| paleface [sys=PS3; cat=Platformer; reg=JPN] |
| | | From the PC Engine Classics or whatever it is section of the JP PSN store; I happened to have just over 628 Yen still in the account so hoo-hah, let's try PS3 Bonk's Revenge.
There's a button here that does short jump. I don't think that was in the original? Was confusing me for a while.
Can't remap controls, I don't think. That kinda blows.
Can create save states whenever, that's nice.
Graphically looks sharp; no options, just scales to full screen height, which is what I would'a done anyway. No dumb blurring or anything.
Controls seem fine although I haven't played my Turbo CD version in years (see entry 478) so this isn't a direct comparison. |
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| | | | Appeared on the JP PSN store in November 2009, according to Wikipedia. |
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| | | | Bonk is on X (and Square) and Jump is on Triangle (and maybe Circle? I forget) which is JUST INSANE on a pad. It's X for jump you freaks!! Fortunately I'll be playing on arcade stick and it works out okay there. |
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| | | | Oh maybe that short hop thing was turbo, I dunno. |
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| | | Oh it's L1 I think for the PS3 version menu, to save, load, delete, and see the in-game manual.
Couldn't find a way to reset to like get back to the intro/title screen. : P |
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| | | The colors are vibrant and the sprite work delectable.
Eat a small piece of meat--not a big one--and you transform into...
Cute baby girl Bonk ("PC Beauty") was replaced in the US release by Crackhead Bonk! ; P
Three years ago I played about halfway through the US version, Bonk's Revenge, and had forgotten about cute Bonk! It was the version on the Turbo Duo's "3-in-1" Gate of Thunder pack-in disc (see entry 476), although actually it was 4-in-1 because it has Bomber Man as a hidden game! The collection has a special Bonk game select menu!
"Attack power is doubled," according to Google Translate of the JP PS3 version's in-game manual on PC Beauty!
Her kiss--close-up or at a distance--stuns!
Her dive-bonk blows the enemies away!
If she dive-bonks the ground, it paralyzes even midair enemies!
You only get to be PC Beauty for about 14 seconds at a time! I want to be her all the time! Why doesn't she have her own game??
Even in the early going here there's been a fair amount of precision platforming, and dive-bonking the small/moving enemies is a bit tricky and kind of a pain to have to do all the time.
The second boss encounter, though, is delightful: big, weird, well-animated, and sporting a fun cycle of creative transformations and attacks--and a big hit area that even a clunky junker like me can chain-dive-bonk and feel cool!
I want a Bonk Boss Rush game! |
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| | | The game lists only "Red" beside Hudson Soft, the publisher; GameFAQs, though, lists "Mutech," not Red Company, as the name of the developer of the game (they credit Hudson on Bonk 1 and 3).
I didn't find a whole lot on Mutech. Mobygames https://www.mobygames.com/game/17189/bonks-revenge/credits/turbo-grafx/?autoplatform=true lists Yoshihiro Itami as one of four programmers in the credits of the game, and Giant Bomb https://www.giantbomb.com/mutech/3010-10685/ says of Mutech:
"Mutech was founded in 1986 by Yoshihiro Itami and would go on to provide programming support for a number of PC Engine (TurboGrafx-16) games, as well as those for the PC Engine CD-ROM (TurboGrafx-CD). They worked frequently with Hudson, contributing to games such as Bonk's Revenge and Battle Lode Runner.
The name reflected the fact that it was a small and unassuming company, as mu (or μ) is a symbol used as a metric prefix to denote very small quantities."
Anyway it was on to a jumpy sky stage that was a bit tricky to get through; took plenty of hits and burgers don't heal you?? UNREALISTIC. And a boss who paralyzes you, then runs you over. ; |
Gummy train-riding dino friends turn into health items between stages for you, though! Don't trust beef, trust GUMMI
Unfortunately then it was on to a slippy slidey snow stage with stuff spawning and flinging and rampaging all over you, followed by a slippy slidey ice stage with moving platforms that ram into you when triggered.
UGH. WAY TO RUIN THE GAME MUTECH. Oh another thing that makes it tough is that Bonk hesitates a bit before actually jumping after you press the Jump button; it didn't feel like a general input delay thing with the PS3 port but I didn't go and do any comparison testing because those stages are going to suck anyway--but it does mean lots of times you think you can leap to safety with a reaction jump but no you just get hit or slide off into spikes or whatever.
Now I remembered why I'd stopped playing through in 2019--well that and I don't think I had a save option on the Duo. Which reminds me though, when I left off on the US 3-in-1 version, it showed me having 3 continues remaining--but when I continued in this JP version, no continue number was shown--so maybe they're unlimited? U.S. got hard-mode-ed again, har!
FORTUNATELY things suddenly look up because you get to go glam and sparkle it up on the beach! No more cold!
Although after a bit it's into the water to swim, oh no is it an awful water stage? Wait, look at those guys snoozing in that ship, it looks so comfy in there! I wish I was in there instead of out here in this dumb water sta-- Wait, I can go in the ship? OH
The ship rules! You can bounce on the beds! Maybe there are a few too many crates for an obsessive item hunter to deal with without getting a little grouchy but still, lookit this stuff! Portholes! Semaphore!
Bonking green flowers (I bonked a flower to change its color a number of times and eventually it went green!) gives a blue heart! A FAQ says these "add one more heart to your health meter," wow! But it went right through me and off the screen! = oooo
The FAQ also says "You can get them from the bonus elevator by getting 30-50 smiles in a round," so I guess that's what the smiles are for! OH also if you get 50 smiles in a round, it says you skip to the next round! https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/tg16/588911-bonks-revenge/faqs/47728
But lots more cool ship to explore! Lower parts are flooding, looks rough for those pirates, hah!
The bosses are definitely getting tough at this point though, and it can be hard to tell how to hit them without taking a hit yourself. D-arr!
Hey why isn't there a Pirate Bonk game?!? GOSH DANG IT
Well, after 2.5 horrible stages, it was nice to have a couple neat stages. What will the rest of the game hold? Will it still be nice and sunny? Haha what if it got too sunny like global warming, haha, oh well that'll never happen. |
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| | | SESSION 3
Fun time is over, now it's time to kill the player so they can't go tell their friends not to bother with the game because it's too easy.
There's collapsing platforms over lava and bosses in the lava and falling volcanic rocks and piranha-filled pools but that's just the baby stuff for beginners, because then you get to a long vertical climbing section with what feels like a half-dozen enemies per screen, most of whom float or jump while spraying shots at you and taking multiple hits to knock out. What's with these vertical climbing sections, Bonk and Castlevania?!? ARGH.
This is where I started abusing save states 'cause otherwise I never would'a got through it--or at least, not for weeks I suppose, baking my Duo by just leaving it on the whole time or something(?). Particularly with Bonk's tragically delayed jump take-off, which effectively prevents him from chain jumping, you actually have to be patient and take the enemies on one-at-a-time which uh well I don't have that kind of discipline normally.
There's some kind of story about the Moon getting messed with, I dunno. Fun visuals though.
Then a rather lovely section with LOADS of powerups and healing stuff and rooftops to jump across and laundry lines with bonus items.
Maybe they were just buttering you back up for another tower climb, but this second one is more mystical and obstacle-y and doesn't throw too many enemies at you and has lots of bonus stuff and isn't actually that tough. It was really just that middle climbing section that wanted to kill everyone hard! UGH.
Now I've reached a branching boss rush bit so probably?? near the end boss. |
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| | | | Oh also this PS3 version limits you to five save states. |
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| | | | Was inspired to do this playthrough so I could participate in the selectbutton.net "PC Engine: Welcome to the Ideal World!" thread: https://selectbutton.net/t/pc-engine-welcome-to-the-ideal-world/13480 |
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| | | SESSION 4
I don't want to play a Mario game because Mario post-NES has always felt creepy to me and I just don't want to get into the whole thing. [For the sake of completeness I went back and tried SMB 1 through 3 again and yeah I don't need to do more coin and mushroom collecting. The jump is nice though.] But the boss rush end of Bonk 2 had me wishing I was playing a Mario game because at least Mario games have a good jump. Bonk is horrible at jumping and his laggy jump kept getting me punished in these little dungeon tunnels with alternating conveyor belts and fireballs that teleport in right next to you and other nonsense.
There's a point where the game gives you some health (in some of the branches there is no health at all), makes you take a hit--getting stuck between alternate direction conveyor belts, and it's of course unclear how to get out really as you desperately mash buttons for a while--and then gives you a little health back, like okay now everything's okay, right?
Why? Why do any of that?
Oh, right--it's because they might have squished you into a crab, and the only way to revert back, as far as I could find, is to take damage. It isn't clear that being a crab is particularly advantageous or necessary, and it is used only in a few very limited brief areas very late in the game; it feels like they made it to impress viewers with a character transformation--but nobody seeing it in the death horror house of the late game is likely to care all that much.
Two of the bosses in the boss rush, I have no idea how to hit without also taking a hit. It's completely unclear. With a third one, I did figure it out after abusing save states for quite some time; it's a fairly ridiculous, rather unintuitive, extremely unforgiving sequence and as usual the hurt boxes are punishing and not possible to understand until they've hit you a lot. And it's entirely possible to hit something and immediately get hit for being there hitting it because why would they like build in a grace period or anything thoughtful to make the action feel less horrible.
It's bad design and the dungeons connecting the bosses feel like either they weren't really play tested, or they just didn't care. Because of his delay between moves, Bonk can't really handle more than one enemy at a time unless they're intentionally spaced so that he can chain-dive-bonk them, which is rare after the early stages. He cannot run, and if he tries to move past enemies, they will catch up to him and gun him down from behind. There is no time limit, and Bonk must stop, carefully trigger a single enemy at a time, and defeat them--and sometimes then carefully headbutt their tracking bullet spray swarm piece by piece--before continuing to the next. His sluggish jumping is abused repeatedly to make you take hits until you've memorized the layout and can execute the correct sequence in anticipation of what you remember he will need to do next.
With the basic mechanics a muddled mess, the game's developers still didn't seem to know how to make the game hard without resorting to cheap tactics. A lot of enemies are made just tall enough that your jump has to be almost perfect in order to dive-bonk them without hurting yourself. Random bullet sprays become common.
In one of the buss rush connecting dungeon tunnels--oh, yes, it is a water level--they hide a crab behind a pillar.
The crabs shoot at you, in any direction and through any obstacle.
It's the opposite of what I recall from the NES Mario games where they show you very clearly what you need to do, aren't designed in such a way as to feel punishing--possibly excepting those darned Mario 3 airships--and the controls for executing what you need to do are crisp and clean. Bonk is muddled and vindictive. By the end I felt like I couldn't trust the game's physics at all, and every time I had to do anything I felt queasy, and surprised if it somehow ended without me taking a hit. I didn't trust the designers to distribute danger or healing items in any sort of sane way, so I reloaded nearly every time I took a hit. Which was a lot. But I was sick of the game and did not want to have continue and replay any stage from the beginning again, ever.
The first hit I took from the final boss was while I was jumping happily through the air after having beaten the prior boss: the final boss suddenly teleported in right there, on top of me, without warning, probably unhittable, hurt box immediately in effect.
Other than that, he's actually kind of a pushover. The game feels severely lacking in gameplay balancing.
Nobody should play this game, the ship level isn't worth it. At least, quit when you reach the ship stage's boss. Not a whole lot that's good happens after that point.
After you beat the final boss and see the little ending which is cute but involves a character I hadn't even really seen to this point so didn't care much about, you're stuck in a credits loop.
"To be continued... Maybe..." it says.
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