What makes Bonk good?

[Punch]

shows that everyone has a different taste... kinda surprised people hate Bravoman so much, it's a cool little side scroller with some small flaws, nothing on the level of Impossamole (which I hate but apparently some people like)

[pc_kwajalein]

I don't think Bonk is a good game.

So tell me, where do you live? More importantly, what time do you get home and when do you usually go to sleep? 

Anyway, for me, it's all about the presentation. The first time I played Bonk's Adventure was when friend of mine got a TG-16 for his birthday. Now, me and my brother got a SNES and a Genesis on Christmas about a month earlier, so I'd had my fill of Sonic and Mario by then.

Yeah, Adventure was new for me, but it had all the right ingredients. The titular character was a little primitive guy with a huge noggin, used for bashing his enemies into submission. He also climbed cliffs with his teeth, and got a kickass power-up after eating pieces of meat. Add to this, an amusing story, great characters, memorable enemies, simplistic controls, colorful/cartoony visuals, plus a soundtrack that I've always loved, and I'm a very happy camper.

Bonk's Revenge was even better. Granted, the controls took a bit of a downgrade from Adventure but it improved on everything else IMO. Revenge was even more colorful, with more definitive visuals and a much more diverse selection of stages, enemies, and health/point items. The soundtrack was expanded with newer selections while retaining ones from the previous game. That tune from the snowfields remains as one of my very favorites in all the gaming I've ever done. Revenge was damn near perfection AFAIWC.

Alrighty... Bonk 3: Bonk's Big Adventure. (sighs uncomfortably) Very early in Big Adventure I noticed things were significantly less done than they were in Revenge. Yes, there were colors, new enemies and the like, but they all looked so flat. If I may, I'd like to re-use my beverage analogy from a prior thread. Adventure and Revenge are two tall glasses of a sweet, colorful, fruity, and refreshing beverage on ice. Big Adventure is the same but the ice has melted, causing the color and sweetness to dissipate among the oversaturation. Big Adventure was essentially watered-down. Now I did like the two-player coop, and the growth candy gimmick was neat for awhile, but all in all I claim Bonk 3 as the weakest in the series WRT console titles.

Super Bonk 1 and 2 were great rebounds on the SNES. They brought back everything I loved from the first two Bonk games, plus added some more transformations, power-ups, music tracks, and bonus stages. I wish Super Bonk 2 had an NA release in English; that game was great!

So, I get that Bonk might not be your cup of tea for some reason. It's okay, we all love/hate a game that the rest of the gaming community hates/loves.

Game I love that everyone hates: Shaq-Fu (I have SO much fun with this game! Kickass music too!)

Game I hate that everyone loves: Super Mario 64 (sorry, but I like my Mario games in 2D)

[Arkhan]

I don't think Bonk is a good game. Many of you love this game, so I hope to find out why!

There are a few key reasons.

1) The atmosphere of the game.  Look at level 1.  There's an ominous planet in the background, and interesting background stuff that makes the world seem pretty existing. 

2) The game provides a cartoony atmopshere similar to Mario, but with what I feel is a much cooler theme.  It's dinosaurs in space.

3) The music.  If you don't like this game's music, you are deaf.

4) The gameplay.  It's not jump-to-kil.  It's completely different, and more interactive.  The boss battles in Bonk are always fun because you have to aim and smash your head into shit.

You climb with your mouth.  There's boingy plants, meat, bonus stages, walking trees, swimming.

Candy to grow big. 

It's a very cartoony, perfectly executed platforming series.

Also, the graphics are great.   They're simple, but brilliant.  They made it look like a cartoon basically.  Sort of like Pac Land, but way better.

[Gredler]

The control and momentum have a unique and satisfying feel to them. Everything has a distinctive look of its own. Bonk kicks ass.

[esteban]

shows that everyone has a different taste... kinda surprised people hate Bravoman so much, it's a cool little side scroller with some small flaws, nothing on the level of Impossamole (which I hate but apparently some people like)

Most people don't like Impossamole.



However, I much prefer playing Impossamole to Bravoman.

Bravoman...what am I missing? I find it tedious...

[Michirin9801]

One of the things people in this thread are consistently commenting that they like about Bonk is the music, which I find funny because when I first played Bonk I didn't really like the music very much, I've grown fond of it over time but I don't think it's really great like the stuff you hear in Dragon's Curse or Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu for example...
But hey, taste in music is subjective and all, and it's not like the music doesn't fit the game, it totally does, and there are some tunes here and there that I like quite a bit, like the snow theme from Bonk's Revenge and the pre-boss music from Bonk's Adventure...

You climb with your mouth.  There's boingy plants, meat, bonus stages, walking trees, swimming.

Thanks for reminding me!
Swimming, yes, Bonk did it better than pretty much every other platformer at the time, the next best one at it was probably Mario, but even Mario's swimming wasn't perfect...
There's a reason why most people think water levels are frustrating and unfun, but I never found swimming to be either of those things in Bonk because not only do you just point in the direction you wanna swim towards, but you don't go any slower in water than you do on land, in fact, I think the controls are actually more responsive underwater than they are on land, and being able to ascend fast by tapping I and descend fast by pressing Down + II and then I to recover and then Down + II again, with the bonus of attacking anything that's below you while you do that, made swimming in bonk kind of a blast, so long as you weren't walking underwater, which you could easily stop doing by quickly tapping Up once while holding either left or right...

From my experience, Bonk remained the game/series with the best swimming until Densetsu no Stafy was released on the GBA, and that game is pretty much all about swimming so of course it had to get it right or else I wouldn't even be mentioning it here... (By the way, I can't talk about Stafy without mentioning its absolutely beautiful soundtrack! That OST is probably the biggest reason why I LOVE GBA audio so much~♥)

[ParanoiaDragon]

Yeah, & Bonk definitely swim's better than Sonic!  One of my pet peeve's along with him having to grab bubbles to breathe.  Almost got panic attacks BITD with that anxiety tune playing & him running out of air!

[Michirin9801]

Yeah, & Bonk definitely swim's better than Sonic!  One of my pet peeve's along with him having to grab bubbles to breathe.  Almost got panic attacks BITD with that anxiety tune playing & him running out of air!

Sanic is the absolute worst...

[nodtveidt]

The original Bonk is very primitive compared to the second but it's still pretty awesome. The one thing I never really liked about the first is that its level design is a bit too simplistic. 2 cranked it up a bit and 3 really cranked it up, though 3 overall felt very uninspired despite the much better level designs. The first Bonk also suffers from a common coding problem of the day, which is mishandled entity collision. You don't see it as much as in such games as The Legendary Axe or Splatterhouse, but it's there. That issue was clearly fixed by the time 2 came out.

One thing I really did like about the first compared to the sequels is that the first had an actual story to it in-game. It was very basic but it was there, and it made the experience much more interesting. Its absence in 2 and 3 made it feel less like you were on an important mission and more like you were just killing for sport with no real objective.

But anyway... everyone's pretty much said already why the series is so loved, so I don't think I have anything to add to that... just giving my own personal take on things. Ultimately, Bonk is loved because it's Bonk. While the "normal" kids were chasing hallucinogenic mushrooms and being distracted by shiny gold rings, we were headbanging dinosaurs and ripping into prehistoric steak.

[Arkhan]

Yeah, & Bonk definitely swim's better than Sonic!  One of my pet peeve's along with him having to grab bubbles to breathe.  Almost got panic attacks BITD with that anxiety tune playing & him running out of air!

Sanic is the absolute worst...

Ok, to be fair, Sonic doesn't actually swim.  He flails around underwater trying not to drown, lol.

I kind of always liked those levels because it was hard/fun to run around.   

and you still had loopdeloops down there.

[pc_kwajalein]

One thing I really did like about the first compared to the sequels is that the first had an actual story to it in-game. It was very basic but it was there, and it made the experience much more interesting. Its absence in 2 and 3 made it feel less like you were on an important mission and more like you were just killing for sport with no real objective.

As big a fan of Bonk as I am, I keep neglecting to make that same point. Adventure does do a much better job of conveying a storyline as the gameplay continues. Defeating Punchy Pedro, Gladdis, and the other bosses reveals that they were manipulated by King Drool via magical eggshell helmets. After beating T.Ractorhead, seeing Pseudo-Za revert back to Princess Za was a real treat, as was the ending where all the characters you freed from mind-control return to their home on Moonland. It all wrapped up so nicely. Nothing in Revenge comes close to providing that sense of completion.

Ultimately, Bonk is loved because it's Bonk. While the "normal" kids were chasing hallucinogenic mushrooms and being distracted by shiny gold rings, we were headbanging dinosaurs and ripping into prehistoric steak.

Absolutely. Between all three 16-bit mascots, Bonk's consumption of a giant brontosaurus drumstick was by far my favorite invincibility power up. Starman Mario was good, and Super Sonic was pretty cool, but Bonk eating the flesh of giant Paleolithic beasts and having smoke erupt from the inside of his skull before leaving stiches on his scalp is a masterclass in gaming greatness.

[schadenfreude]

I was always hooked more by the art/character design and sprite size more than the gameplay, but the gameplay is no slouch either. The graphics just always "did it" for me.

Yep, I completely agree. The graphics are what initially drew me to the game and what made me keep returning. It plays like a Famicom game (and kinda sounds like one too!), but those bigger sprites and solid, "rich" colors make it feel more akin to an arcade game. Otherwise, I find the game average to above-average and wouldn't choose it over any of the classic Marios or Sonics.

[ParanoiaDragon]

Yeah, & Bonk definitely swim's better than Sonic!  One of my pet peeve's along with him having to grab bubbles to breathe.  Almost got panic attacks BITD with that anxiety tune playing & him running out of air!

Sanic is the absolute worst...

Ok, to be fair, Sonic doesn't actually swim.  He flails around underwater trying not to drown, lol.

I kind of always liked those levels because it was hard/fun to run around.   

and you still had loopdeloops down there.

Yeah, I was just joking, since Sonic can't swim at all.  But more then that, just plain hate needing to breathe, always got frustrated with that BITD.

[Arkhan]

I loved that stuff because it was spastic.   

Sonic is basically what hyper kids played because Mario and shit was too slow.

I'm one of those people that plays mario with the run button held in the whole time.   

Sonic is just like that by default, lol.

[Michirin9801]

I loved that stuff because it was spastic.   

Sonic is basically what hyper kids played because Mario and shit was too slow.

I'm one of those people that plays mario with the run button held in the whole time.   

Sonic is just like that by default, lol.

Then why does he take forever to accelerate to top speed? Except for when you do that spin-dash bulls*** which pretty much makes the game play itself for you...