YMMV / Rocket Knight Adventures

• Awesome Art: Change in art style aside, it is hard to deny the second and especially the third games look gorgeous for the systems, having some of the most vibrant and detailed levels all with very little slow down.
• Awesome Music:
  • The Boss theme from RKA.
    • Particularly the Final Boss Theme
  • The stage 1-1 theme , which seems to become the Bootstrapped Theme.
  • The stage 1 theme in the SNES Sparkster is pretty awesome, too.
  • The stage 1 theme from the Megadrive version, while we're at it.
  • Actually, the majority of "Rocket Knight Adventures" music falls under this trope.
• First Installment Wins: While the later games are considered excellent in their own right, the first game is often seen as the best in the series. Noticeably many are surprised it even had sequels.
• Funny Moments:
  • In Stage 2 of the original game, Sparkster crashes through a chicken coop while riding a mine cart, causing a flock of chickens to fly from it. One of the chickens takes a liking to him, flying around him until the battle against the stage's boss, the Pig Train begins, at which point the chicken flies away.
  • Captain Fleagle, the boss of Stage 4 of the original game, looks progressively more beat-up as the stage goes on. With each defeat he suffers, a tinny rendition of "Shave and a Haircut (Two Bits)" plays. While he does prove he can be fairly formidable by taking control of the stage's boss, a giant robot in his likeness, once the robot is destroyed, he attempts to attack Sparkster by charging at him.
• Goddamned Bats: Not as bad in this series as in some, but there are still some minor enemies that can mess you up very badly if you're not careful, especially the literal bats of RKA 2, which show up in an area filled with hazards and can ruin your trajectory. One in particular appears during an optional sequence where you have to outrun an Advancing Wall of Doom; if you do anything but very carefully fly past it through the narrow gap available, without stopping to kill it, you die.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: A knight clearly rips off Sonic.
• Nightmare Fuel: The (nearly) unstoppable pigs in the fifth level that chase Sparkster and can kill him in one hit if they touch him.
• Spiritual Adaptation: Freedom Planet, particularly Lilac's story, is the best Rocket Knight game in years.
• That One Boss: In the SNES version of Sparkster, we have Axle Gear in his giant mech. Aside from the fact that it's an Unexpected Gameplay Change within an Unexpected Gameplay Change (Sparkster jumps into a giant mech of his own solely for the purpose of this one boss), Axle is unbelievably aggressive, especially on the higher difficulty levels. And he can take a lot more damage than you can. Getting hits in on Axle without getting hit yourself can be nearly impossible at times. Worse, you can't just sit back and block all day, because his punches will destroy your arms over time if you allow them to (you can actually do this to him, too, but it's very hard to do so).
  • In the first game, the boss of the fifth level counts for this, considering that it's a giant mecha fight between Sparkster and Axel Gear, and Axle Gear can take twice as much damage as you can which makes this a very tough fight.
  • Also the space battleship boss of the sixth level in the first game considering that it has a lot of health, and multiple phases that you have to defeat in succession.
• That One Level: The fifth level in the first game, which was long, had multiple One-Hit KO's in the forms of both spiked enemies and spiked backgrounds, and to top it all off, you had to defeat That One Boss at the end of it.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Quite a few fans seem to have complained about certain differences in gameplay mechanics between RKA 2 and the other two games: The Razor Wind attack is gone, replaced by a relatively slow sword slash; the rocket charges automatically as opposed to manually and does so much more quickly, making it possible to stay aloft indefinitely; and the controls are less fast-paced in general. The graphics were also less "hand-drawn" and more blocky, which along with the change in color palette has resulted in the game's visuals being very evocative of Sonic the Hedgehog.