FreakBoards 2024 SNES/GENS Book Club #2: ROCKET KNIGHT ADVENTURES vs SPARKSTER

[Cuboid64]

Previous Threads

Spoiler!

2023: NES/GB
#1: Legend of Zelda (NES)
#2: Super Mario (And Wario) Land (GB)
#3: Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest (NES)
#4: Trip World (GB)
#5: Mega Man May (NES/GB)
#6: Metal Gear (NES)
#7: Free Play

2024: SNES/GENESIS
[url=viewtopic.php?t=474] #1: MARIO vs. SONIC

Curious about what this is? Here’s the explainer!

Spoiler!

What is this?
Every month a game (or gameS or themed set of games) will be chosen at random (or voted on) and the goal is to beat it, or at least get as far as you can in it. It’s not a race, not a requirement, just play an old-ass game you haven’t otherwise thought to give the time to. You might find a new old favorite or at least learn something about it!

How long does this go on for?
Until the end of the month! You’re free to keep playing the game afterwards, but the thread will be unpinned.

Who can join in and How?
Everyone and anyone! There’s no registration necessary, just find a way to play the month’s game! Whether it’s a PC emulator, a piece of boutique hardware, or even on ORIGINAL hardware, any way’s fine as long as you’re able to play the game.

Also not a huge necessity but very welcome: log your gameplay! Screenshots, text, video, art, keep us up to date on where you are and what you think about the game as you go! At the very least give us a screenshot of where you are at the end of the month.

So what’s the game(s) this month?!




ROCKET KNIGHT ADVENTURES vs. SPARKSTER


I don't know the story of why these two games came out the way they did, so differently. I'll be frank i'm drifting in and out of sleep as I wrtie this so IOU a proper thread description.

Play as little or as much as you want! We'll reconvene on the 29th to see what we'll do next much.

[SkieSquiggles]

YAAAAAY HOORAYYY

[SkieSquiggles]

If y'all have been sleeping on this DO NOT DELAY!! this game FUCKS HARD!!!!!! I'm delighted by the character of this game, while the main controls feel a little clunky the ideas are there and I am seeing them, I understand their vision. All of the designs so far have been really fun too, loving the fantasy dieselpunk vibe going on. Our main character, the titular Rocket Knight, is full of flavor and tons of little animations that make them come to life. I am currently partially through stage 2 and I am very excited to continue my playthrough, truly this is a game where shit just Happens in the best way

[VentusVulture]

Started playing through the Genesis version today, got through three or so areas. I think I gotta second SkieSquiggles here, this game fucks hard! The movement is really fun once you learn how to do it (though a little weird with how bouncy it is sometimes) and it feels surprisingly cohesive! The stage layouts are a bit boring, though, given they're mostly flat ground with the occasional water segment or vine segment. That said, they do make the stages really fun sometimes – stage 2 especially was REALLY good, especially the main boss, with how it uses its mechanics. Stage 3 wasn't all that exciting, though, and the boss is kind of tedious and annoying once you learn its attack patterns. I'm looking forward to playing the rest of it!

[SkieSquiggles]

wow this third stage sucks shit. I stay silly nonetheless

[VentusVulture]

Finished the Genesis one! This game's pretty cool, for the most part! It definitely starts off really strong, with the first two areas being really fun to play. The controls aren't too bad, just a little bouncy with the charge attack, though that doesn't always land you where you want it to and ends up feeling a bit uncontrolled. There's a lot of cool unique enemies too, most of which are bosses or minibosses. And a lot of the bosses are... fine! They're all pretty fun at first (especially the bosses of area 2 and 5 and the second miniboss in the final area), but then once you learn their patterns they kind of just either become frustratingly annoying to dodge or just become tedious. The bosses in this game take way too many hits to kill, like at least ten charge attacks each, which would be fine if their weak point was always exposed, but they stay invincible for longer than triple deluxe bosses. A lot of them end up not being fun because of that! The areas themselves are pretty hit-and-miss too after the first two; areas 3 and 4 aren't too fun and areas 5 and 6 are just kind of boring. But in spite of all the weird stuff, it's still a really fun game, and it's also short enough to play in a sitting or two, which is nice.

[VentusVulture]

Played through all of the SNES Sparkster. This one felt... lackluster? Compared to RKA1 on the Genesis. For one thing, movement feels both better and worse, with the addition of a roll button (that I forgot about a solid 80% of my playtime) that makes movement a lot cleaner but at the same time making the charge attack completely stall you in midair once you're done unless you roll out of it. Also, the stages feel much less cohesive; their layouts are way less interesting and their themes make no sense when placed next to each other (and do not match the theme of the game in the slightest; RKA1 had stages that correlated to the pigs attacking but this one just has like Mario themed lands. There's a music land.). Also, there are difficulty-locked stages – easy mode takes out the two worst stages in the game and hard mode adds an additional boss stage, which I really hate. Stage 3 was a high point, though; it reminded me of stage 2 from RKA1 but it managed to play way smoother. Also, enemies deal a reasonable amount of damage in this game and not a third of your health (though that has something to do with the other paragraph). And at least when you kill the hot buff wolf enemies you get to see them run away half naked in their boxers.

By the way, for anyone playing Rocket Knight Adventures 1 on the Genesis: I have just learned that they change the difficulties across the different regions! As in, "normal" mode in Japanese and "easy" in Europe is "children" in the US, "hard" in Japan and Europe is "easy" in the US, and the normally cheat code locked "very hard" and "crazy hard" difficulties in Japan and Europe are "normal" and "hard" respectively in the US. All this to say, if you're playing on Normal mode in the US version like one would assume is the default, you're actually playing the normally cheat-code locked very hard difficulty from every other region where you take more damage. Awesome!

[Finch]

Had some time to play this morning and did three of the stages of Rocket Knight for Genesis! That first stage is really spectacular, I really loved the flying sequence they give you there and was kinda disappointed that the next two stages didn't have that section, but I'm hopeful it comes back in the final stage (should I make it there).

I'm playing on easy mode, which is probably the right difficulty setting for me, not having healing for the whole stage seems punishing for my skill level. The controls are pretty good, but I hate the slipperiness of landing jumps, particularly in the mining cart(? or something?) section. The angled boost jumps also seem to be really tricky, not sure if that's my old ass controller or just me though. I got stuck at the first stage for a solid five minutes trying to get the angle jump right for the first platform that you couldn't just jump over, and I had to save state in the castle section that has an angle jump over a fire pit because I kept either going entirely vertical or missing the boost jump entirely. Uhg. There isn't a ton of precise platforming, which is good because that would make this game a nightmare for me.

Ditto to VentusVulture about the bosses in this game taking wayyy too many hits for what they are, but the boss designs are pretty cool and interesting, and seemed to be a pretty good level of challenging. There aren't many different enemies so far, mostly the pig men and a couple robots for some reason, and I haven't had issue with any of them.

Designs are fun, I thought Sparkster/Rocket Knight might've been a dog, or a rat at first, but I think he's a possum! He's got a prehensile tail

Overall this is pretty fun so far! I will see if I can dedicate myself to finishing this one, since it seems pretty possible (each stage as taken about 15 - 30 minutes to play, so not a major time sink).

[VentusVulture]

Finally got around to playing Sparkster for the Genesis. I did not get anywhere near finishing it, though; the third level kind of just sucks ass (think pick a pipe except more disorienting). I will say though, its controls are probably the best of the three, since you no longer have to charge your charge attack, instead it charges automatically and you press a button to activate it (which means you can pull off multiple charge attacks out of each other, which makes movement feel much more fun!). The level design is not the best, though. I've only seen three stages and their level designs were all kind of mediocre (the first stage) or not fun (the second and third stages). There are some cool collectible swords in each level (which unlock a true ending I think? though they're purely cosmetic and don't do anything to your actual sword) which make exploring stuff a bit worth it but the exploration isn't really fleshed out. Especially the second level, which loops on itself if you don't take the right exit. I might come back and finish it later or look up a guide on what pipes to pick in the third level or something.

[coin-cache]

Had to get in a bit late unfortunately, but I did manage to try all 3 out for a quick session. The characters in these games are pretty big for me, some of my favorite character designs, esp in the 90s animal guy mascot category. The games have been an influence for me with furry character design stuff for a while (possibly partly because the games showed up at pretty much every gdq for a few years or something close to that, so he stuck around in mind lol), so they have some sentimental value for me in that sense. That said, I never actually played the games, only watched lol

Having played them now, I definitely wish I wasn't as pressed for time because I definitely want to dig more into RKA and Sparkster(SNES). Aside from other things I needed to do I do admit I kinda dragged my feet on playing these since i'm more of a slower paced platformer person. That said, very glad to have played and hoping I can get back to them at some point.
Sparkster was my first and I got about as far as I could with 3 continues, which was I think the end of stage 4. Pretty much no complaints about the controls and the levels were fun enough! Only issue I had was the camera not following Sparkster while dashing as much as I'd hope, but it's not too terrible. Admittedly stage 1 was a little forgettable. I had a good time with the other stages, though. Not much else to say, I do want to get back to this.
RKA was the next one I played, though I only got to the end of stage 2. At least for that bit, the bosses were definitely the highlight by far, the levels themselves I pretty quickly forgot about. I wouldn't be surprised if that changed later on though. The bosses themselves though I had a really good time with. They take a while but are pretty consistently engaging which I like, I probably prefer them to the ones I fought in Sparkster. I read above after playing and it looks like they all take a long time? So my opinion could have changed later on. (This is worth noting that I was playing on Easy, didn't realize where the difficulty select was oops).
I played a tiny bit of RKA2 but I was kind of falling asleep by then, not from being bored I'm just actually sleepy aa. It was neat, I think I liked some of the level design more, the gems and other things were slightly more hidden, and the slot machine mechanic was kinda interesting. I was pretty turned off by the second half of the first level though, all the pink goop I wasn't super sure what to do and I lost steam before I figured the boss out.

SNES Sparkster and RKA both I'd love to revisit. Very fun despite not being entirely my type of game, very cute characters and enemies, the wolf guys are maybe my favorite enemies but the pigs are a close second. Soundtrack was fun but I don't remember too much of it. RKA2 maybe I'd revisit as well but it'd probably be last.

I wrote more than I thought I would oops. Final thing but relating to the mario crouching list mentioned on the mario stream last week, it's not mario, but consider: