don't give you much movement freedom. Sparkster has really slow running acceleration and a huge wind-up time on the sword; it feels really bad to use and I opted for dashing 90% of the time on instinct, even when slashing gave me better damage investment. There's also just not a lot of platforming centric levels: Stage 3 is an abominable mess that's one-part pipe maze, another-part auto-scroller, Stage 4 is the mech level, and Stage 6 is the final boss.
But moreso than anything, RKA2 is just really diminutive in design: No overwhelmingly-powerful moments and even its better moments don't feel properly playtested. Sprites have more immediately-appealing designs and better use of animation frames and posing, but are much smaller and often less-detailed than both other games; same goes for the background art.
Unintentionally, RKA2 reminded Jenny and I of the Master System Sonic games, with its slower approach, smaller sprites, chaos emerald-like collectibles, and thematic branches between stages. I have a soft spot for its ability to at least feel fully-realized in that compressed vision. I just wish it didn't have so many hiccups along the way.