Year Released: 1993

Platform: Sega Genesis/ Megadrive

Developer: Konami

You’ve got to hand it to Sonic back then. When he made his mark back in the 90s, every third-party videogame company in that era were trying to emulate the “animal-with-attitude” success that Sega wrought with a mascot of their own. Needless to say, the majority were mediocre at best, and best left forgotten at worst. Take a gander at the infamy of such “wonders” like Bubsy the Bobcat, Aero the Acrobat and Awesome Possum if you need further proof.

When Konami jumped on the bandwagon, however, THAT was a whole different story. Creators of revered franchises such as the current Metal Gear Solid, Contra, and Castlevania series, they had a go at the mascot-creating height, and crafted an anthropomorphic opossum by the name of Sparkster, and the action-packed and intense RocketKnight Adventures was born.

…But I’d been done seen about everything,
When I see an opossum fly…..

Basically, you’re put in charge of saving the world against the army of evil pigs hellbent on conquering Sparkster’s turf. But instead of a crummy shirt and a clichéd slogan, the marsupial dons a suit of blue armor, brandishes a sword, and straps on a rocket pack. On top of that, he was slapped on together with a well-designed-and-action-packed thrill-ride of a game.

The featured mechanic of this game was that Sparkster uses his rocket jetpack to get a boost of speed and charge into his foes, as he blasts away with his sword stretched out in front of him. Most levels make use of this feature, either to get on top of a platform, or to avoid deathtraps. Timing and skill is of the essence when using this. Sparkster also attacks with a fire-spiral-spouting sword, a sure sign of a character not to be messed with.

Directed by Nobuya Nakazato, responsible for the Contra series, people who were lucky enough to purchase Rocket Knight Adventures will expect to see graphical tricks pulled off like no other (back in the day) and relentless boss battles. Fight off a berserk robot train while riding on the rails yourself. Square off against your arch-rival Axle Gear in a boxing match using “ginormous” Rock-Em-Sock-Em robots. Blast off into space in a side-scrolling shoot-em-up stage reminiscent of Gradius & Lifeforce. Watch in awe as the big bads blow up satisfyingly. Stare in awe as Sparkster hangs on a branch upside-down on his cute tail.

Giant pig robot duels. They don’t make enemies like these anymore.

Despite the kid-like demeanor of our hero and the characters, this game is by no means a walk in a park. It was challenging enough on the default Normal setting, but as the difficulty goes higher, you are only allowed a few amount of hits before you give up the ghost. Crazy Mode was akin to God Mode in God of War; one hit point is all you got.

All this was done on the Sega Megadrive, making Rocket Knight Adventures an exclusive title. Eventually, Konami branched out to the SNES with a pseudo-sequel called Sparkster, but in this case, first time’s already a charm. I urge Konami to get this game out on the Virtual Console as soon as possible, so that gamers will experience the old-school joys I had with Rocket Knight Adventures. At the very least, he brought a good clean scrub to the already-tainted mascots of yesteryear.