Games I'm Playing: The Funny Animal Edition

Bit more productive with games this week.  It's amazing how not being sick increases your ability to do stuff.  I even managed to finish another game this week, which means I've actually managed to beat at least one game every week since I started this (Rocket Knight Adventures and Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past would be the past two).  That's shockingly productive as far as I'm concerned.  Anyhow then:

Klona: Empire of Dreams (GBA) - About a month ago I got the remake of the original Klona for the Wii.  After playing through that I started to revisit some of the other games.  Currently I'm on this one, which is also the first Klona game I owned.

I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the Klona series, having first discovered the series through a in-store demo for the second game on PS2.  Unfortunately I did not have a PS2 at the time, so I was unable to jump into the series until this game.

Unlike Klona's console incarnations these games are much more puzzley.  There's been a couple times where I had to pause for a few minutes and wonder how the heck I was supposed to proceed.  I'm still going through it faster then my very first playthrough, especially since I'm skipping the forced scrolling and hoverboard stages.

Overall the game is still as fun as I remember, though I'm noticing how it lacks a lot of the charm and polish of its console brethren.

Sparkster (Genesis) - The second Rocket Knight game (or third, depending on how you're counting) brings a lot of new elements to the table, thought not all of them are improvements sadly.

Changes that are awesome: The rocket pack automatically charges, and you can now boost consecutively.  This means Sparkster can effectively fly in most stages, opening up a lot of new options for the player.

Changes that are not awesome: For some reason Sparkster lost his projectiles, and is left only with a very slow sword slash.  This makes combat a lot more awkward then it needs to be since you have to get so close to enemies now.  Also collecting gems now activates an item roulette, which largely gives you items that are either superfluous or even dangerous most of the time.

The game is still pretty good, but I'm not enjoying it as much as I did Rocket Knight Adventures.

I also played a bunch more of Sonic Chronicles, but since I actually finished that one I'll talk about that separately.  What I will say that it is a bizarre game that feels both highly polished and yet very amateur at the same time.

Games That I'm Playing: The First Set

I've recently realized for all the time I spend talking about games, I don't really talk about what I'm actually playing.  Occasionally I might do a review/opinion piece on a game after I finish it, but due to time and forgetfulness these come few and far between.

So I'm going to try and change that by posting weekly snap shots of the game I'm currently playing.  Be warned that they might be somewhat eclectic, because sometimes I'll just jump between games for no good reason.  I'd also mention some of them might be a bit obscure, but that's kind of a given for me.

So without further ado...

Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood - This is the game I've sunk most of my gaming time into lately. It's one I've actually been meaning to play through for a while, but I didn't really have an opportunity until I saw the game in a bargain bin.

While the game overall is pretty fun, it does have some surprisingly large flaws that I won't go into now.  I'm about three-fourths of the way through the game, so hopefully I should finish it so I can write a more detailed piece.

Sparkster: Konami's Lost Mascot, Recently Rediscovered

One of the most heart-wrenching moments of retro gaming is when you find an obscure title that's completely awesome, and then discover that its been more or less forgotten by its creators.  Such is the case with Rocket Knight Adventures, a platformer for Genesis by Konami.

 Platforming in this case involves rocket packs

The game came out during the animal mascot game era or gaming, among other such contemporaries such as Bubsy and Aero the Acrobat.  The mammal du jour of RKA is a possum named Sparkster, who blasts through a vaguely steampunk world saving other possums from an army of pigs while occasionally fighting his rival, Axel Gear.

More games need to let you fight your rival in giant robots

 

 Like most mascot characters, Sparkster pretty much disappeared by the 32-bit era, which is a shame since his games were notable among the genre in that they were actually good.  Aside from some odd cameos here and there it seemed like Konami had forgotten about Sparkster.  Which made it all the more surprising when I saw that 1up.com was doing a cover story for a new Rocket Knight game.