 One of the most under-appreciated series of the 16-bit era is Rocket Knight Adventures. There's three games, starting with the original on Sega Genesis, followed up by Sparxter Rocket Knight Adventures 2. The Super Nintendo received its own spin-off game, simply titled Sparxter, and no, this isn't a port. All three Rocket Knight Adventure games are their own thing. Sparxter is the name of your character. When I was a kid, I thought his name was Rocket Knight, but no. Instead, he's an apostle dressed in knight's armor named Sparxter, so in other words, this is one of the few mascot platformers, or run and gun in this case. That wasn't total crap, and that's mainly because the games were made by Konami. They originally planned on just porting the original game to Super Nintendo, but instead decided to do a new game from the ground up released in September 1994, right when the SNES was really hitting its stride, and this game is proof. You get a health meter with three lives and five continues to get through eight levels with the help of passwords, and right away you can see, this is the kind of game where your character is comically overpowered. The Y button attacks and charges your rocket attack, B jumps, and the L and R buttons do a rolling attack in either direction, but what you're going to be using the most is the charged attack, and that's what makes this game so fun. It only takes a second to charge your jetpack, and the core mechanic of zooming around as stuff explodes around you is a lot of fun. When your charge runs out in midair, you can still press the L and R buttons to roll a couple of times to let your jetpack charge up again. This is 90s Konami, so the controls are pitch perfect, and while it may feel like you're flailing out of control sometimes, it's reassuring to know that you're at least doing some damage along the way. This is one of those games where it really feels rewarding to get good. The level design helps out a lot with that, of course, and that's the main difference between Sparkster and the Sega Genesis games. The levels are bigger, which makes this a longer playthrough. First you got boulders turning into one of these tiger pirates. Later you're jumping around on a giant piano, you're flying in a vertical shoot-em-up, and this isn't just thrown in as a gimmick. I would have liked to have played a few levels of this, but that eventually leads to a rock'em-sock'em boss fight. What is this? Go'em-on? Then you're dodging nukes and fighting, uh, whatever this is. And you got more boss fights like this dragon, or this dude in a walking tank. There's a great sequence here where you're dropped off from robotic speeding bird to robotic speeding bird, and, uh, does this look familiar to anyone? It's just like Gunstar Heroes, and in a not-so-surprising coincidence, the developer of Gunstar Heroes' treasure was made up by former Konami folks, and you can see the fingerprints of treasure all over Sparkster, especially with boss fights like this. What brings this game up a notch, however, is that, as overpowered as you are, and as comfortable as the controls are, the level design makes sure that you can't just mash buttons to get by. There's a small example here where if you screw around too much you fall into one of these trumpets and you get pushed back to the beginning of the section. And also, if you hold your charge down for too long, your jetpack will just explode. This game does a great job varying the settings, and by proxy the objectives you gotta complete to move on. And that can be easier said than done, because Sparkster is a tough playthrough, especially since in order to get to the real final boss so you can get the real ending, you have to play on the hardest difficulty. That kind of falls in line with other Konami games, for me at least, like with Contra 3 for example. When I sit down to play that one, I usually play all the way through easy, normal, and hard in order, and that's kind of the expectation with Sparkster too. Just use the first two runs as a warm-up, and then you'll be adequately prepared to spike a controller into the ground. Now I'm sure some of you out there might be thinking, you but the Siege Genesis games are way better, man. And to that I say, yeah, probably. I'm really partial to the first Rocket Knight Adventures, I think it's a top 20 Genesis game, and the sequel is really good too, but ultimately I feel kind of silly comparing Sparkster to Sparkster Rocket Knight Adventures too because they're different games optimized for their respective platforms. It's the same thing as comparing Hyperstone Heist to Turtles in Time, or Bloodlines to Super Castlevania IV or Contra Hardcore to Contra 3, all Konami games by the way, and Sparkster is another Konami title that got a different game on each console, but for whatever reason it's not as celebrated as much on either side. And I think that's pretty stupid because both games are top-notch. I should mention real quickly here that there was another sequel made in 2010 for 360 and PS3, simply titled Rocket Knight. I haven't spent much time with that one, but I just wanted to mention it, so that's out there too if you're curious. So yeah, Sparkster is another case where in case you can't tell, I really like this game. When I first started this channel 10 years ago, it was one of the first videos I made and it's not very good, but it also shows that I was just excited to talk about this one. And then I got shelved as I looked for other stuff, so this is the first real time I've gone back to Sparkster since then. And if anything, it's better than I remember it to be. I think sometimes people might forget about Sparkster because the general perception is that the Genesis games are better. Well, yeah, they might be, but they're also some of the best games on that console. But as a mere spin-off, Sparkster is no slouch. It's a really fun play through, a great example of a 16-bit action platformer that makes you feel like a badass the better you get at it. And since this game hasn't been re-released in any form, this is yet another game you're gonna have to play, anyway you can. Alright, I want to thank you for watching and I hope you have a great rest of your day.