Bonk's Adventure

System: TurboGrafX 16

Cheats Used: Infinite Lives

After Nintendo’s Mario series defined the NES for a whole generation of kids, it became standard practice for other console developers to invent mascots of their own. NEC’s mascot was Bonk, a little caveman with a big head. Bonk would star in three games and have a spinoff set in the future featuring his descendant, Zonk. In this first adventure, you have to save Princess Za and the people of Moonland from Evil King Drool. The only weapon you have is Bonk’s head, which you can use to bash enemies.

Like most games of this type, it starts out pretty easy and then gets harder the closer you get to the end. Level 5-5 is especially brutal because you have to refight all the previous bosses plus a new one. This is why I used an infinite lives cheat, because I knew I was going to need every last one. So how does Bonk compare to other famous mascots? Quite well, actually. NEC never had a superstar like Shigeru Miyamoto in their corner, but despite this, they managed to come up with a good, fun, well-designed game that I think can stand proudly alongside the best of what Nintendo and Sega had to offer. I’d love to see a new Bonk game on the current systems, but someone has to remember he exists first.