Sparkster is so cool! They tick so many random checkboxes for me!

[X] Anthro
[X] Cool Armor
[X] Jet Pack
[X] Goggles (Goggles are cool)
[X] Expert Mech Pilot

What endeared them so much to me too was actually their idle animation! They look so jovial, they're happpy to be the hero! Sparkster doesn't brood (Ignore the NA cover here), he's anxious to start the day and get to the rescue of their fair princess! He's a gallant jet-propelled knight who's a zoom zoomin' all around and beating up all the bad guys! Mr. Nutz, Punky Skunk and Zero The Kamikaze Squirrel are so angry that Sparkster is actually awesome! They are so mad! Sonic's got nothin' on Sparkster! Except merchandise apparently! What gives Konami? Where's my Sparkster nendoroid , Sparkster YGO cards, Sparkster party accessories, and Sparkster line of clothing?

Ah well, knowing my luck they'd use this look instead, and I'd be an absurdly sad rabbit. Fuck that guy, this is the boy you want.

This game rips, it's Saturday Morning Cartoon down to the empowering theme music that blares from the first stage and goes off after every victory. Sparkster's here to fuck shit up! Those damn pigs won't know what hit'em! You got that patented Konami difficulty, but thankfully they kept themselves in line and didn't Bayou Billy this one. As a matter of fact we actually got all the difficulties unlocked by default over here in NA! Thank the lord above that Konami wasn't dumb enough to make their mascot platformer harder than 90% of the Famicom library, although they were cheeky enough to call Japanese "Normal" the "Children" difficulty and cut you off from the final boss if you played on that. Couldn't help yourselves could you?

Konami: "Nope."

Easily one of the most memorable titles I ever played on the Genesis back then, you know it's memorable when I didn't even own this shit and only played on Sega Channel! I so wish I had owned it growing up though! I would've been a master at it and been Rocket Royalty of some sorts.

You're the coolest Sparkster! Look at him! AAAAA HE'S SO FUCKIN' COOL!!!

Reviewed on Mar 09, 2023


8 Comments


1 year ago

It'll still forever annoy me Konami just never chooses to rerelease this game.

1 year ago

@arle it's insane isn't it? Not a single virtual console release, and not a peep of some kind of announcement for NSO or something. RKA at least isn't too terribly pricey compared to the rest, but both versions of Sparkster currently go for like the price of a Honda Civic.

But hey! You can buy the shitty 2010 game on Steam at least!
For some reason (probably money) Konami is VERY stubborn about republishing their old titles, and when they do it the results tend to be... not the best, to be honest (Silent Hill HD Collection is a very good, or rather, bad example). The fact to this day the only Metal Gear games in steam are Ground Zeros, The Phantom Pain and Survive is extremely is almost a crime (tho at least they didn't pulled of the first one from GOG... yet).

It sucks for consumers, fans and especially for the videogames preservation sake, but that's how Konami be sometimes...

1 year ago

@demonandgames The weird part though with their Genesis re-releases are that Contra Hard Corps and CV Bloodlines are available on NSO in addition to their respective AV Collections. Like, they doubled down there and yet my man Sparkster gets treated like a second-class citizen. I'm kinda just assuming at this point that Konami just low-key hates the guy tbh.

I know it's not actually a big deal since emulation is so widespread, but like....c'mon.....it ain't MGS4 and the inconceivable architecture of the PS3 when it comes to bringing these games to stuff.
Yeah, the poor guy gets treated even worse than Bomberman, which is saying a lot. I mean, there's always hope that Konami pulls out a port out of nowhere, it's difficult, but it's possible, so who knows...

1 year ago

sorry to be the fun police but I really like how this game and character haven't been turned into a super duper exploited for merchandise. I do understand the want for the game to be rereleased though, it's embarrassing that I only get the weird ass remake thing when I look the game up on PSN

1 year ago

@bran naw, that's real. I understand the thought behind not wanting something to be so ridiculously popular that constant merch is shoved out the warehouse factory and it becomes impossible to not notice them. That sounds insanely hypocritical coming from the pokemon fan probably, lol.

sometimes though I do wish Sparkster existed a bit more beyond the 16-bit gen.
Most of my peer group back then was Nintendo exclusive as well at the time. Just from birthday, Christmas and allowance I might have been able to get 5 new games a year, so you had to decide, even when earning some extra with lawn mowing. The Genesis often didn't look as inviting to me and we thought it had a more limited sound, from what we read in video game magazines. Took me a while to discover the Genesis has some qualities on its own, that go beyond Sonic (that I didn't like) and the Mortal Kombat blood code (obsolete with an uncensored part 2 on SNES). I knew Earthworm Jim and Aladdin were considered the better versions on Genesis, but it also had a great range of shmups and brawlers in general, besides the Streets of Rage and Golden Axe franchises alone should sell the system and there's something about those arcade type games that in their gritty way do what Nintendon't.