3 out of 5

Label: Ship to Shore Phonograph Co.

Produced by: Aaron Hamel, Justin Martell (coordinated by)

Y’know, beyond the tunes that have been burned into our subconscious by the life-changing classics of the NES era, I’m not thinking I get much mileage out of the various blips and bloops made by the Konami Kukeiha Club.  While their name on a score is definitely a mark of reliability – the tunes will sound like a video game, with some impressive beats or scales of the chiptune variety – I don’t really consider it a mark of above average quality, necessarily, with a lot of their 90s and beyond output falling into a sort of generalized pit of sounds-like tunes.  And so it goes with Rocket Knight Adventures, a minor Genesis title that was already itself a hanger-on to the anthropomorphic mascot school o’ games.  Some soaring compositions bring to life the game’s rocket-pack adventuring, particularly on the B-side where the pace just stays amped up the whole time, but there’s really not a defining theme or vibe there to make you want to play the game, and even the divide between level tunes vs. boss tunes is pretty minimal.

The Ship to Shore vinyl production is what it is; the mastering doesn’t particularly shine but it’s clear enough, for sure.  The senseless locked groove on the A-side feels like a pointless affectation, though, rather abruptly cutting into a track and not really a notable enough sound effect to merit the treatment.

This seems like a collectors only deal.