Rocket Knight Adventures (Patreon)

They ain't lyin, that rocket can knight! But ah, Rocket Knight Adventures, what a game, what a soundtrack, what absolute vibes.

The teams at Konami were really knocking it out of the park back in the day, just something that feels so fully formed from the get go. If there's something that just makes me think of the megadrive/genesis, it's Sonic, and also Streets of Rage, and also Dynamite Heady and Golden Axe, but right up there with them, is Rocket Knight.

If you haven't seen the differences of the Japanese release of Rocket Knight and the western release then I cast fall down the cutting room floor hole spell!

Unsure if the devs at the time relished in the chance to do more work on the game, but since the game had to get worked on anyway for the western release, throwing in an intro cinematic and more bespoke art for the stage intros I hope felt more like the game they had hoped to ship on the first go.

Also that change in difficult levels is REALLY MESSED UP, I know the US side of things went ham on changing difficulty levels but ho, ho ho...ohhhhhh....oh.

Needless to say, the games got a lot of charm and Rocket Knight Adventures along with two other games in the series got re-released as the Re-Sparked package! So it's never been easier to pick up the games for modern systems.