Rocket Knight Adventures: Re-Sparked Review (TheNorthEastRecluse)
This is one of those times I wish there was a "Sort Of" option on Steam, but I have to say there are just too many negatives to justify a positive view.
The games themselves are great - well, two of them are, anyway. Rocket Knight Adventures is fantastic, one of the best platformers of the 16-bit era. The Mega Drive version of Sparkster is also really good, though not as refined as the first game. The SNES version of Sparkster, which I've never played before, didn't really gel with me but it's only weak in comparison to the other games and will doubtless strike a nostalgia bone with those who played it back in the day.
I also appreciate how the game includes the Japanese ROMs as well as the American ones, so we can enjoy these games without the ridiculously inflated "Rental Difficulty" that American and European conversions back in the day became infamous for.
That said, it's really difficult to recommend the collection on the whole. The weirdly-barebones art gallery, sound test, Boss Rush and rewind features all feel standard and not justifying the game being the price it is. Maybe half-price, in which case I'd recommend picking it up in a sale, but in these days of emulation these retro collections must go above and beyond to justify charging people for them (something like the collections by Digital Eclipse, like Atari 50). This just doesn't have that quality.
Also, the sound emulation seems to be off, particularly on the Mega Drive games. There's an odd popping noise that can be heard, particularly when there's no other sound. It's pretty distracting and makes me feel like corners were cut in the emulation process.
I also would've liked the 2009 Rocket Knight game to be included, though that would only be for completion's sake because it's an aggressively mediocre game.
Overall, worth a look if you can get it cheap and want a way to legally own these games without paying extortionate scalper prices, but definitely not worth the asking price.