Rocket Knight PC,360,PS3

[Gozer]

1up article.

It looks promising. It also sounds like they cared enough about the RKA universe to develop a interesting back story rather then just do a revival game.

I have high hopes for this. Can't wait to see it in motion.

[Gungriffon Geona]

Ugly as sin. Sparkster doesn't even look like himself. Hell, it looks like a bad DKC knockoff!

[szycag]

Withholding judgement until I can see it in motion but yeah I don't like those graphics. I like that they've given the character a little thought though.

[Engineer]

Would have been nice to see some high resolution 2D graphics for this game instead but it's at least good that there is still some interest in the series. Rocket Knight Adventure is my favorite platformer ever and Sparkster was pretty good as well.

[Pixel_Outlaw]

This is really sad looking. No wonder platform games are not popular with snot nosed brats of today. There is very little style here and the color palette has no theme.

[Elixir]

Considering the boss music/fast boss music scared the fuck out of me as a kid, I'm hoping for something that isn't a cutesy tricycle of shit. Let's see.

[t0yrobo]

Yeah the art direction looks like crap, and the wolf things don't have any of the character tha the pigs did. But since it's so early I won't write it off just yet. But still, why does Klonoa seem to be the only good looking 2.5d platformer.

[Ed Oscuro]

tha the pigs did.

Don't forget the wolves (Sparkster SNES)!

[Specineff]

To quote River City Ransom:

"BAAAAAARF!"

[Stormwatch]

What, was 2D too expensive? Yuck.

[kozo]

What, was 2D too expensive? Yuck.

Indeed. When I see 3D where 2D should be, all I think is "lazy and cheap." But most don't see it that way, hence...this.

[neist]

What, was 2D too expensive? Yuck.

Indeed. When I see 3D where 2D should be, all I think is "lazy and cheap." But most don't see it that way, hence...this.

It always comes down to money.

Doing something like Vanillaware quality 2D is probably very, very time consuming and expensive. As far as most publishers are probably concerned, games like this are sadly not much more than a cash-in on an old franchise. They really don't expect them to break sales records. Pretty sad.

[neorichieb1971]

If it looked like Trine with some high quality DETAILED graphics then i'd be all over it. Nextgen isn't about RESOLUTION only, its about pushing the envelope and making something ARTISTIC.

Hell, you could have gotten a 8 bit or 16 bit classic, up rezzed it and it would look something like that. Poor.

Check out Trine to see how 2D could be done.

http://www.gamershell.com/tv/22196.html

[worstplayer]

It's still in development. Most of the models are probably placeholders.

[Gwyrgyn Blood]

It's still in development. Most of the models are probably placeholders.

It's supposed to release early next year so probably not.


And yeah this looks so utterly bad it's depressing. It looks more like a sequel to Cloning Clide than a Rocket Knight game.

[Skykid]

I'm not touching that with a fucking bargepole.

[lgb]

What, was 2D too expensive? Yuck.

yes

also I can tell this is going to end badly by the font used

[gameoverDude]

This is looking ugly as sin. The background art is just plain bad, but what really bugs me are the character models. Climax should have used 2D sprites. I think the font used is rather blah.

I sure hope the models ARE in fact placeholders. It's October and there's still at least a couple months.

[Cthulhu]

I'll toss my hat into the "yay more 2D games ohwait this is ugly as hell nevermind" ring.

[t0yrobo]

tha the pigs did.

Don't forget the wolves (Sparkster SNES)!

I swear every time I misspell something it gets quoted

Someone needs to come up with a better solution for 2.5d stuff than these narrow platforms that nearly everything uses. There's no reason I can't be made more clear that it's a 3d world but all the movement is on a 2d plane, heck I'm pretty sure some N64 games even did it.

[Stormwatch]

When I see 3D where 2D should be, all I think is "lazy and cheap." But most don't see it that way, hence... this.

Similarly: when I hear dubbing, I think the same: this is lower quality stuff, the ONE RIGHT WAY to localize games/ movies/ tv series is to subtitle/ translate the text, and keep the original voice work in whatever language the damn thing first came out, be it English, Japanese, French, Russian, Simlish, or Panzerese. Then again, I once thought: if I could have David Jaffe's job, I'd have God of War all spoken in Ancient Greek! Historical authenticity, bitches!

But alas, most people are a bunch of half-brain-dead philistines and prefer dubbing over subtitling, so...

[KBZ]

yeah the art is...questionable

but the RKA fanboi in me is still hopeful. I do like the idea of using 16:9 and a smaller (though polygonal) sparkster on the screen to see where he's rocketing to.

Isn't it a bit much to expect high res 2D sprites though? Who's gonna pay for that? People don't hold these games in the high regard as when they were the cutting edge.

Times have changed and nostalgia isn't worth as much as the latest wow factor.

[evil_ash_xero]

I was disappointed upon looking at that article.

You'd think they'd be able to top 2D art from like over a decade ago....

[Specineff]

I'd settle for pre-rendered characters over this soul-less, cold and cardboard-y design.

Also, Sparkster looks like a chihuahua, rather than an opossum.

[gameoverDude]

I was disappointed upon looking at that article.

You'd think they'd be able to top 2D art from like over a decade ago....

I am pleased with Street Fighter IV's character models. That's how 2.5D should be done if you want to use 3D characters.
RKA doesn't quite look 360/PS3 caliber. I think Konami should've hired Dimps. Should Capcom hire Dimps to do Strider 3, we'll probably have a Game of the Century.

Specineff, I agree. He does look like a Chihuahua here, especially in the image by the lives counter. What I see so far of RKA seems really slapdash.

[WarpZone]

I do like the idea of using 16:9 and a smaller (though polygonal) sparkster on the screen to see where he's rocketing to.

Agreed. It was nice to see this acknowledged as it was probably the biggest problem with the series.

And actually, it would be a very justifiable reason for going with 3D graphics as that would make it easy to have some kind of panning camera that moves closer or pulls back depending on the context.

It's not clear if they're doing that, though, and certainly the style is ugly regardless and I'm really not sure Climax has a good record with 2D action.

---

Edit:

Trailer:

http://gamevideos.1up.com/video/id/26724

[Ghegs]

The game's out now so time to resurrect this thread.

I've played through the XBLA version and I did have fun with it. I've never actually played the original games so I can't make any comparisons between the controls, difficulty, stage design...well, anything really. But that also means I don't have any expectations towards the game regarding how closely it should resemble the originals.

I love how smooth and slick the controls are, they feel great and you can do some cool stuff with them. The game's quite easy, at least on Normal difficulty. I basically breezed through the game, there were only few parts where I had to work a bit in order to proceed. Part of the low overall difficulty comes from the fact that the game throws 1-ups at you like they were candy. I had 12 extra lives when I finished the game and I imagine it'd be possible to have closer to 30. Gotta give Hard a shot later. The game keeps track of score (there's even something of a scoring system there) and best times, I can imagine speedrunning the game would be a totally different beast.

As an aside, there's a short scene in one stage which I think was a deliberate nod towards Gradius V. Nice.

As far as revivals of older game series go, I wouldn't rate it as high as Bionic Command: Rearmed or the new Mega Man games but I'd say it's still worth trying out. The trial has the first two stages of the first world in it.

[moozooh]

I remember both RKA and SNES Sparkster fondly; I've beaten them on hardest difficulties (that boxing match against Axel Gear in the SNES game was some hardcore shit!), and this stuff is kiddie-grade in comparison. I most likely am jaded, but all the previous games in the series were fast and challenging (maybe having been designed by people who did lots of shmups and run'n'guns has something to do with it), not to mention well-designed, and this one… may be a fine game for an amateur developer, but it hasn't done good in piquing my interest.

[Elixir]

What can I say, the art style, theme, enemies and gameplay barely remind me of the original game. In fact, the only thing I noticed was the first stage's BGM being remixed.

This is like some odd combination of Crash Bandicoot and Rocket Knight, but it doesn't feel like Rocket Knight. The original game was also really difficult, and had excellent sprite work. The sequel was... well, ok I guess, but it was way too easy. I remember beating it without continuing when I was about 7.

This, on the other hand, throws sprite work out the window, along with the original theme. I think, mostly, the problem I find with this XBLA remake is that it strays too much from the original, and the "dark" theme that the original had has been replaced by some cutesy, fun for the whole family platformer. I'm not saying that fun, easy and accessible platformers are bad (worked for Sonic), but this game's series is meant to reflect on the original title, which it just doesn't do much of at all.

[Skykid]

I've never actually played the original games