by The Rocketeer was developed by Realtime Associates and Ironwind Software and published by Bandai in 1991 based on the Disney movie of the same name.
Unlike many licensed platformers of the day, the story follows mostly the same beats as the movie. You play as Cliff Secord, an ordinary test pilot who finds an extraordinary rocket pack. This rocket pack puts him between gangsters, Nazis, and even the U.S. Government, all of whom want the rocket pack for their own ends. Eventually, Jenny, Cliff’s girlfriend, is captured and he has to get her back. In the game, you accomplish this by running, gunning, jumping, and flying your way through 4 stages.
So, does The Rocketeer deserve an Academy Award, or does it belong on the cutting room floor? Let’s find out.
Gameplay
Let’s start with the controls, which are pretty standard fare for a platformer. The D-pad controls movement, the A button jumps and flies, the B button attacks, the Start button pauses, and the Select button cycles through different types of attacks.
Running, jumping, ducking, and punching are extremely responsive and very satisfying. The various guns and other attacks are a bit less responsive, but they do the job. The flight, only available when you have fuel and hit the A button in the air, is pretty responsive. It is a little floaty, but not unpleasantly so. My biggest problem with it was how fast it was, making it harder to control than basic movement. However, that makes sense to me.
There are a decent number of weapons to use in the game, and like Sunsoft’s Batman, you have access to all of them once you have enough resources to use them. Pick up a few ammo drops, and you have access to a pistol, a rifle, a spread shot pistol, a grenade, and a rocket launcher. The pistol fires a basic shot that costs 1 ammo and does as much damage as a punch, but it doesn’t travel far. The rifle costs 2 ammo and fires farther and faster than the pistol but does the same damage. The spread shot costs 3 ammo and fires three shots, but at very close range, each pellet does the same damage as the previous weapons. The grenade costs 5 ammo and does heavy damage, but it travels in an arc and bounces. Fortunately, it explodes on contact with enemies. Then there is the rocket launcher; it has good range and damage, but it costs a whopping 15 ammo to fire.
Each of these weapons is less responsive than the basic punch attack, which I found myself using most of the time. The few basic enemies that aren’t taken down with a single punch are stunned by them, so with a few exceptions, you save a lot of ammo by getting in close and personal. Most of the time, you’ll want to save your ammo for bosses anyway.
I give the gameplay a 7.5/10.
Graphics
The graphics are great. I absolutely loved the way they handled the cutscenes. They are up there with Ninja Gaiden when it comes to detail. It wasn’t able to copy the movie’s story 1:1, but due to the cutscenes, they managed to follow it much more closely than most licensed movie games. To me, that’s a cool detail.
I don’t see too many NES games with graphics at this level. They aren’t perfect, but they go above and beyond what I expected. I wish that the animation for attacks had more impact, like, say, Sunsoft’s Batman, but they get the job done.
The enemy variety isn’t great. It would be nice if they had a couple of recolors of the most common enemies, but that’s a minor gripe.
I give the graphics an 8.5/10.
Music and Sound
The music is pretty good, particularly the opening theme, which is based on a snippet of the movie’s main theme. The rest of the game’s music follows a formula that helps give it a cohesive feel without the different tracks blending into each other too much.
The sound effects are decent. Your attacks sound impactful enough, and the jetpack sounds good, but the rest are nothing special.
I give the music and sound a 7.5/10.
Difficulty
The game has a mix of challenging and forgiving aspects. You only get 1 life, but you get infinite continues. If you use a continue, you lose all of your ammo, but you start at the most recent screen transition. You also get a password system here to save your progress. So far, I haven’t seen anything that does more than 1 damage, but you can take hits quickly since the I-frames in this game are pretty short.
Pickups for health, ammo, and rocket fuel aren’t common in most areas, but you can leave the screen and come back to farm them. Don’t try this with most enemies that spawn infinitely on one screen. With a few exceptions, they never drop anything. At least not from what I can see. I spent about 10 minutes testing this since drops aren’t guaranteed. The few of them that do drop items are put there because you need them to progress in case you continue. They usually only drop rocket fuel, but rarely they drop something else.
You’ll come across runners more often than any other enemy type, and they die in 1 hit. Most others die in about 3 hits. Be careful with standing mobsters. They don’t keep the same pattern throughout the game. They do start speeding up and even adding more shots the further you progress. It would be nice to have a recolored variant to tell them apart, but it does keep you on your toes.
Final Verdict
I give The Rocketeer a 7.5/10.
It’s a competent, licensed platformer that does more than most to stay faithful to the source material. It’s only about $14 loose, which is significantly cheaper than several of the games I’ve reviewed. If you like The Rocketeer or simply like retro platformers, you might check this game out.
