Rocket Knight Adventures

Rocket Knight Adventures is a side-scrolling platformer that Konami developed and published for the Sega Genesis in 1993. Players take control of Sparkster, an opossum knight equipped with a rocket pack and a sword, as he fights against the evil Devotindos Empire. The game was created by Nobuya Nakazato, a designer known for his work on Contra games like The Alien Wars, Hard Corps, and Shattered Soldier, and it was well-received by critics.

In terms of gameplay, the player moves Sparkster through linear stages, jumping and attacking with his sword. The sword can strike enemies directly or fire short-range energy projectiles. Holding the attack button fills a blue bar at the top of the screen, charging a "rocket attack." Releasing the button sends Sparkster bursting in one of eight directions based on the player's directional input, or if no direction is pressed, he performs a stationary spin attack. This rocket attack can also bounce off walls to reach higher areas. Sparkster has a vitality bar that decreases when hit by enemies, projectiles, or stage hazards. Losing all vitality, falling into a bottomless pit or off the stage, or touching instant-kill terrain (like spikes in the second stage's cart segment or lava at the start of the third stage) costs a life. Apples and bananas restore vitality, with bananas providing more; the amount restored depends on the difficulty level. The game ends when all extra lives are gone, but players can use a limited number of continues (except on Very Hard, called Crazy Hard in Japan, where continues are unavailable), restarting at the beginning of the stage where they got a Game Over. Extra lives are earned by collecting 1UP items or by reaching 20,000 points, with additional lives every 60,000 points.

The game has seven stages, each split into several sections ending with a boss fight. Some sections change the gameplay style: parts play like horizontal scrolling shooters similar to Gradius, often with in-level references to that game, and the fifth stage's boss fight puts the player in a large robot mech to duel the antagonist Axel Gear. Four difficulty options are available, with harder settings increasing enemy attack power and reducing starting lives and continues; the hardest starts with no lives or continues, and enemy attacks kill Sparkster in one hit.