Rocky

RETRO NEWS

This week in retro gaming, the original Xbox is getting rebuilt brick by brick with a massive Mattel collector’s set, while Golden Axe is trading the arcade cabinet for an animated series on Paramount Plus.

Meanwhile, Rare and Blaze are giving one of the all time greats, Banjo-Kazooie some well-deserved Evercade love, with Rare reportedly enthusiastic about bringing the bear and bird to the retro handheld. Old consoles, classic Sega, and one very talkative backpack. Not a bad week for retro fans.

PRESS START

An Introduction To Today’s Game

Rocky was one of my first games ever, and it's stayed with me for one big reason: those graphics.

The colors and sprite work still rank among the best the 8 bit era produced. Every character popped off the screen in a way that felt ahead of its time.

The game only features three fights: Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang, and Ivan Drago. Apollo went down easy every time, and Clubber Lang took a little more effort. Ivan Drago was another story entirely.

As a kid, I never beat him. I would fight my way through the first two fights only to watch that steroid fueled Russian knock me out cold, over and over. Curse you, Dolph Lundgren.

Queue the training montage music, and let’s take a look at Rocky.

BEHIND THE PIXELS

Let’s Dive Into The Game

Rocky, is of course, a synchronized swimming. Just kidding. Seeing who is paying attention. :)

As an 8-bit boxing game, this will get compared to Mike Tyson’s Punch-out. Make no mistake, this game doesn’t compare to that iconic game. Punch-out will always win that head to head fight.

But there’s something about this Rocky game that I keep going back to.

The structure is lifted straight from the films. You work through Apollo Creed, then Clubber Lang, then Ivan Drago, each fight scheduled to run up to 15 rounds if it goes the distance. In practice, it rarely does.

Creed and Lang can both be worn down fast if you keep the pressure on and lean into combos, closer to a straightforward brawler than a technical boxing sim.

Drago is a different story. He hits hard enough to put you down in seconds if you get careless, and beating him means actually respecting the mechanics, keeping your distance, blocking, picking your openings instead of mashing forward.

That jump in difficulty is the game's defining trait, for better or worse. There's also just one continue, so a loss late in the game means starting the whole thing over from scratch.

It's a rough edge that hasn't aged particularly gracefully.

This becomes a button masher as well. I still have memories of my fingers hurting from pressing the buttons so fast against Drago.

Between the matches, there’s a fun little mini game. Nothing groundbreaking, but this was pretty refreshing back in the 80’s and felt like a nice little extra.

Where the game does earn some credit is presentation. As you can see from the screenshots, this is a beautiful game for the 1980s.

A movie tie in game had no business being this good looking back then. The music sadly lacks any of the famous themes from the films, but it has some catchy tunes still.

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GAME INFORMATION

WHERE TO PLAY

• The original copy or emulation will be your best bet in playing the original version.

• Original Copies of the Game (All prices in USD)

  • Loose: $10

  • Complete: $20

  • New/Sealed: $27

COVER ART

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GAME OVER

Why You Should Play This

Rocky isn't a lost classic. It's a short, arcade-flavored license game from a period when Sega hadn't quite figured out how to pace a home console title the way it had already figured out platformers like Alex Kidd.

What keeps it worth a look today is mostly curiosity value, seeing how Sega translated a movie license into gameplay just a year before Nintendo answered with its own boxing icon.

If you've got a Master System or a flash cart handy, it's worth a half hour of your time. Train up, get through Creed and Lang without too much trouble, then brace yourself for Drago. That fight alone tells you most of what you need to know about this cartridge, easy going in, and a real gut check by the end.

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RETRO HARDWARE

The Miyoo Flip V2 is a tiny clamshell retro handheld that lets you carry a whole library of classic games in your pocket. With a bright screen, solid controls, and the nostalgic flip design we all remember, it’s perfect for quick gaming sessions anywhere. Click the picture to check it out. My readers can use the following code for a 12% discount: NY12