Rocket Knight is definitely one game that brings back memories. Konami dug down deep from their past and chose a great game to return for gamers through Xbox Live Arcade and PSN. Retro gaming is definitely not unheard of, I mean some of the best games have been those from the past. Look at Super Mario Bro. 3, Zelda, Tetris and Megaman even. This is the third game in the Rocket Knight series. The first being Rocket Knight Adventures for the Sega Genesis, the second is Sparkster: Rocket Knight Adventures 2 for the Genesis Mega Drive, and now Rocket Knight has made its way for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

The game takes place fifteen years after the second game and play as Sparkster, once a valiant rocket knight that served the Zephyrus (opossum inhabited) Kingdom. Having defeated Devilgus the pig emperor of Devotindos and saving Zephyrus and it’s people, Sparkster pledged that he would forever protect the Zephyrus Kingdom from harm. While enjoying his fifteen years of peace and quiet with his family he notices that in the distance their are warships descending on Zephyrus. Once again Sparkster must bear arms and strap on his rocket pack to bring peace back to Zephyrus.

Rocket Knight is classified as a 2.5D side scrolling adventure. Easy controls, great visuals, and great music makes this game very enjoyable. Honestly it felt great to sit back  and relax with this game. Game play isn’t too difficult but challenging enough to make you keep your eyes on screen at all times. The revamp of the graphics, and the bright popping cartoonish colors do a great job of remembering the previous editions. Although the visuals are great, the game does suffer from some hiccups, such as too many characters and/or sprites on screen tends to slow down the frame rate a bit.

Rocket Knight has three game modes, Arcade, Free Play, and Gold Sparkster mode. Arcade mode gives you a normal (which is fairly easy), and hard modes, with three continues just in case you got a little caught up with something else off screen. Free Play mode lets you enjoy any stage of the game as long as you have completed it first. Gold Sparkster mode is basically hardcore mode. Players are given only four hearts rather than the eight in the normal and hard mode, and the refresh rate of your rockets are twice as fast. Each level can be played as a time trial or a level for highest points earned. There are plenty of blue gems, red gems, two different types of hearts, and an extra life hidden throughout most of the levels to get you what you need.

Aside from that the replay value seems to be a bit stale. This game is very much like shampoo, lather, rinse, repeat.  Point of almost all the levels is get to the other side, it doesn’t even matter if you even collect everything just as long as you finish. Unless you’re fighting for a top spot on a leaderboards, replay one specific level again, or in the mood to play a classic retro side scrolling adventure game once completed, then that’s pretty much all you’re going to get afterward.

All in all I must admit that this game was fun to play, it brought back a lot of memories. Old school 2D side scrollers, beat’em ups, and horizontal or vertical shooters have a feeling of just retro gaming. Rocket Knight encompasses all of that and has made it look good. We would have liked the inclusion of some type of multiplayer, the game length is fairly short, and the game is a bit pricier then we liked for something with a short span. The PS3 has priced the game at $14.99, and Xbox 360 has priced it for 1200 MS points. No one that remembers the original will want to pass this up, Konami has done a good job in making a fresh sequel experience of a classic instead of a rehash.

[starreviewmulti id=2 tpl=20]

Overall=7.3

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