test: Bonk's Revenge

~ BONK'S REVENGE ~

Hudson Soft / Red

HuCard

1991

I've never been a big fan of Revenge, but whenever I power it up, I'm immediately struck by how appealing its cartoony graphics are. Bonk's Adventure is nice looking and colorful and all, but Revenge definitely takes things to an entirely different level. The difference in graphical quality is vast despite many level themes and cast members being quite similar.

The level design also took a huge step forward. There are secrets all over the place, great ideas at work in enemy design and level structuring...

...along with numerous bonus rounds, most of which are enjoyable. And as my brother Duomitri can tell you, it's tons of fun to see how many smiley faces you can find in a level (and the train bonus scene at the end of each stage is also very cool).

The soundtrack is as good as you'd expect it to be since it borrows quite heavily from the first game (although most of the original material is also quality stuff).

My only major complaint, and it really killed Revenge for me for many years, is that a brief delay takes place during each spin of Bonk's spin jump, and it makes the gameplay feel pretty crappy at times. I know there are two typical responses to this gripe:

1) It adds to the challenge. Well, I always beat the game with lots of lives left no matter how terribly out of practice I am. There is very little challenge with or without the delay.

2) It prevents people from leaping into the air and cannonballing their way through stages, as was possible in many levels of the first Bonk. Well, the level design is strong enough here to minimize that sort of tomfoolery anyway, and there's so much more incentive to explore this time.

It could be said that the boss battles are a little more interesting in Revenge because, for the most part, you can't just bounce around on top of the fools' heads like you could with many of the big lugs in Adventure. This is a fairly minor point since the game's strengths lie in level design and aesthetic appeal rather than in strategic battling, so I still wish I could have the old spin back.

Speaking of the bosses, another (relatively minor) complaint I have is that the last battle stinks. Talk about anticlimactic. Some of the earlier fights are interesting, if not particularly difficult...

...but the last couple of bosses are bums.

I enjoy Revenge more now than I did in years past, even if the spin delay still irks me. I guess I'm more patient these days, so I appreciate things like the level design and smiley scavenger hunts a lot more. I still find Adventure to be much more enjoyable, though.

RED/Hudson Soft - 1991 - U.S.A.

HuCard

Bonk's Revenge was the first Bonk title I ever owned. I remember saving my allowance for like 2 months so I could buy it the week it was released. I loved the game so much, it wasn't long before I made it a point to pick up Adventure. I even convinced one of my best friends to pick up Bonk's Revenge for the Gameboy. Much to our dismay, the Gameboy game..... sucked. It wasn't Bonk's Revenge, it wasn't even similar aside from the fact that it starred Bonk. I'm pretty sure this pissed my friend off, and made him even more envious of me because I owned a TurboGrafx-16 and he didn't. Oh well, I digress.

I look back on those early years of the TurboGrafx-16 with fondness, and much nostalgia. For a long time, Revenge ranked as one of my favorite video games. Over time, however, I grew more and more fond of Bonk's Adventure as the better experience. Then came Bonk 3, and at some point Revenge slipped from favorite to forgotten. I still go back and revisit Revenge every year or so, but unlike Adventure with its timeless magic, and Bonk 3 with its vast areas to explore, Revenge is just sort of..... there. I can't remember a time when I didn't know the game like the back of my hand-- every enemy, every secret. Being able to go back and replay the game with countless more gaming hours under my belt has afforded me the luxury of judging the game probably a little more objectively than my younger self.

Bonus rounds!

Collecting enough faces ears you a ride on a train where your friends offer moral support.

Bonk's Revenge is the black sheep of the series. The control is flawed, the classic gameplay is broken, and all the rules you know from part 1 and 3 you can throw out the window. Bonk is sluggish to respond, especially during the gameplay-crucial spin attacks. This artificially increases the difficulty of the game, a factor which is nullified by the surplus of extra lives to be found throughout the journey and the ease with which they are obtained. The result is a dynamic that becomes extremely irritating very quickly. Gone without a trace is possibly my favorite aspect of the Bonk games: being able to consecutively bounce an enemy combatant on your head for bonus points. Bonk's Revenge also borrows heavily from the soundtrack of Bonk's Adventure, making it the only game in the series to re-use music from a previous entry. Don't get me wrong. The Adventure soundtrack is a classic to be sure, but I would have appreciated more original numbers here. Florets also behave completely different in this episode.

Not that any of the Bonk games offer too much in the way of challenge, but Revenge was rendered unncessarily easy by increasing the maximum number of heart containers from five to eight. Add to this abundant extra men not-so-hidden in the levels and you've got a recipe for an easy clear. Too easy, if you ask me. The fifth stage doesn't even have a boss!

Revenge isn't all bad news, however; the new graphical engine gives Bonk a much needed facelift, seating the series a little more firmly in the 16-bit generation. You'll encounter waves of new enemies, many of which don't appear in any of the other four Bonk episodes. Level design is also much improved over Adventure, with stages less linear and more exploration-friendly, a concept not fully realized until Bonk 3. One success I'll grant Revenge is the revised Floret functionality, and I find it curious they didn't keep running with the idea in the later sequels. You can change the color of some Florets by bonking them (the color of the Floret determining it's behavior when you jump on it). Yellow Floret Sprungs can also be moved by bonking them, which if you ask me is a stroke of pure genius that wasn't even fully utilized.

Bonk's Revenge isn't an awful game by any means, but it's difficult to judge an episode in a series without comparing it to its fellows, and by those criteria I find it to be the weakest link.