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DF Retro Let's Play: Rocket Knight Adventures - Classic Sega Genesis/ Mega Drive Action!
- Thread starter chandoog
- Start date
Wonderful wonderful game. Loved it as a kid. Hard as balls though. It's so unforgiving that I had to wonder how anyone managed to complete it through honest means.
I really want to enjoy this game, but it just becomes tedious to me for some reason - and that's unfortunate. Usually it's at the vine waterfall level with the mid-boss where I say - meh, I'm good.
I love the graphics and music, but I think the Rocket mechanic is too finicky for my tastes.
I'm excited to watch this, though! Sometimes these videos revitalize my perspective on the game.
Thanks again, DF Retro, for doing what you do. I really enjoy all the videos you produce!
I love the graphics and music, but I think the Rocket mechanic is too finicky for my tastes.
I'm excited to watch this, though! Sometimes these videos revitalize my perspective on the game.
Thanks again, DF Retro, for doing what you do. I really enjoy all the videos you produce!
You know, I used to be a Nintendo guy back in the 16-bit days, but I'm always consistently blown away by these crazy technical wonders on the Genesis, in a way that I never really was with the SNES. Look at all these crazy effects in this game, I'm always impressed by the line scrolling/layering effects and sheer amount of sprites and speed I see in some Genesis titles. It's like some devs were making a statement.
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i think the primary difference between enjoying the SNES and Genesis is that most of the best games of SNES are the famous marquee titles and the Genesis requires a little more deep diving.
I've never been able to beat it for this reason. The jumped up difficulty at the end is the game's biggest flaw imo
Love the video, and the game. It looks like a typical mascot platformer but is more of a hardcore action game. It's one of those games I never sold and still have my original copy.
As a long time gamer, these are my favorite types of games and probably why the 16bit gen is my favorite generation.
The games are designed around the gameplay. Rocket Knight has a bunch of interconnected gameplay mechanics (I can't really remember a game that played like it before it came out) and the entire game is designed around them. The feeling you get when you master the rocket mechanic is such a great feeling and there is nothing to prevent you from doing that stuff right from the start. The game continually tests your mastery of the controls and I always thought it was pretty fair.
Love these videos. Its a wonder how much content DF creates. They need to do a behind the scenes one day to let people know how the hell they produce so much high quality content.
The games are designed around the gameplay. Rocket Knight has a bunch of interconnected gameplay mechanics (I can't really remember a game that played like it before it came out) and the entire game is designed around them. The feeling you get when you master the rocket mechanic is such a great feeling and there is nothing to prevent you from doing that stuff right from the start. The game continually tests your mastery of the controls and I always thought it was pretty fair.
Love these videos. Its a wonder how much content DF creates. They need to do a behind the scenes one day to let people know how the hell they produce so much high quality content.
Game is a masterwork of level design and mechanics. It teaches you how to master the rocket without a single tutorial. And once you do master it, the game reaches a new peak.
Yup.
I made a similar comment.
I miss games like that that were entirely focused on introducing new gameplay concepts.
One of the best games from that generation. The game throws in so many new creative ideas that could be their own game and then just ditches it for something else creative and fun. It's a shame it's not been re-released in a meaningful way so more could experience it
was hoping it would have made it into the genesis mini
was hoping it would have made it into the genesis mini
Used to love this game. Great play through. Konami on the Genesis just knocked it out of the park.
Fun video, you're pretty damn good at it to be able to do a playthrough in just over an hour while giving such great narration.
RKA is one of my fave games ever. Rocket movement is super satisfying, as are all the cool little touches they put into it, like the pigs being beaten into their underpants and running away from you, but you can still go ahead and overkill them lol.
RKA is one of my fave games ever. Rocket movement is super satisfying, as are all the cool little touches they put into it, like the pigs being beaten into their underpants and running away from you, but you can still go ahead and overkill them lol.
Quite a few older games have 1ups that respawn if you die. Rocket Knight Adventures takes full advantage of this.
Well look at that. It's a 1up just ripe for the taking.
Wait. What? What the heck is that? I had no idea this thing was invincible, and that it would kill me in one hit.
Sure enough, I respawn right back at the 1up.
This is how Rocket Knight Adventures tends to introduce new dangers. The game places an easy 1up directly before them. It's a subtle and brilliant method for teaching the player. They're punished for their mistake, but they don't actually lose anything, which is important in a game with limited lives and continues. This is all done without dialogue, or pop-up text, or any of that other junk.
Well look at that. It's a 1up just ripe for the taking.
Wait. What? What the heck is that? I had no idea this thing was invincible, and that it would kill me in one hit.
Sure enough, I respawn right back at the 1up.
This is how Rocket Knight Adventures tends to introduce new dangers. The game places an easy 1up directly before them. It's a subtle and brilliant method for teaching the player. They're punished for their mistake, but they don't actually lose anything, which is important in a game with limited lives and continues. This is all done without dialogue, or pop-up text, or any of that other junk.
"Situation rush" is such a great descriptor, I'm totally stealing it for the future. I was playing Minit earlier today for the first time and I'd say it fits the bill pretty well.
Fantastic game with some of the most fun and imaginative bosses of that era. Sparkster was such a disappointment in comparison.
I remember renting this game out in a really random video rental store because I liked the cover artwork and I recognized the konami logo and was not used to seeing that logo in mega drive games. The game blew my socks off, it was so good. I kept renting it instead of buying it for good, really dumb of me because I would love to have it in my collection.
Only thing I could not beat back in the days (got this game a saturday morning at my 15th birthday) was Crazy Hard!!! It really was..... Crazy HARD 😵😂 Really loved this game.
Another one of (personally) the Mega Drive's GOAT's.
And this is why I dont give 2 shits about mini consoles, being at the mercy of what they decide to put on them sucks, and without any form of online store to buy additional games, it will end up gathering dust when you are done with it (or replaced with another release of the same console).
And this is why I dont give 2 shits about mini consoles, being at the mercy of what they decide to put on them sucks, and without any form of online store to buy additional games, it will end up gathering dust when you are done with it (or replaced with another release of the same console).
I was shocked at how much better this game is than the snes sequel. I know people said this at GAF too back in the day. i haven't finished it as I ended with game over but was an incredible fun adventure.
I'm weird where I really like Sparkster Genesis a lot more than the rest. I think it's because it's more Sonic-like in the way you boost around stages and the like.
I never thought about this before but it does feel kind of evident now that Sonic & Knuckles might have taken some cues from this game. The fish boss with the platforms in particular is very much in the vein of the Lava Reef Act 2 boss, and I can't quite think of any other games that use this particular mechanic/gimmick for boss encounters.
The one thing that bothers me about RKA visually is that the character animation animation feels a bit flimsy and unrefined, almost as if the animations were not implemented the way the artist originally envisioned. Sparkster (on Genesis) does this better and the animations just feel like they give more weight to the interactions.
Also a side note regarding the music is that this is one of the few (perhaps the only I can think of) Konami games on the system that uses both the FM and PSG chips. It makes the music sound much richer when they have more total voices to work with. Pretty much every other Konami game only uses the 6 FM channels, and in the case of Bloodlines they only use 5 for the ingame music.
The one thing that bothers me about RKA visually is that the character animation animation feels a bit flimsy and unrefined, almost as if the animations were not implemented the way the artist originally envisioned. Sparkster (on Genesis) does this better and the animations just feel like they give more weight to the interactions.
Also a side note regarding the music is that this is one of the few (perhaps the only I can think of) Konami games on the system that uses both the FM and PSG chips. It makes the music sound much richer when they have more total voices to work with. Pretty much every other Konami game only uses the 6 FM channels, and in the case of Bloodlines they only use 5 for the ingame music.
Honestly didn't really know there were difficulty differences between regions, only knew about the stage titles.
Hope John goes around doing a RKA2 playthrough, it's really not as good as the first game but it's a quite interesting game (unlike IMO the blander SNES version).
Hope John goes around doing a RKA2 playthrough, it's really not as good as the first game but it's a quite interesting game (unlike IMO the blander SNES version).
I never had an appreciation for this game - I've always found it too hard to enjoy. But watching John's LP made me look at it differently and more favorably. Even though I might not be good at the game (John's muscle memory is AMAZING), I now can see why it's so revered. Thanks John, love the format - the inter-cut clips really help with the history and background you're discussing, and the conversation between the two of you is great.
I been getting a few private messages asking to check up on John, so just noting that while I wasn't aware there was any sort of silly lowrent youtuber going after him until this morning, he's fine and up on his feet like Alfred Chicken on a Super Nintendo. I'll be going over to see him on Wednesday to work on some more videos and Let's Plays so don't you worry, he's in my custody.
Loveee this game. The US version has borked difficulty compared to the Japanese and European (see: Australian) versions right? I was always confused by people saying this was super hard. I think American normal = Australian hard, and Hard = Very Hard. There was also a crazy hard mode. Been a while, maybe my details are off slightly. Anyway, the difficulty balance was good in the Aus version but it sounds kind of busted in the US release.
JP has Easy and Hard difficulties by default, and you have to unlock Very Hard and Crazy Hard by clearing subsequent difficulties (or entering a code).
PAL is the same, but they renamed Easy to Normal and changed it so you can't face the endgame on that difficulty.
NA renames the difficulties to Children, Easy, Normal and Hard and makes you play on Easy or above to face the endgame, but you can pick any difficulty from the start and the difficulty settings aren't actually any different aside from the name and maybe continue count IIRC.
The Japanese version also has a stage select code that's not in the other versions, so it's easier that way.
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