just play this with infinite lives and have the time of your life. otherwise you're in for a VERY stressful ride
Wildly inventive and underrated. Deserves more attention as an alternate path from Mario and Sonic.
You haven’t become a true man without having at least one good bonking session, and my first go-round with Bonk’s Adventure certainly did make me a man, but I can’t say the experience was all too wonderful as I had hoped it would be. For the most part, it was a decent adventure, with decent visuals, good music, simple yet fun enough gameplay, and an amount of personality when it came to Bonk himself that most video game protagonists of that era wish they could have, but not only was there that boss rush that makes my blood boil something fierce, but it also managed to bring things down when it came to how Bonk controlled, which just felt very stiff and unreliable a lot of the time, which did definitely bring the game down quite a bit. But of course though, that was just the first attempt by the devs at making a bonking phenomenon, so of course, mistakes are bound to happen. Surely, they could correct themselves when it comes to the second game, right?.......... well, no, but they tried anyways with Bonk’s Revenge.
For those of you who don’t know, while this series is developed by the Red Company, a company I had never heard of before until doing that first Bonk review, the series is published by Hudson Soft, which should paint you a clear picture as to what kind of series this will turn out to be. Not to generalize, but Hudson REALLY like keeping things simple and same-y for a lot of their titles, and while I don’t think this will be the case for all Bonk games to come out, it certainly was the case with this game, because as a whole, I would say this game is on the same level of quality that the original Bonk was on. It’s a good game, with there being improvements made overall to make it look and feel like a better time, but it doesn’t put in any effort to make itself seem like a huge step forward in comparison to the original.
The story is a little more ridiculous and silly then that of the previous game, where the evil King Drool III, I guess as revenge for what happened in the previous game (that’s ironic), decides to steal half of the entire moon, tearing apart the kingdom of Moonland and leaving Princess Za in shambles, so it is up to Bonk to take him down and get the other half of the moon back, which is actually a lot more of an entertaining set-up compared to the original, just because of how ridiculous it all is. The graphics are pretty good, being a MAJOR step-up from the original, with all of the sprites looking much more detailed and expressive, so I will definitely give it props for that, the music is good, with there being plenty of decent tracks to listen to, although I do remember one or two of them being like nails-on-a-chalkboard to the ears, and the gameplay/control is…. basically the same as the original, which is great for all of those who ate up the previous game, but not so much for me.
The game is a 2D platformer, where you take control of the Bonkster once again, go through a set of seven different rounds, each taking you through various typical and unordinary prehistoric locations, use your giant fucking noggin to bonk everyone you see into submission, gather plenty of different food items to not only heal yourself, but also to gain temporary power-ups, as well as extra lives, and take on plenty of bosses that can range from being pretty easy to being pretty tedious and frustrating. The bonking experience remains practically unchanged, meaning that those who have proper experience with the first game will have no problem jumping into this game, and for the most part, it functions and plays as well as that previous game, if not even more so.
It did feel good coming back to this series after so long, so I didn’t feel that sense of repetition when playing this game (for the most part), and I had plenty of fun with it. It still does feel just as satisfying as before to knock around enemies with your big-ass head, and managing to bonk your foes at just the right spot to not only take them out, but also to help out with platforming challenges, was just as sweet to pull off, as it should be with any platformers. Rewards can be found around every corner, making going around these levels somewhat tedious, yet very helpful for those that end up in quite the bind, and these goodies can even assist you in gaining MORE goodies! After you beat each boss, depending on how many smiley faces you get throughout the stages, you can reach a certain level of bonus area that can grant you extra lives, health, and power-ups, with the amount you do get increasing for each level, encouraging the player to explore the areas as much as they can to get all of these sweets………. even though I didn’t do that, but hey, it’s still there for those that got the time.
However, if I were to judge this and the last game side-by-side in terms of gameplay, there is practically zero difference or improvement to be seen here. If you have played Bonk’s Adventure, then you have also played Bonk’s Revenge without even realizing it, cause the game makes no effort to try to enhance or develop the formula even further, making this mostly feel like a retread of what we have seen previously. Not to mention, the game doesn’t fix ANY of my problems that I had with the previous one, where Bonk himself still has some pretty rigid controls that can make several sections quite frustrating to go through, and there is still an unnecessary boss rush here that is now somehow WORSE. Rather then just simply fighting the bosses again, this game takes the Kirby’s Dream Land route and makes it so that you have to play through a mini level before you fight the boss, and as soon as I figured this out, I literally said out loud “Oh, FUCK off”. Seriously, after playing all of these games, I have discovered how much I truly despise boss rushes that don’t do what Mega Man does, because they are EVERYWHERE. I can never escape….
Overall, despite how much nicer it looks and sounds (at times), Bonk’s Revenge is either on the same level or slightly over the level of quality that Bonk’s Adventure was at, still being a good game that fans of the first will definitely enjoy, but it does feel more like this time’s equivalent of a standalone expansion rather than a true sequel. I would recommend it for those who loved the first game, as well as those who are huge Bonk fans in general, but for everyone else, you aren’t missing out on much by not checking out this one. Now, if you excuse me, I’m gonna go now, and think about more ways that I could possibly integrate the word “bonk” in these reviews, while also being just inappropriate enough to where it won’t get taken down off this website. See ya then!
Game #600
For those of you who don’t know, while this series is developed by the Red Company, a company I had never heard of before until doing that first Bonk review, the series is published by Hudson Soft, which should paint you a clear picture as to what kind of series this will turn out to be. Not to generalize, but Hudson REALLY like keeping things simple and same-y for a lot of their titles, and while I don’t think this will be the case for all Bonk games to come out, it certainly was the case with this game, because as a whole, I would say this game is on the same level of quality that the original Bonk was on. It’s a good game, with there being improvements made overall to make it look and feel like a better time, but it doesn’t put in any effort to make itself seem like a huge step forward in comparison to the original.
The story is a little more ridiculous and silly then that of the previous game, where the evil King Drool III, I guess as revenge for what happened in the previous game (that’s ironic), decides to steal half of the entire moon, tearing apart the kingdom of Moonland and leaving Princess Za in shambles, so it is up to Bonk to take him down and get the other half of the moon back, which is actually a lot more of an entertaining set-up compared to the original, just because of how ridiculous it all is. The graphics are pretty good, being a MAJOR step-up from the original, with all of the sprites looking much more detailed and expressive, so I will definitely give it props for that, the music is good, with there being plenty of decent tracks to listen to, although I do remember one or two of them being like nails-on-a-chalkboard to the ears, and the gameplay/control is…. basically the same as the original, which is great for all of those who ate up the previous game, but not so much for me.
The game is a 2D platformer, where you take control of the Bonkster once again, go through a set of seven different rounds, each taking you through various typical and unordinary prehistoric locations, use your giant fucking noggin to bonk everyone you see into submission, gather plenty of different food items to not only heal yourself, but also to gain temporary power-ups, as well as extra lives, and take on plenty of bosses that can range from being pretty easy to being pretty tedious and frustrating. The bonking experience remains practically unchanged, meaning that those who have proper experience with the first game will have no problem jumping into this game, and for the most part, it functions and plays as well as that previous game, if not even more so.
It did feel good coming back to this series after so long, so I didn’t feel that sense of repetition when playing this game (for the most part), and I had plenty of fun with it. It still does feel just as satisfying as before to knock around enemies with your big-ass head, and managing to bonk your foes at just the right spot to not only take them out, but also to help out with platforming challenges, was just as sweet to pull off, as it should be with any platformers. Rewards can be found around every corner, making going around these levels somewhat tedious, yet very helpful for those that end up in quite the bind, and these goodies can even assist you in gaining MORE goodies! After you beat each boss, depending on how many smiley faces you get throughout the stages, you can reach a certain level of bonus area that can grant you extra lives, health, and power-ups, with the amount you do get increasing for each level, encouraging the player to explore the areas as much as they can to get all of these sweets………. even though I didn’t do that, but hey, it’s still there for those that got the time.
However, if I were to judge this and the last game side-by-side in terms of gameplay, there is practically zero difference or improvement to be seen here. If you have played Bonk’s Adventure, then you have also played Bonk’s Revenge without even realizing it, cause the game makes no effort to try to enhance or develop the formula even further, making this mostly feel like a retread of what we have seen previously. Not to mention, the game doesn’t fix ANY of my problems that I had with the previous one, where Bonk himself still has some pretty rigid controls that can make several sections quite frustrating to go through, and there is still an unnecessary boss rush here that is now somehow WORSE. Rather then just simply fighting the bosses again, this game takes the Kirby’s Dream Land route and makes it so that you have to play through a mini level before you fight the boss, and as soon as I figured this out, I literally said out loud “Oh, FUCK off”. Seriously, after playing all of these games, I have discovered how much I truly despise boss rushes that don’t do what Mega Man does, because they are EVERYWHERE. I can never escape….
Overall, despite how much nicer it looks and sounds (at times), Bonk’s Revenge is either on the same level or slightly over the level of quality that Bonk’s Adventure was at, still being a good game that fans of the first will definitely enjoy, but it does feel more like this time’s equivalent of a standalone expansion rather than a true sequel. I would recommend it for those who loved the first game, as well as those who are huge Bonk fans in general, but for everyone else, you aren’t missing out on much by not checking out this one. Now, if you excuse me, I’m gonna go now, and think about more ways that I could possibly integrate the word “bonk” in these reviews, while also being just inappropriate enough to where it won’t get taken down off this website. See ya then!
Game #600
A solid sequel that added multiple gameplay mechanics and and larger levels compared to the first game, but never manages to reach the brilliance of stuff like Super Mario World and aesthetically still not my jam.