Bonk's Adventure

The Good
It is a basic platform action game that is put together very well. The characters main attack, his big head, is different from all others in the same class. The cartoon graphics are original as well as the story line. The music is good and will get stuck in your head. Nothing really stands out but the game as a whole is worth it.

The Bad
Some of the power-ups change your attributes and sometimes they don't make much sense. Only the invincibility power-up is immediately understood.

The Bottom Line
Ok, you are a little big headed cave boy. You must bonk everything with your head. You have big old teeth that allow you to climb walls. You eat meat and go berserk. You swim through a dinosaurs gut. All the things a cave boy can do on an alien planet. The TG-16 did come with a platform action game but it was not very playable and Bonk was NEC's answer to Nintendo's Mario and Sega's Sonic. Bonk's Adventure and it's sequel Revenge are two must-have games for the TurboGrafx owner.

The Good
Being perhaps the most underrated console of all time, the Turbografx never really got the attention it deserved in most of north America and Europe even though it had some very good games. Alongside the Genesis and SNES it was a major console of the 16 bit era, and also like those two, it had a mascot of its own: Bonk!

Bonk is a cute little caveman with a very strong head, which also acts as his main "weapon". The gameplay is pretty standard 2D platforming fare: You explore various levels while collecting powerups, defeating enemies and doing a few minigames to add a bit more variety. As mentioned the main weapon is your head, and while in mid air you can use the attack button to use it to land on an enemy and crush him. It might not sound like much since it's basically a glorified jump, but it's actually very satisfying and fun to use. You can also attack enemies in the air by hitting them from below. This is essentially Mario in reverse, as you can kill any enemy with your head, while in Mario if your head hits any enemy, you take damage.

Enemies come in all forms. Some are on the ground and are easily taken out by a single headbutt, while others fly or even disguise themselves as plants! Speaking of plants, there are various types of them: You can bounce on the yellow ones to jump higher, while the orange ones hold various powerups or fruits. You can enhance your health bar by finding blue hearts and you can also use a certain type of meat which results in an amusing animation that makes you enter a "frenzy" state, in which you're invincible for a short time and you can turn enemies to stone using your headbutts. Pretty cool.

The sound certainly isn't on par with Sonic the Hedgehog but it gets the job done. I found some of the tunes to be pretty catchy too, and most of the standard sounds aren't irritating at all.

The Bad
Being an early Turbografx game the graphics do not look nearly as good as they could, and some lack any form of shading so this basically looks like a mixture between a NES and a Genesis game... usually. That said it doesn't look particularly bad at all, but just not that good compared to Bonk's Revenge, which is a better showcase of what the Turbografx can do.

Also, I have to ask, who designed these bosses? While they generally put up a decent fight, they look like... dinosaur emos! And the dialogues once you defeat them go on like this: "Oh Bonk, you opened my heart!! I am now your best friend!!! Woof Woof!". Really? It's funny though because when this happens Bonk doesn't even say anything and just walks away very quickly. At least the final boss looks better and more "evil". In fact I'd say he looks downright scary, but you'll see by yourself.

The Bottom Line
The game may lack the polish of Sonic or Mario, but as far as pure fun goes, it might just be on par with those two. What's important is that the "gimmick" of the character remains fun to use and the level design is varied and clever enough to maintain your interest from start to finish.

Bonk may have never gotten the respect he truly deserved, but it's never too late to enjoy a classic game such as this one.