Bonk’s Adventure (TurboGrafx-16 Review)

Bonk’s Adventure
aka PC Genjin (aka BC Kid in Europe)
Developed by Red Company Corporation & Atlus
Published by NEC
First Released December 15, 1989 (JP)
Included in the TurboGrafx-16 Mini
NO ACTIVE RE-RELEASE

Few first installments in a franchise hold up this well. Usually, they’re little more than a proof of concept. But, Bonk’s Adventure set the bar so high that future games in the Bonk franchise had to go wild right out of the gates. That’s why I’m excited to be reviewing the whole series this month at Indie Gamer Chick. I’m pretty sure only the GameCube and mobile versions are being left out. It’s Bonktober! (Thanks EscalatorBoy! And to think, I was just going to call it “Bonk Month!”)

Yesterday, I talked about NEC’s baffling choice for the TurboGrafx-16’s pack-in: Keith Courage in Alpha Zones. Here’s the game NEC wishes they could have had instead. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were counting on it, but the US translation got held-up, like everything else about the TG-16. My theory is that NEC didn’t expect the PC Engine to catch fire the way it did in Japan, to the point they even briefly held the title of Japan’s best selling game console (in terms of monthly sales, not lifetime). By the time they realized they had an actual hit product, they had no infrastructure in place for a US launch. Despite the fact that they sold 500,000 consoles in their first week, it took NEC a few months to say “gee, maybe we should try this out in the US.” Then, when they finally got around to it, NEC seems to have hired people who heard the expression “a camel is a horse designed by a committee” and said “gentlemen, we ARE that committee!” Unable to see the big picture, they wasted FOREVER redesigning the physical appearance of the PC Engine. See, focus testing told them that Americans cared most about having a physically large box that played games and looked futuristic. Apparently they’d never heard of the Atari 5200. So, instead of shoring-up software and US partnerships, they focused all their US operations on redesigning the actual look of the console, along with picking a new name for it. One of the biggest “can’t see the forest for the trees” situations in gaming history.

In the days before social media, too many games had alternate regional names that made global branding next to impossible. In Japan, Bonk is known as PC Genjin. In Europe, Bonk is BC Kid. Also, in my head canon, the bad guys are Dizzy’s racist relatives.

If you need proof of NEC’s ineptness, ask yourself “how come Bonk didn’t launch with the TG-16.” Yea, I know it didn’t come out until April of 1990 in the US, but why? When NEC saw Bonk’s Adventure coming along, they should have thrown all their resources towards making sure it was there for the nationwide US launch in November, 1989, and they should have based their entire marketing campaign around it. There’s no way it would have been ready in time for the August 1989 test marketing of the TG-16, but Bonk came out in Japan in December of 1989. That was only one month after the full US launch of the console. It feels like this is a situation where they could have got in under the wire and actually been able to compete with the Genesis and Altered Beast. Remember, there’s no Sonic The Hedgehog to bail Sega out in November of 1989. In fact, Super Mario Bros. 3 hadn’t even been released in the United States yet, and the Super NES is but future dream. Bonk could have conceivably made kids say “instead of a Game Boy/Genesis, I want the system that plays Bonk!” Even head-to-head with the Genesis, Bonk should have given them the edge they needed. Altered Beast v Bonk? Come on! Bonk every time! Platform games were #1 genre, and Sega wouldn’t even have Castle of Illusion for another year. It IS the killer app the TG-16 desperately needed, but it wasn’t ready, and the TG-16 was steamrolled in the United States.

While I don’t think the level design is ALWAYS spectacular, all credit where it’s due for having several memorable sequences. Though, with how this dinosaur plays out, doesn’t that TECHNICALLY mean Bonk is poop from that point forward?

And the shame is, it really IS the killer-app the TurboGrafx-16 desperately needed. Bonk is a big step above a typical mascot platformer from the era. It came up with a novel idea: you play as a caveman with an enormous head who uses it for headbutting. That noggin of his is the basis for maybe the most satisfying combat of its type the platforming genre has seen. Instead of simply jumping on enemies, you can attack them three ways: a standing headbutt, a jumping headbutt (this one doesn’t even require the attack button!), and a diving headbutt. With just three attacks, Bonk’s Adventure gives you plenty of flexibility to do battle with a remarkably fun variety of enemies. The combat is a little deeper than you’d expect, too. The diving headbutt does more damage than the other two attacks, but if you miss, you’re left vulnerable from, you know, braining yourself on the earth below you. Regardless, the OOMPH from these attacks is cathartic and never gets boring. This is helped along with spot-on sound effects, including pinball-like chimes when the killing blow is struck. I love it.

Bonk uses his teeth to help him climb. I’d make a joke but I just found out that climbers actually do this (even if they’re not supposed to). Well, presumably mountain climbers probably don’t use their teeth on the mountain itself. Bonk is hardcore like that. Although if I ever get around to climbing Everest, I promise to use my teeth at some point.

The diving headbutt further has a twist in that you can cancel it mid-air. Do it fast enough and you can essentially glide slowly through the air. Back in the day, the original TurboGrafx controllers had auto fire. I discovered through my TG-16 Mini play session that you can positively cheese many sections of the game with this. As far as combat, it turns all interactions with enemies into a coin flip. Heads: you score the diving headbutt contact. Tails, you take damage, because you weren’t upside down when the contact was made. While the coin flip happens during boss fights as well, it also effectively cheeses them, since you essentially spin mid-air above their hit box and bounce upward with every hit. It also completely nerfs the minigames AND takes the difficulty away from nail-biting long jumps. When I played Bonk games on the Mini, I used autofire. This time around, I didn’t, and besides things like climbing, I had a better time without cheesing the game. The only time I was tempted to turn it on was fighting the very last boss, who is a bit of a bastard. But, fun to battle, like all the bosses are. They were also the only parts of Bonk where I actually died. It’s a pretty easy game that feels like it exists to say “hey everybody, LOOK WHAT THE PC ENGINE CAN DO!”

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And boy does it do it. Bonk flies right on by with its excellent combat, fun set pieces, memorable characters, and pretty good level design. Even the swimming and ice stages are really well done. When do you ever hear me say THAT about any platformer? Jeez. The swimming is really smooth and doesn’t require button mashing. The ice stages have giant ice cubes that you basically ride, and it’s delightful when it happens. Bonk has charm without feeling like it’s trying too hard. Well, except the meat. That’s the game’s power-up, and it apparently makes Bonk angry. Two of them grant you invincibility. And, during the final level of the game, Bonk’s Adventure spit out so many pieces of meat that I basically got a free pass through the final stage. It kept giving them to me even as I was already blinking from the invincibility. It was such a strange decision to make on what is supposed to be the final challenge leading to the last boss. It’s even worse though because there’s an annoying-yet-unskippable animation that happens when you eat the meat. Now, imagine that happening every, oh, five seconds for a good chunk of the final level. Yea, that really put a damper on what should have been the moment where Bonk’s Adventure was spiking the football.

Is it just me or does Bonk look like Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes when he powers-up?

Another interesting decision that I think was probably a bad idea was to have the diving headbutt freeze all enemies on the screen in both powered-up forms. I’d been fine with it being an ability the maximum-powered-up Bonk can do. But, both powered-up forms? Really? At first I thought it was far too overpowered, but then I played the NES version of Bonk, where instead of freezing the enemies, it just automatically kills everything on the screen. Okay, fine, yes, THAT is far too overpowered and the “turn to stone” bit that this version of Bonk does is only marginally overpowered. Still, it feels like Bonk is designed to be baby’s first platformer. And that’s fine, by the way. It’s always preferable that a game be too easy than be too hard, because at least when it’s easy, everyone can enjoy a game to its fullest potential. The fact that Bonk is a joy to play even three-and-a-half decades later speaks volumes to its greatness. It really is something special.

There’s a child-like glee that comes from the combat. Bonk is proof that there’s no substitute for charm.

Okay, so the collision occasionally made me give the game the side-eye. Also, being a stickler for first levels in games standing out and grabbing my attention right out of the starting gate, I have to admit that Bonk’s Adventure has one of the worst first stages of a great game in the medium’s history. It’s really flat and uninteresting. I get that they had to make things simple so that players could get a feel for the rules. Bonk’s combat, especially for the era, was as non-traditional as it gets, and perhaps they didn’t want to overwhelm players. Still, I think they were too conservative and probably should have had a little more faith. And now I feel unclean, because I literally had to look for things to whine about. No, folks, Bonk’s Adventure is truly the forgotten killer app of the 8-bit/16-bit era. The definitive slipped-through-the-cracks-of-history mascot platformer that could have/would have/should have been bigger than it was. If it had come out just five months earlier, it might have been. Alas.
Verdict: YES!