So, remember when a first game has problems that leave it dated over time because its sequel is so much better that it surpasses the previous one? Well, in this game here, surprisingly, THE SAME DOESN'T HAPPEN, like on the one hand they improved the difficulty a little, but on the other, it seems like they fried one side of the hamburger, because after the fourth phase the game returns to that horrible difficulty of the first game and the boss rush is shit, because instead of facing the boss right away, you need to go through HORRIBLE mini stages to face the boss with a HORRIBLE life bar and have the most HORRIBLE, TERRIBLE and unnecessary system that came from the first Zelda that if you die after losing all your hearts you start all over again with 3 hearts, and like in Zelda it's not bad at all, because you can farm and stuff, but this is a fucking platform game, so fill up the life bar won't help you at all, because if you die you'll come back with 3 miserable losses and if you're facing the bosses in the boss rush it gets even worse. Now do I recommend this? Only if you have to play until phase four, so much so that the game starts with an option as to whether you want to play until a certain phase, in other words, they already knew that the game would get bad over time, which I congratulate, unlike other games. like Drill Dozer... But if you're stubborn, you can go through them all, I just wish your waifu was hugging you because holy shit, but on the bright side the ending is kind of cute and I think this is the most charismatic game in the trilogy at all. contrary to his successor.

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

# Childhood nostalgia

Not everyone has a childhood video game, but it’s common enough trait for those of us who grew up after the 80s that it’s become a cultural cliché. Bonk’s Revenge was mine. I owned the original and this sequel, but Revenge imprinted on me, probably due to it being a little easier to control and delivering a much brighter colour palette.

Bonk is a Mario-like platformer positioned in the same was Mario was: a mascot to make this video game system something a kid would want their parents to buy. You traverse to the right, finish levels, find power-ups, defeat enemies and bosses, and eventually save[1] a princess.

It’s fun, pretty breezy for most of it, colourful, kid-friendly, and memorable. It takes the average player two hours to beat it. Much like the TurboGrafx 16, it’s barely remembered. I think there’s a reason for that beyond bad marketing, though.

# Controls

With most mascot platformers, there’s a proper noun, and a verb. Mario jumps. Sonic spins. With Bonk, the character and the action are not two things. Bonk bonks.

The instruction book calls this action a headbutt. But, dear reader, please understand: it is a bonk. The game, in at least one mini-game, instructs you to defeat enemies by bonking. This is the correct word.

In Bonk games, there’s two actions. You can jump, and you can bonk. Pressing the bonk button while just standing there makes Bonk bonk. If there’s an enemy right in front of him, they’ll die. That’s simple enough. Hit the jump button, then hit the bonk button, and Bonk dives in the direction you push the controller. Now you’re using both hands, setting up and guiding an attack.

Hit the bonk button once in the air, and Bonk dives head-first into anything you point him at. If it’s an enemy, they usually die. But when they die, Bonk ricochets off the enemy, gaining height. You determine the direction Bonk ricochets by determining his initial direction. It works really well and feels really good, but this takes time to get used to.

But the TurboGrafx 16 controller didn’t just have buttons. It also had switches. There were two buttons and two switches, and the switches had three notches each. In the instruction book, it says “Experiment with the turbo switches. Different settings will help you out at different points in the game.” This is pretty obtuse! This is not a design people are just going to get.

If the switch is flicked down, the button will press once. If the switch is flicked to the middle, the button will press repeatedly about as fast as a human and repeatedly press the button. If the switch is flicked all the way up, the button will press repeatedly faster than most humans can repeatedly press a button.

Most of the time you need the switch flicked all the way down so pressing the bonk button while midair makes Bonk dive. If you jump at a wall and hit the bonk button, Bonk performs a wall jump. There’s a lot of goodies and secret stages seemingly just out of reach, so you’ve got to get good at these ricochet moves pretty early.

But sometimes you need the switch flicked all the way up, so holding the bonk button hold down the Bonk button. If you’re in midair, Bonk will spin. Spinning in turbo mode makes him spin a lot faster and, with enough inertia, can go farther. But you have to be careful here, because this spin isn’t like, say, Sonic’s. You’re really vulnerable to enemies, because only the head part of your sprite will hit them. With some bosses, there’s a solid method of quickly spinning around their weak points, but you’ll also be taking damage.

I think this level of finicky precision probably turned a lot of people off Bonk even during the TurboGrafx run. It just doesn’t feel as intuitive as a Mario or Sonic game. But I bet it turned off even more people later, when trying to emulate the game using other controllers.

# Emulation

The TurboGrafx/PC Engine has been something you could emulate for a long time. Officially, you could buy TG-16 games on the Wii in 2007. Before that, I saw emulators on pc and in the browser running pretty well. Getting the games to play didn’t seem to be the hard part; it was getting the controls to feel right.

On the Wii, if you played Bonk, there were two buttons that acted normally, and two buttons that acted as if the switch was flicked all the way up. This was okay, but it neglected the middle switch option. It seems like, if you want to buy a good TG-16 controller these days, this four-button scheme seems to be the norm. It’s never felt totally right for me.

With this play-through of Bonk’s Revenge, I created a control scheme in Retroarch that works like this: I had the jump button and bonk button set to the A and B buttons on my 3DS. The Y button became the “turbo” button, and I would hold down the bonk and turbo buttons at the same time in order to spin continuously. This felt natural enough, but even here I found a limitation: the “rapid fire” setting in Retroarch only gave me the “middle switch” amount of rapid fire for a TG-16 controller. I could never actually reach full spin speed with the bonk button.

It was enough to beat the game because Bonk is not a hard game, but I couldn’t 100% it because of this. I don’t think it would fly with other TG-16 games that require the switch flicked all the way up. For that, I’d probably invest in the 8-bit do controller.

# Difficulty

The game asks you if you want easy, medium, or hard. The difficulty isn’t communicated by number of enemies or how much damage Bonk can take, but by how many levels you want to play. I like this approach. Maybe you’ve only got half an hour and want to see a game to completion. Bonk’s got you. Maybe you only want to play through the fun easy first few levels that are absolutely stuffed with 1-ups and heart pieces, smiley faces, and mini games.

At first you don’t see the point to all these mini games. Why am I collecting these little smiley faces everywhere? But you get it after you defeat the first boss. Bonk rides a little elevator, and it goes higher based on the number of smiley faces you collect. Every 10 smileys gets you one level higher, and you ride a cute little train full of cheerleading animals that refill your hearts or give you 1-ups.

Collect 50 smiley faces, and the princess warps you past a whole world.

I like this approach. The easier levels at the beginning are so full of opportunities to collect 1-ups and extra heart pieces (you begin with three and collect up to eight, and you keep them after death, like Zelda) to equip you for getting through the tougher levels later.

A great player could probably skip all the mini-games in the first few worlds and breeze through the end-game, especially if they’re good at switch management.

# Fun
The word “Bonk” is so fun to say that someone made a social network[2] where it’s the only word available.

Bonk’s Revenge is a fun action platformer. There’s enough going on in each world that you feel you’re getting a lot out of it, and its short runtime means there’s no filler. The game never runs out of ideas and rarely repeats sections. I wish it was better known.

[1] In Bonk’s Adventure, the princess has been brainwashed into being one of the bosses and requires rescue. In Bonk’s Revenge, she assists you in the same and gives you a smooch at the end, but doesn’t seem to be in much peril herself.

[2] bonkbonkbonk.app

Screenshots: https://parosilience.tumblr.com/tagged/Bonk%27s%20Revenge