As many people know, in the early days of console gaming, we had two major mascots that competed with each other fiercely. Nintendo's Super Mario, versus SEGA's Sonic the Hedgehog. But what world would be complete without those tryhards who went as far as to make their own, supposedly superior mascots? Those kinds of people sparked the great Mascot Wars of the early-to-mid 90's. During this time, we got to see such "amazing" mascots such as Zool: Ninja of the Nth Dimension, the oh-so imfamous Bubsy Bobcat, and other trash such as Awesome Possum. But before Awesome Possum stumbled into the scene, the gaming industry was pleasantly greeted by another iconic opossum known as Sparkster, the iron-clad defender of peace who was the mascot of Rocket Knight Adventures.

Graphics: 8/10. Having grown up with a Genesis, I always knew that it was capable of running very clean graphics. Little did I know, it was capable of much better. Rocket Knight Adventures exceeded my expectations and showed me what the Genesis was actually capable of. It showed me impressive elements like very detailed pixel art, proper reflections, smooth lighting changes as many more things you wouldn't expect to see in a Sega Genesis game. The only thing that might be slightly bothersome is some flashing effects, and if you can get past that, it's very pleasant.

Sound: 8/10. Now, I'm aware there is a lot of feuding between Genesis and Super NES fans, and some of them argue that the Genesis wasn't too capable of making very good music. This is, of course, very wrong. When I got into this game, I was immediately greeted by one of the most pleasant, non-chunky soundtrackS I've ever heard on the Genesis. Every stage has very appropriate music, everything is very listenable and the enjoyability was off the charts. There was even a song that sounded so accurate to rave music that I could hardly believe it. It was something you'd expect to see in nightclubs and such. Leave it to Konami's sound design team to piece together something good out of every console's hardware.

Addictiveness: 9/10. There's not a lot of games that can really reel me in and get me really interested, especially not sidescrollers. But the fast-paced gameplay mixed with the wonderful art and sound made me happier than I've been in quite some time. You can play the game slow or fast if you want, and having that option is more than enough to keep me interested in playing. Even when I got a gameover halfway through the game, I still picked it up the next day and beat the entire game. You play through 7 stages, each typically having a sub-boss and a real boss fight. In some cases, boss fights even have multiple phases even if it isn't necessarily the final boss. The levels differ between sidescrolling platforming and flight levels where you shoot down incoming enemies. Some stages need to be approached differently, such as a minecart level and one that relies on reflections to see where you can land on the next platform. Given the multiple ways to play this, it's more addictive than any other platformer I've tried.

Story: 8/10. It's not every day that you find a Genesis game with an extensive story, and on the outside it doesn't really seem like Rocket Knight Adventures would have one. But as it turns out, we're yet again surprised by a story worthy of our attention. In the distant past, an alien race sailing in a powerful spaceship known as the Pig Star has began an assault on the world of Elhorn. King El Zebulos led an attack on the mysterious race, and successfully eliminated them. Knowing the Pig Star is capable of destroying anything in the universe, they placed a magical seal upon the Pig Star to keep it from being misused. The key to the seal was then passed down through the royal family for generations. In order to protect the kingdom from future raids, they formed a group of warriors called the Rocket Knights. Fully equipped with armor, a jetpack, and a sword, these knights were trained to defend the kingdom in the worst circumstances imaginable. Somewhere along the lines, Sparkster had become an orphan and was eventually appointed the position of leader of the Rocket Knights. Eventually, a fellow member of the Rocket Knights, Axel Gear, had tried to steal an ancient book that contained valuable information on the Rocket Knights. At some point in the future, Axel Gear had returned to the kingdom and Sparkster took it upon himself to investigate. And that's about as much as I can really say without spoiling things, meaning there's actually much more story to this than it seems if that was just a recollection of the past. Definitely surprising to see this much in a videogame like this.

Depth: 9/10. For a platformer it sure has an amazing amount of depth. As I mentioned earlier it had many many levels and mechanics. And actually, interesting enough there's actually literal depth. In comparison to one of the Sonic games that tried to use some sort of depth with their platforming and did it rather clunkily, Rocket Knight Adventures seems to actually make good use of it, allowing you to manipulate background elements hassle free keeping it enjoyable. On another note, the rocket pack has a fair amount of uses allowing you to do a spin attack, a rocket motion in 8 directions and other things that allow a lot of control over how you play the game. The full gameplay time for this might be around 4 or 5 hours if you're fairly new to the game, which is a surprising amount of time for a Genesis game. Kept me occupied for quite a while it did.

Difficulty: 7/10. During the first few levels I thought the game might be a bit too easy, given the large amount of health you're offered, the 5 continues and the incredible amount of invincibility frames during rocket attacks, but I actually was wrong. I couldn't make it past stage 4 on my first time, and on my second time it took me a couple hours to actually get through the bosses. I lost a lot of lives and only finished the game with 1 or 2 continues. It's pretty hard, and after all, Konami is known for their difficult games.

Overall: 8/10. Rocket Knight Adventures sold me with its colorful art, great soundtrack and game mechanics. Although the difficulty might be a turn-off, I'd suggest that everyone give this game a try whether they like Mario or Sonic. It's pretty much the best of both worlds, and I'm glad that I decided to sit down and play it. It's a shame that it wasn't a commercial success and that it got lost in a sea of mascot trash. If you have a genesis, I'd suggest you give this a try.

This game sounds amazing! I am totally trying it out sometime soon.

I don't have any knowledge of this game outside your review. But you did a really good job reviewing, as usual. Just the right amounts of being informative without feeling like it drags on forever.