Original Release: Sega, 1987, Master System
Graphically cutting-edge for its time, this early Rocky game didn’t focus quite as much on enduring gameplay.
Rocky (Master System, Sega, 1987)
Where to Buy: Amazon
How to Emulate: coming soon!
Review by: C. M0use
Rocky is actually one of the better-looking games on the Master System, but as for gameplay it’s just a total waste of time.
As movie-licensed games were wont to do at the time, Rocky just kinda crams together some big ideas and characters into a simple action-oriented premise. You guide the Italian Stallion through his three biggest fights: Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang and Ivan Drago. Before each fight, you do a one-minute training minigame that changes for each foe.
So we start each new session out by working the bag, and this immediately lets you know that this game is gonna have issues. You’re supposed to time punches to hit the swinging bag, but the collision detection and timing make no sense at all.
Failing it turns out to not matter, though, because we move on anyway. And it turns out Apollo Creed is having a really off night, with no answer for Rocky’s simple punch spam. Given the humble Master System gamepad, we are limited to one attack type – repeatedly press the B button for a combo of three jabs followed by a left hook to the head. You can hold down to aim this at the body instead, and the A button just has you duck ineffectually. At least the game is true to the movie, as the best strategy is to just let Rocky wade through opponent punches and try to out-muscle them.
I heard the game got difficult at Clubber Lang, but I mowed through him in this manner on the first try as well. He did more damage, and he regained an obnoxious amount of health between rounds, but he eventually fell to Rocky’s wild flailings. Clubber did add one wrinkle in that he would tend to interrupt Rocky’s jab combo with his own punches more often than Apollo, but still not enough to save him if you worked body shots constantly (I guess in a nod to the actual strategy in the movie). I also discovered here that if you initiate the combo while away from the enemy, they’ll always stupidly walk right into the hook and get knocked back if you time it right.
Ivan Drago was a whole different story, though. The only competently programmed foe in the game, he will actually dance around and stay out of range of your meaty hooks. But when he does decide to close, you’re screwed as he initiates crazy fast combos that just chop your health off in record time. If there’s a good strategy for him I couldn’t figure out what it was.
The game implies that you gain stats or something from training in between fights, but there’s no way to tell what your current levels are or if you’re improving. Assuming you actually do get stronger, I guess the point is to just repeat this cycle over and over until you’re actually beefed up enough to withstand Drago’s hits? Really no point in actually doing that, though.
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