Rocket Knight Review

Photo of Robert Allen Robert AllenMay 25, 2010
38 732 2 minutes read

I’ve spent years passionately expanding my knowledge of retro games of all types and generations, but Rocket Knight Adventures was a game that I was blessed with playing in my youth. Later in life, I was able to play the rest of the series. Mario and Sonic spawned countless “mascot” games, but this series is a diamond in that rough. Each game is notably different from the others, but the original three hold up as some of the best, most memorable platformer games that I’ve ever played. The Rocket Knight Adventures series has aged extremely well in almost every respect. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard someone say that they disliked the series, so it’s only natural that we’d eventually see another game in the series. It’s taken about 15 years, but in 2010 we’ve received a new game under the humbly abbreviated title, Rocket Knight. While Rocket Knight doesn’t quite capture the fairy tale-like magic of the originals, it’s a decent tribute, of sorts, to the series as a whole.


For those not familiar with the series, Rocket Knight, like the previous games, is a side-scrolling platformer starring a knighted, armored, rocket pack-wearing oppossum named Sparkster. Once again, the heroic but humble Sparkster must defend a kingdom under siege. The difference in aesthetic between this game and the previous entries in the series is immediately apparent. While the original games featured gorgeous, painterly 2D sprite work, Rocket Knight has less detailed 3D-rendered graphics. On starting the game, you’re greeted with an extremely generic GUI, and an unimaginative title screen. Things do get somewhat better from there. Rocket Knight is also lighter-hearted like an original Disney production. The original games were, at times, a little dark and bizarre, more like a Miyazaki film. It gave the game world of the originals more depth, and it seemed like they took themselves more seriously, regardless of how absurd the overall concept was. The music of the original games is also some of my favorite game music of all time. The fact that such a stirring and melodic score was being pulled from such simple hardware added to the dream-like experience. Rocket Knight‘s score is orchestral and alludes to the previous games, but it’s sedate and just doesn’t stand-out, save for a track or two.

Rocket Knight does, however, a decent job of recreating the basic gameplay concepts of the original games. Sparkster controlled a bit differently in each of the original games, and this game is no exception, but it works just fine. One of the best aspects of the original games was the ever-changing gameplay. Each stage had its own unique mechanic. Rocket Knight attempts this, and there’s some interesting concepts, but it seems the developers were either lacking in creativity or were just afraid to go too outside of the box. The collision detection never felt quite right, and in a platformer this is important. Still, I was able to beat the game fairly easily on normal mode. Rocket Knight is a little too easy, and hard mode needs to be unlocked on a per-stage basis. The game is also too short, I was able to beat it in about two hours. There’s not much to do after beating the game, except for some unlockable skins, hard mode, achievements, and trying to top leaderboard scores. For $14.99 USD (on Steam), there just isn’t enough game here.

Rocket Knight is a decent game. You can tell it’s made by fans, but that isn’t necessarily a good thing. If you haven’t played the original games, seek them out. If you have, Rocket Knight will disappoint you. It’s worth noting that some younger children may enjoy the game, as it’s very light-hearted and not too difficult.


Photo of Robert Allen Robert AllenMay 25, 2010
38 732 2 minutes read
Photo of Robert Allen

Robert Allen

Since being a toddler, Robert Allen has been immersed in video games, anime, and tokusatsu. Currently, his days are spent teaching at two southern California colleges. But his evenings and weekends are filled with STGs, RPGs, and action titles and well at writing for Tech-Gaming since 2007.

38 Comments

  2. The little guys looks a bit like Sonic, esp. when he was a knight in the Wii game.

  6. “You can tell it’s made by fans”

    I thought it was the original developers.

  8. Good review, Mr. TideGear. I remember playing first game when I was kid on both Megadrive and Nintendo!!!

  10. Tjis is one of those games where $15 is just too much. $10 would be A LOT better.

  13. What powerups does sparkster have? Any MP game? For $15 I expect multi, $10 is good for single player.

  20. “On starting the game, you’re greeted with an extremely generic GUI, and an unimaginative title screen.”

    Youre gonna knock a game for that? Jeez..

  21. Who came first Sonic or Rocket Knight? Seems like he was originally Sonic with a jet pack. Sonic was just Mario with tennis shoes, though.

  24. So far this is one of the harsher reviews for the game. Is it becuase you are comparing it to the old game or judging as a new one?

  26. Thats what we called it here in Australia. Maybe they thought Genesis would appeal to the bible belt folk 😉

  29. I tried the demo and thought it was kinda meh. I’d wait for a sale for sure.

  33. Actually sonic and the black knight stole the animals in armor from this, sparkster was the first video game animal character to wear armor and use a sword, sonic just ripped it off recently and even copied the golden armor.

  34. Sparkster was a lot more then just sonic in a rocket pack…this is the mistake a lot of people made back then because rocket knight adventures came out when a lot of sonic clones came around a lot of people put sparkster in the same line when he’s just as original as sonic, mario and earthworm jim.

    The only similarity if any was blue armor, sparksters attitude is more of a knight doing his job and encouraging the player to move on, sonic’s is impatience.

    Sparkster was different because the rocketpack affected the game and made it very different to sonic, rka was technically part contra, part platformer, you needed to use your rocket pack sparingly, mess up and it could lead to an early death and rka also started the arch nemesis ie axel gear that sega later did with knuckles with sonic 3.

    On topic agreed with this review, rocket knight was fun but mainly unforgettable, the levels were too long and boring, flying levels too slow, sparkster looked uninterested, no boss rushes from first game or cool boss music from first game, no rock em sock em robot battle and sparksters new design like his punk one still doesn’t beat his classic iconic one from first rka imo along with the games.

    I hope konami get the original creator of this back and treasure games help him make the next one, or better yet a remake of first rka and snes sparkster (not megadrive one) but that probably won’t happen :(.

    That’s just My opinion on the series and finally making the game with speedruns in mind ruined it, I’m glad climax brought sparkster back but if you’re gonna bring him back do it right and it doesn’t look right in 2.5d, should’ve used hd sprites.

  36. Thanks.

    If you’ve got a sega megadrive/genesis you might be able to find a copy of rka on ebay but they’re pretty expensive and hard to find or you can use an emulator.

    I didn’t get to complete rka, megadrive conked out and had to sell it 10 years ago with all the other games.

    But yeah try first rka if you can find it, it still stands out well today from when it was first released in 93.

  37. Makes sense, since RKA was directed by Nobuya Nakazato who also helmed Shattered Soldier, Alien Wars, and my fav- Hard Corps.

    Agree with the HD sprites- Sonic 4 should have used the same!

  38. I wish Nobuya Nakazato came back and did this series justice again like he did with rka the series hasn’t been the same since :(.

    Contra’s cool don’t get Me wrong but I wish he came back and did the same to this ie rocket knight adventures rebirth if it ever happened, probably wont 🙁 .

Back to top button