Before we get too much further with Octurbo-CD, we ought to revisit a little bald friend of ours. I covered the firsttwo Bonk games last year, so it feels only fitting that we tackle his third and final (well, as far as the TurboGrafx is concerned) adventure for the system, Bonk 3: Bonk's Big Adventure. Fortunately for our purposes, it was published as both a HuCard game and as an enhanced TurboGrafx-CD game, so we'll be checking out the latter version. Oddly enough, the CD version has no Japanese equivalent. My guess is that the TurboDuo crowd were reaching for new releases at that point: 45 licensed games total isn't a particularly impressive library.
Bonk became the de facto mascot for the PC Engine having been a character designed specifically for that purpose by developers Hudson Soft -- in Japan, he is known as "PC Genjin", where "genjin" means "primitive man". It may be a dumb pun, but it's easy to remember a character so nominally tied to their console of origin. To Hudson's credit, they attempted to create a platformer hero as distinct as possible, distancing itself from the obvious benchmark Mario in much the same way as Sega's Sonic did. Bonk has minimal jumping ability, but he has an array of offensive abilities like his trademark head bonk and various powered-up forms as well as a means to climb up walls and waterfalls. Stages in Bonk tend to be a little more open-ended for the sake of collectibles and secrets too.
I feel the new additions to Bonk III specifically are so minor that I might as well describe them in the screenshots themselves. And, of course, there's the new addition of redbook audio too.
The Little Round-Headed Buffoon That is Bonk
Welcome to- Oh, whoops. Sorry little guy. I guess this is a TurboDuo game after all.Welcome to- Oh hell, it's this asshole again. What was his name?Right, right. Welcome to King Drool III: King Drool the Third!Bonk's having none of that. Yeah, I know, I see him, he's very big.Welcome to Bonk III: Bonk's Big Adventure! For reals this is the last welcome.Immediately after starting, we bump into Huey from the first game. He hasn't relapsed or anything, he just seems to be hanging out.So the big gimmick of Bonk 3, so to speak, is that Bonk can grow in size. Like the super big mushrooms of more recent Mario games, Bonk's considerably stronger in this form. It's only temporary though. Kind of a more visually arrested form of the usual Starman invincibility.Of course, there is a counter-side to this: the shorter Bonk form can fit through smaller spaces and will return to normal size once hurt. He's not actually any weaker in this form -- no bouncing off enemies or anything -- so it's entirely advantageous. Well, except your vertical jump is lower than ever.Bonk still takes his rather straightforward approach to climbing walls. Always brush and floss, kids, and maybe someday you can scale a vertical surface with your teeth. Your guess is as good as mine here. All right, fine: Bonk still gets angrier whenever he eats meat, giving him even more offensive options. His ground pounds now freeze enemies and, as you can see, he can breathe fire for some reason.I... I guess we're going ahead now?Here's some of that freeze ground pounding in action. It also effects jumping those flame whatsits that are the bane of anyone playing a Bowser's Castle stage, so that's handy.I got smushed by a falling block enemy and turned into a crab. Crab-Bonk's not a particularly dexterous form, but he shares the same smallness benefit as tiny Bonk. I wish Bonk could let us in on how he magically turned into a crustacean, but I guess he's being a little shellfish.I came across a bonus stage by checking out a dead end. The goal of these is to reach the end, of course, but you also want to grab as many of those smiley faces as possible. All will become clear.Of course, I have no idea where I'm supposed to go. There's plenty of stuff to pick up even if you do go down the wrong pipe repeatedly.Bonk can't bite his way up every wall: solid walls like these bricks would be heck on his dental work. He can use repetitive flying head bonks to sort of wall-jump his way up, however. 1-2's a bit more of a maze than the first stage, but the game's fairly generous with health items to find. It's no big deal if you get a little lost.Apparently 1-3 is the prehistoric version of Storage Wars. Stoneage Wars? I'll workshop that.This bonus stage is a cross between Rampage and "Oh! My car!".I mean, I suck at it, but it's still neat in concept.We're all aboard the good ship HMS Anachronism. This stage got weird.At least these badass skull elevators are back. Looks like we have a boss fight on our hands.This stompy robot fellah ain't so tough. You need to stay away from his feet, but his head and underside are fair game. I retained my shorter form, making the latter option far more palatable.Destroying the central part releases this upset looking guy. I'm sorry I broke your stompy robot little guy! Man, not even Robotnik's this big of a baby.So, the smileys. If you collect enough, you play any one of these bonus stages. We've seen the first two already, so let's try Sky Diving. Here's hoping the game turns into Pilotwings.Nah, not really. Sky Diving teaches you the importance of the mid-air flip, which can keep Bonk airborne for quite some time if you keep doing it. It makes collecting all these items easier, at any rate. If you get enough smileys, you can even try another bonus stage.This green guy doesn't look like the sharpest improvised tool in the Neolithic archaeological dig site. I suspect the dinosaurs died out because they were all mentally deficient.Honestly, I should be stopping now, but this stage is already fascinating. Is that a moth in a giant trash can? Where is this?Yeah, definitely quitting time.
So that's Bonk 3. It's really more of the same, but it still holds up as well as its predecessors. I think the reason for why that is is because no game really tried to do what Bonk did before or after its heyday. 2D platformers underwent this odd evolution where the big games industry came to this spurious conclusion that they were no longer relevant: they had been usurped by 3D platformers, evidenced by how games of that format outside of the big mascot franchises continued to do less and less well. In actuality, and this is what all these Indie 2D platformer developers later discovered, the real reason 2D platformers went temporarily extinct is because no-one was making NEW ones. They were simply regurgitating the same tired elements of all the Mario also-rans that had come before and, with the occasional exception like Klonoa, the 2D format just wasn't seeing any innovative ideas.
So now we have a whole bunch of super successful Indie 2D platformers (which are getting a little a stale again, admittedly) and the reason is because they're all trying new things. Bonk persists because what it did still feels fresh and original.
Anyway, enough ranting about platformers. I don't have much to offer musically this time, since YouTube isn't being co-operative with finding soundtrack vids, so instead here's a Long Play of the CD version. You can enjoy the CD-quality music of the game with the added benefit of watching all the above screenshots in motion, kinda.
