Post by KokoaMinto on Jun 30, 2017 6:37:49 GMT -5
To be utterly fair the early 90's was the Sonic Rip-Off era. Just like Sonic is a fast paced Mario Rip-Off with a different kind of hero; a blue, anthropomorphic hedgehog. It was bound to happen that other companies try to get a slice of the cake during that time, but to be very honest I can count up all the BAD attempts faster than the GOOD ones. The only GOOD anthropomorphic 'rip-offs' to me are Sparkster from ROCKET KNIGHT and Jim from EARTHWORM JIM so to speak.
Anyway, this upper part is going Off-Topic.
I think that Konami was shooting their own foot by giving Sparkster a super form. THAT killed the sole purpose of making Sparkster sort of unique.
The idea of collecting those Sacred/Legendary Swords was nice, but their usage itself in-game was... poorly executed. They were just for the super form and that's all. I would have prefered them to be usable as special weapons with their own abilities or even elements. That could have been a little bit more interesting and worthwhile to search for them. I don't count the Flame Sword to the mix as it was a Power-Up that one could collect. It was dang useless to begin with just as much as the slot machine and auto-full Jetpack system.
To be a little bit more fair... the original Team who worked behind the very first installment, ROCKET KNIGHT ADVENTURES, was working on the Super Nintendo Spin-Off Title "SPARKSTER" while a very different Team was working on the MegaDrive/Genesis Sequel Title "SPARKSTER: ROCKET KNIGHT ADVENTURES 2". Due to that I can be a LITTLE forgiving for this 'hickup', but I'm still a bit bitter about the outcome of ROCKET KNIGHT/ROCKET KNIGHT 2010/ROCKET KNIGHT ADVENTURES 3 or however you want to call it these days.
My opinion is that ROCKET KNIGHT has a lot of potential as a Franchise. There are bunch of possibilities to expand on its World and cast of Characters. Konami just gave up on it or didn't even really care to begin with. Instead of trying to save their little hickups they were letting the ship sink for good. I could imagine ROCKET KNIGHT not only as an Platformer/Side Scrolling type of Genre but also as an (J-)RPG, MMO-RPG, Hack'n'Slash or Fighting Game Genre. IF done correctly such Spin-Offs can be well received. Risky but an experiment is an experiment. I mean take Super Mario RPG as example. DO I need to say more? Let's not forget that Konami has Suikoden as a Franchise which is also an J-RPG and very well received.
And guess what? A friend of mine was looking out for ROCKET KNIGHT related items for me during his 2 weeks in Japan. He was taking and sending me some pictures of very old SEGA magazines with ROCKET KNIGHT articles. One of those articles wrote that they "don't understand why Konami isn't producing more gaming merchandise of ROCKET KNIGHT or even an Anime Show" and that "ROCKET KNIGHT is the best 'Post-SONIC' Franchise and Konami is missing a great opportunity to make it an profitable Gaming Franchise of their name".
To me Konami really missed their opportunity to make ROCKET KNIGHT a well-known Franchise of their name, and with their current reputation I doubt that anything will change in the near future. We can only watch and hope that this once great company will change for the better, change their ways of how they treat their employees and start producing more Konami Titles than just Yu-Gi-Oh!, Castlevania, Silent Hill or Metal Gear. And no Pachinko stupidity.
Anyway, this upper part is going Off-Topic.
I think that Konami was shooting their own foot by giving Sparkster a super form. THAT killed the sole purpose of making Sparkster sort of unique.
The idea of collecting those Sacred/Legendary Swords was nice, but their usage itself in-game was... poorly executed. They were just for the super form and that's all. I would have prefered them to be usable as special weapons with their own abilities or even elements. That could have been a little bit more interesting and worthwhile to search for them. I don't count the Flame Sword to the mix as it was a Power-Up that one could collect. It was dang useless to begin with just as much as the slot machine and auto-full Jetpack system.
To be a little bit more fair... the original Team who worked behind the very first installment, ROCKET KNIGHT ADVENTURES, was working on the Super Nintendo Spin-Off Title "SPARKSTER" while a very different Team was working on the MegaDrive/Genesis Sequel Title "SPARKSTER: ROCKET KNIGHT ADVENTURES 2". Due to that I can be a LITTLE forgiving for this 'hickup', but I'm still a bit bitter about the outcome of ROCKET KNIGHT/ROCKET KNIGHT 2010/ROCKET KNIGHT ADVENTURES 3 or however you want to call it these days.
My opinion is that ROCKET KNIGHT has a lot of potential as a Franchise. There are bunch of possibilities to expand on its World and cast of Characters. Konami just gave up on it or didn't even really care to begin with. Instead of trying to save their little hickups they were letting the ship sink for good. I could imagine ROCKET KNIGHT not only as an Platformer/Side Scrolling type of Genre but also as an (J-)RPG, MMO-RPG, Hack'n'Slash or Fighting Game Genre. IF done correctly such Spin-Offs can be well received. Risky but an experiment is an experiment. I mean take Super Mario RPG as example. DO I need to say more? Let's not forget that Konami has Suikoden as a Franchise which is also an J-RPG and very well received.
And guess what? A friend of mine was looking out for ROCKET KNIGHT related items for me during his 2 weeks in Japan. He was taking and sending me some pictures of very old SEGA magazines with ROCKET KNIGHT articles. One of those articles wrote that they "don't understand why Konami isn't producing more gaming merchandise of ROCKET KNIGHT or even an Anime Show" and that "ROCKET KNIGHT is the best 'Post-SONIC' Franchise and Konami is missing a great opportunity to make it an profitable Gaming Franchise of their name".
To me Konami really missed their opportunity to make ROCKET KNIGHT a well-known Franchise of their name, and with their current reputation I doubt that anything will change in the near future. We can only watch and hope that this once great company will change for the better, change their ways of how they treat their employees and start producing more Konami Titles than just Yu-Gi-Oh!, Castlevania, Silent Hill or Metal Gear. And no Pachinko stupidity.