When I think back to the console wars of the late 80's and early 90's I am really in awe as to why the Turbo-Grafx 16 didn't do much better than they did. It could have been marketing, it could have been distribution problems, it could have been interference from the big companies, it could have been a lot of things.
In many ways I feel as the the TG16 was a much better machine than the SNES or Genesis and it certainly was a lot cooler.
They didn't have a mascot as cool as Mario or Sonic and this was probably a major factor and their attempt at having a mascot might have been considered a failure as well even though it ended up being one of my favorite games and is considered to be one of the best on the console.
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Bonk was a caveman like youth of sorts that was able to attack his enemies not just by jumping on top of them like Sonic and Mario, but also by "bonking" his apparently impenetrable head into things as well.
The game itself was your usual side-scrolling platformer but that was all the rage at the time. To be honest, I still really enjoy them today and if someone were to do a revamped version of the Bonk games, I would definitely buy them. Hudson Soft was in the process of developing exactly that for Nintendo and Sony but due to their financial difficulties the future of this project seems uncertain.
As Bonk collected pieces of meat that were magically floating in the air, he would become increasingly angry and would eventually become briefly invincible similar to when you would gather a star in Super Mario Bros.
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The game is rated at number 85 in the "greatest video games of all time" by EGM. It was also rated as the number 3 game of the year in 1991 which one would assume would have boosted sales of the console, which is sadly did not.
Critics praised the game's humor as well as innovative level design and for those that actually played it, it was a very enjoyable experience. I would say that I enjoy it more than Mario or Sonic but then again, I was one of only 2 people that I knew at the time that even had a TG-16.
It, as well as the 2 sequels are available on the TurboGrafx mini and PC-Engine mini and you can also get the ROM for free (questionable legality) HERE
Did you play Bonk? Did you like it? I'd love to discuss it in the comments
Hell yeah! I loved Bonk.
The TurboGrafx was the best. I was the only I knew that had one.
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