Nintendo started the great platformer wave of the eighties and nineties. Every developer was eager to get in on the buzz, and these characters often at the forefront of marketing campaigns. Unfortunately most of these were awful games. Take Alex Kidd for example. There’s a reason the Master System was ultimately a failure, and I think he was a big part of it. Unfortunately NEC launched their Turbografx-16 system with Keith Courage as a pack in title. It’s awful. Bonk was later released as the stand in for the console, but he came much too late. His game also wasn’t as imaginative as Mario, nor was he as cool of a character as Sonic. He was in between the two. I remember seeing advertisements for Bonk’s Adventure in old Sears catalogs. The game always looked interesting to me, but I was a kid and already had an NES. Asking for a Turbografx from my parents would have been futile, and so I never bothered. I always wondered about it, and now that I’m an adult this dream became a reality. Thankfully Bonk’s Adventure turned out to be just as fun as I always imagined it to be. This is the quintessential game for anyone collecting for the system.
Bonk is a young caveman living in the prehistoric age. Something happens (it isn’t exactly clear what) and a dinosaur named King Drool has kidnapped and enslaved several creatures living on the moon. It’s up to Bonk to rescue her, but he first has to fight through an army of henchmen spanning five different areas of the world with each featuring numerous levels. It’s pretty off the wall, but it’s a decent scenario by genre standards. It’s charming to say the least. Bonk’s Adventure is a two dimensional side scrolling platform game, but several mechanics render it far from traditional. For starters Bonk doesn’t attack foes by jumping on their head. Instead he uses his own noggin to deal damage. The 1 button is for jumping (Bonk can reach heights similar to Mario and Sonic) and 2 makes the caveman headbutt anything in front of him. Should you press this while in the air Bonk will aim his head downwards which allows you to bounce off of enemies while damaging them. The head ‘bonk’ mechanic is interesting and refreshing in a gameplay sense.
Each level is full of enemies. There’s a nice variety with some that fly and others that are on the ground with mixed attack patterns. Thankfully there’s also helpful flowers scattered on the ground. Yellow flowers are useful only for a jumping boost, but the red variety reveals special items when you land on it. These include food which recovers your health, smiley faces which add to your point total and function like coins from Mario, and chunks of meat. The latter of these is the only power-up in this game, but the developers handled this is a very interesting way. Eating one of these makes Bonk turn red, and falling to the ground head first freezes all enemies and hazards temporarily. The next piece of meat causes him to go ballistic granting temporary invincibility and at the end he reverts to the previous form. You can also reveal pieces of meat by juggling enemies (which are damage even by jumping up into them). It’s a interesting system.
Where Bonk’s Adventure really excels is in its level variety. Your only goal is to make it from one area of a stage to the next, but the developers were quite inventive with with the hazards and Bonk’s abilities. Many areas feature high walls and you can only climb them by mashing the attack button which causes Bonk to gain elevation with his teeth. In addition, when you’re climbing trees or other similar obstacles you can rotate Bonk around them with the directional pad. In these areas there are several different ways to progress through the level, and I really liked the non-linearity of this. It’s especially cool because of the fact that extra paths are not usually particularly obvious. Bonk can also swim, and the developers created some very interesting timing based underwater obstacles for this. The real high point however is in the boss fights. These huge enemies have distinct patterns, and are an absolute joy to fight. This is easily my favorite part of the game. The boss encounters here are better than in most other similar titles.
Bonk’s Adventure is very good looking by Turbografx standards. It’s bright and colorful thus pushing it above similar NES and Master System standards. Most levels even have multiple layers, although I was a little disappointed by the fact that there’s very little parallax scrolling here. The level of detail in the characters is truly impressive. Because of his various moves the number of different frames rendered for Bonk is unreal. What’s more is that all of his animations are extremely smooth, and there’s never any slowdown. The enemies themselves play off of the prehistoric theme in some really inventive ways. They are all very nice looking, but something must be said for the boss characters. In a time when games were measured by the size of sprites the developers here did a great job of taking advantage of the hardware. Bosses are huge, and they all feature significant detail. The music isn’t quite as well off, but there are some truly memorable level themes here. I especially like the sound effects that play when Bonk snags the third piece of meat. The audio is actually better than I thought the hardware was capable of.
Bonk may not be Mario or Sonic, but his first outing was good enough to establish himself in the hearts of gamers everywhere. The theme is fun, the graphics and music are good, but what really makes this one stand out are the level designs. There’s a lot going on here, and Bonk’s Adventure even poses a decent challenge. It’s disappointing that more people didn’t get a chance at this one in its prime.
