Re-release this: Bonk's Adventure (GB)

This column is “Re-release this,” which will focus on games that aren’t easily available, or even available at all, but should be once again. Previous entries in this series can be found through this link.

Bonk’s Adventure isn’t Bonk’s Adventure. Well, it is Bonk’s Adventure, but it’s not that Bonk’s Adventure. You see, when Hudson Soft released Red Company’s platformer to other… platforms… they didn’t just port over the original PC Engine/Turbografx-16 game. Instead, new games were made, in the same vein as the game it was named after, but with original levels, bosses, and abilities. Hudson loved to be confusing about this stuff on the Game Boy — remember, the portable Adventure Island is actually a port of the first NES sequel to that game, not Adventure Island itself, and Atomic Punk is just Bomberman despite that name, but it’s also not the Atomic Punk (that is also Bomberman) that you’d find elsewhere. Bonk’s Adventure being its own game that’s along the lines of the Turbografx game of the same name is an improvement, but we also could have used a subtitle here, like how Mega Man on the Game Boy debuted with “Dr. Wily’s Revenge.”

Which hey, this is only a problem outside of Japan, too, since there the game is called “GB Genjin” to show that it’s clearly a different game than PC Genjin, named such because it was on the PC Engine, and Bonk was meant to be a mascot for the system. For the Famicom edition of Bonk’s Adventure, the title was changed to FC Genjin. It’s really just the North American and European releases of the Game Boy game that sew confusion — in Europe, it’s not [Platform] Genjin or Bonk’s Adventure, but B.C. Kid, and named such both on the Turbografx-16 and Game Boy.

Since this is a Game Boy game we’re talking about — and that is the subject here, not any of the other versions of a Bonk game of this name — and a platformer from over three decades ago, it’s going to feel a little short to those used to more modern platformer conventions. You can take down its six worlds in one sitting, but more important than that is that you'll likely want to if you're fine with that kind of quick hit.

You're not going to play this and think that it goes toe-to-toe with console contemporary platformers — this isn't Super Mario World. But it is Super Mario Land, or Kirby's Dream Land, or various Sonics on the Game Gear. Just well-suited fun for a system you could take with you on the go, that never quite reaches the heights of its more robust console cousins, but is certainly up for the task it’s been designed for.

Despite the less powerful hardware behind Bonk’s (Portable) Adventure, the animations of the titular Bonk remain top-notch. The eyes bugging out, the new looks when he gets powers, when he takes damage — it all sings, and is detailed. Sure, it’s not as robust graphically as Bonk games on the Turbografx-16 — especially the backgrounds, which here are sometimes extremely simple or even just solid colors. But it all fits the platform and its expectations: the Game Boy titles with absurdly high-quality art are notable exceptions for a reason, and as this game already has some slowdown on occasion when there's a lot going on, Red Company and Hudson had their priorities in order in terms of what they were going to spend time on and show you.

Plus, you only have so much time to admire the view. Launching yourself like a rocket that has to travel in an arc to hit a target literally head-on remains so weird but delightful, as does biting your way up the side of a wall, and Red Company nailed all of those animations and looks. That’s what will stick with you, more than that those mountains in the background have little in the way of variety or texture to them even if some of the others very intentionally do.

If you’re not familiar with Bonk games, the platforming might seem odd at first — how do I reach this spot, it’s too high, or this one, it’s too much of a gap, why is everything seemingly so slow — but that's because it handles very differently from other games. Midair flips! That's the separator here, and what you spend a lot of time doing. You jump with that button and then use the attack button, repeatedly, in midair to prolong your airtime via flips. You also bounce off of the tops of enemies mid-flip to reach new heights, or to get to platforms or items that are higher up than you could possibly make your way to in a more standard way. You have significant control over the flips, too, to the point that you can pretty easily swap between head down and feet down — Bonk isn’t doing a complete flip with one button press, but instead half of one. Flip flap? Flap flip? You get the idea. Also it remains funny that you can bump into enemies from below — assuming they're not protected there — to damage them, because Bonk's head is his weapon. Don’t jump on their heads or weak spots, this isn’t Mario. More like a reverse Mario.

Bonk's Adventure is also a game where, even though you're a cave man obsessed with eating chunks of meat you've found on the ground, you will face off against enemies such as: a dinosaur tank, a submarine firing torpedoes, a shark that flies and looks like the front half of a jet, and so on. You’re trying to defeat a technologically advanced lizard-man and his dinosaur army, which includes dinosaurs wearing eggs on their head as armor and masks while wielding axes, and also the aforementioned mechanical monstrosities designed after dinosaurs. And enemies that perform archery but only underwater, for some reason.

You’ll start with just three heart containers for life — and lose fractions of the heart housed in those containers when you take damage, not full hearts — but can add more if you collect the two additional pickups — which show up as grey heart containers — in the game. One is in the second “Round,” to use the game’s parlance for worlds full of interconnected levels that just have transition screens, not map-based level selection, and the other in the third. You retain these new containers when you die, but only the first three refill when you resume play. As for coming back to life, you simply press start to do it, and Bonk will go from passed out on the ground to up and at ‘em. There's no restart screen or whatever, just continue on if you have the means, and time it so that whatever killed you isn’t hovering above your almost-corpse waiting to injure you again.

Bonk has a couple of different pick-ups that power him up, too. They’re temporary, but allow you to take another hit and perform some different abilities to take down foes. The Rock-Head Bonk creates a concussive wave when you headbutt the ground, damaging the enemies caught within it, and the blast, though unseen, is large enough that it even can impact enemies in the air that are within the radius. That’s acquired with a small piece of meat that moves Bonk’s power level up one stage. A larger piece of meat bumps him up two levels, gives him temporary invulnerability, and grants him the Invisible Screamer power. Here, Bonk straight-up just screams words at his enemies, and those words cause damage. He’s not saying mean things, though: the text just reads “WOW",” which apparently surprises his foes to death. Then again, if a furious-looking cave man ate some meat in front of me and then screamed “WOW!” as loud as he could while running directly at me, I’d probably at least fake my death to see if that’d get him to keep on going by.

There is food to collect, which gets you points, and also smiley faces. These give you points after every completed Round, but only the ones you collected on a single life. So you can pick up and go without penalty in terms of progress after a death so long as you have extra lives, but you do lose point bonuses for your deaths. Points are only for your own amusement, though; extends come through pickups. Which means this only has to bother you if you’re challenging yourself or some goal you’ve come up with — these smiley faces lack the same level of importance that they had in, say, Bonk’s Revenge, where the number of them you acquired played a role in acquiring extra lives or a larger health pool post-level.

You will also want to keep an eye out for small flowers tucked away in the levels, as they carry you away to a bonus stage. There are three types of bonus stages. You utilize flips to pick up as many food items — and therefore bonus points — as possible in between platforms, and if you fall, the bonus area is over. Another has you performing as many flips as possible on your way down from a high-up jump, but you have to land on your feet, not head, in order to actually score any of the bonus points. And the third has you climbing up a wall as high as you can in just 10 seconds, where said climbing is done not with Bonk’s arms, but with his mouth, as is tradition for the slightly deranged character.

There are six Rounds to get through, each distinct not just in visual style but in design and traversal expectations. For example, the first Round is more standard, horizontally-based and focused on precision jumps and mastering of flips, as you have a whole bunch of bouncy clouds to traverse if you plan on getting any of the pickups. The second is much more vertically oriented, and will have you utilizing Bonk’s ability to climb view chewing, while also swimming up waterfalls to reach higher cliffs. The third Round is primarily underwater, so you’ll spend a lot of time swimming and bonking with different timing considerations than you’d have while flying through the air to deliver headbutts.

Round 6 is its own stage, but also a boss rush of the four Round masters faced previously — not a typo there — as well as some new bosses, including the final one. It will take you less than two hours to get through the game, even if you take your time mastering jumps/flips to pick up as many items as possible and explore for bonus areas. It goes by in a little over an hour if you’re either familiar with it all or just blow through without bothering to pick up all those smileys for points or take things carefully and slowly so as not to avoid putting your potential bonus points at risk by dying. That feels about right, though: Bonk was always more focused on a good time over a long time, and that tradition carrying over to its portable iteration during an era when that did mean a game was smaller more often than not checks out.

If you're looking to experience just a single Bonk game, then you want Bonk's Revenge for the Turbografx-16, as it’s the most robust, well-rounded, and enjoyable one of the bunch. If you're looking for more Bonk beyond that system's offerings, though, Bonk's Adventure GB is a nifty diversion that fits in well with the platform's library of portable versions of existing console franchises. Of course, you can’t do that without emulating the game in the present, since it — like so many other games from Hudson that Konami now has its hands on — just isn’t available in the present, not even via Nintendo Switch Online.

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