January Together Retro: Konami Loves Genesis

[pierrot]

Are you doing all of the stages, or just skipping the alternate exits? Let me know if you're interested in how to farm lives in the final stage.

I'm just playing through each stage once. Is there any kind of advantage I'd gain by finding the different exists? If it's just a matter of getting more points, I don't care, but if it changes the ending or something, I'd want to go back.
And I'd definitely be interested in hearing how to farm lives, I suspect I'll need to do so!

No, same ending. It just opens up extra stages along the way (I think about five or six, in total).

So on the last platforming stage (which is the stage before the "final boss" stage), in the first area, head all the way to the right, on the first lever. There's one extra life on the platform above here. Then go up to the second "floor," head left, and jump up the third break in the ceiling, as you go that direction, which will take you up to the third floor. You want to get to the left side again, to go up to the fourth "floor" where you can head right past some spikes, and jump into a second extra life above some more spikes, which you can just let kill you, and repeat the process. It's a bit of a grind, but it was effective for me.

[nullPointer]

I beat Rocket Knight Adventures and posted up a review in Games Beaten. Long story short, this was an incredibly good, albeit difficult game (for me at any rate). I'm super stoked that the topic this month prompted me to check this one out, being as it wasn't really high in my backlog.

Thanks for a great topic pierrot and for being an awesome moderator this month!

[pierrot]

I beat Rocket Knight Adventures

Nice work, null! Glad to hear that you enjoyed it. Out of curiosity, which difficulty level did you go with? They're called different things in each region, but I went with the default difficulty, personally. I think the higher difficulties result in different endings, but I don't recall the specifics. It looks like you fell through the atmosphere, so you must have been on the default, at least. I'm a little surprised you didn't like the hori-shmup sections as much. I really liked those sections.

If you're at all inclined to play more in the series, Genesis Sparkster is also quite good. It's definitely not as good as RKA, but it's still quite fun, and the music is also pretty good, thanks to Yamane Michiru's continued contributions. It's rare that I ever have any of the music from that game stuck in my head, just from thinking about it (like I would with RKA), but it's nice to listen to, even outside of the game. I love the Stage 2 Theme, in particular. One thing that kind of bothers me about Sparkster is that while the graphics are really good, they also have a much more budget feel to them than RKA, and I don't exactly know why. Except for the ending credits, which is one of the nicest looking parts of the game, for some reason.

[Nemoide]

Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's Hidden Treasure has been beaten!

I'm surprised so many folks found Elmyra to be frustrating, I had no problem getting past her. But I was also farming lives for that final stretch. I didn't use Pierrot's method because I really didn't like the second-to-last level and didn't want to replay it, instead I just replayed the breezy first stage several times. The first level is short and has an easy-to-get 1up and bell, so it's a good place to farm. And I did opt to find all the alternative exists because I didn't like the idea of leaving stages unplayed.

Overall, I think this was a pretty good game. Not exactly top-tier material, but it was fun and worth a playthrough. Even though it could be frustrating, I liked how it really just boiled down to learning what each level throws at you and doesn't feel completely cheap. The graphics are bright and appealing, the music was fun, and the game lasted long enough for me to feel like I got my money's worth without feeling bloated. I wouldn't necessarily tell someone to seek it out, but if you're looking for a good Genesis game at a good price and come across a copy, it's worth picking up.
Of course there are a few problems... the first is the life bar, which was fine, but there are enough one-hit kills (ie spikes) to make me think it could have been better implemented. This was especially annoying because you might expand the bar by collecting bells, one-hit-die, and then you're back to the small life bar. Since no levels until the final area have checkpoints, the fact that there are lives to collect at all seems kind of pointless what with the infinite continues. Then there's the sliding attack, which seems cool but I just about NEVER used because it requires you to build up enough speed to make taking damage likely. None of these things ruin the game, it just makes it come across as poorly thought out.

It might be partly due to nostalgia, but I liked Animaniacs more. And even though I didn't play it this month, Castlevania Bloodlines is on another plane of greatness.
I'm glad that this month's TR got me to replay a beloved game from my childhood AND got me to pick up a new Genesis title for the collection!

[nullPointer]

I beat Rocket Knight Adventures

Nice work, null! Glad to hear that you enjoyed it. Out of curiosity, which difficulty level did you go with? They're called different things in each region, but I went with the default difficulty, personally. I think the higher difficulties result in different endings, but I don't recall the specifics. It looks like you fell through the atmosphere, so you must have been on the default, at least. I'm a little surprised you didn't like the hori-shmup sections as much. I really liked those sections.

If you're at all inclined to play more in the series, Genesis Sparkster is also quite good. It's definitely not as good as RKA, but it's still quite fun, and the music is also pretty good, thanks to Yamane Michiru's continued contributions. It's rare that I ever have any of the music from that game stuck in my head, just from thinking about it (like I would with RKA), but it's nice to listen to, even outside of the game. I love the Stage 2 Theme, in particular. One thing that kind of bothers me about Sparkster is that while the graphics are really good, they also have a much more budget feel to them than RKA, and I don't exactly know why. Except for the ending credits, which is one of the nicest looking parts of the game, for some reason.

Thanks a bunch man! When I beat the game I bumped the difficulty up to normal. Actually this is kind of a pet peeve of mine, though admittedly it's pedantic and weird. If a game defaults to 'Easy' difficulty level when a 'Normal' difficulty level is available (as RKA does), then it seems to me that Easy is in fact the 'Normal' difficulty by virtue of being default and 'Normal' is in fact 'Intermediate' or something. I recognize the fact that I'm conflating 'normal' with 'default' here, but there ya go. At any rate I have a bit of an aversion to beating games on Easy mode, so in this situation I always dial up the difficulty to Normal if it's an option. To make the whole thing even more convoluted, I'm not the type of person who obsesses over beating games on Hard/Hardcore mode or whatever. Normal is good enough, I just don't want to feel like I had to beat a game on Easy.

Weird rant over. I definitely do think I'll carry on with the Sparkster series at some point. Another aspect of the series that was brought to light as a result of this month's is that I wasn't previously aware that Sparkster on Genesis is a completely different game than Sparkster on SNES. I'll likely give 'em both a shot at some point.

[pierrot]

I'm surprised so many folks found Elmyra to be frustrating, I had no problem getting past her.

She didn't end up catching you? I had to redo it about 20 times or so before I could get past her without getting caught, but I didn't know I could jump over her, until pook mentioned it. Is that what you did, too? Good job finishing it, though!

When I beat the game I bumped the difficulty up to normal. Actually this is kind of a pet peeve of mine, though admittedly it's pedantic and weird. If a game defaults to 'Easy' difficulty level when a 'Normal' difficulty level is available (as RKA does), then it seems to me that Easy is in fact the 'Normal' difficulty by virtue of being default and 'Normal' is in fact 'Intermediate' or something. I recognize the fact that I'm conflating 'normal' with 'default' here, but there ya go. At any rate I have a bit of an aversion to beating games on Easy mode, so in this situation I always dial up the difficulty to Normal if it's an option. To make the whole thing even more convoluted, I'm not the type of person who obsesses over beating games on Hard/Hardcore mode or whatever. Normal is good enough, I just don't want to feel like I had to beat a game on Easy.

That's usually how I do things too, but at some point I had found out that the difficulties are all called different things by region: So the default in the Japanese version is called, "normal," I believe (same difficulty level as US "easy"), and I'm pretty sure in the European version it's called, "Hard." I'm fairly certain there isn't any bonus content above the default setting, so that was good enough for me, but way to go on clearing US Normal! It's not an easy game, even on the default.

Weird rant over. I definitely do think I'll carry on with the Sparkster series at some point. Another aspect of the series that was brought to light as a result of this month's is that I wasn't previously aware that Sparkster on Genesis is a completely different game than Sparkster on SNES. I'll likely give 'em both a shot at some point.

Yeah, what's kind of funny is that every game in the series pits Sparkster against a different group of evil animals: Pigs in RKA, Lizards in Gen Sparkster, Wolves (?) in SNES Sparkster. I don't remember what they were in Rocket Knight, but that wasn't a terribly good game, anyway.



Well, apparently that about does it for this month. Thanks all, for playing some Konami games with me. It was a lot of fun to play through Hard Corps more, and I was happy about finally beating one of my childhood games in Buster's Hidden Treasure. I also enjoyed reading everyone else's experiences. Congrats to everyone who finished something this month. They're pretty much all a badge of honor. Feel free to post any last minute updates. I'd love to read them.