Bonk 3: Bonk's Big Adventure Review - Screenshot 1 of 2

Bonk 3 was the final game in the original trilogy of Bonk games. As it was the last game, Hudson seemingly decided they had to cram as much into it as they could in order to make it the best game yet - They succeeded.

First off, pretty much everything from the previous two games returns. Bonk can bonk (Of course), bounce off walls, swing on trees, climb walls with his teeth, break blocks and more. There are bonus games at the end of a world, and each world ends with a boss. However, a few things have been tweaked slightly. First off, Bonk now walks and jumps a bit faster, which should help against complaints that the other two games moved too slow. Likewise, when picking up meat to become stronger, the animation seems faster. Second, at the end of a world, you can select which out of 8 bonus games you want to play. If you have collected 16 smileys you can then pay them in order to play that game. You can continue to play bonus games if you have enough smileys for two or more, in fact! There are more gameplay tweaks, but you'll have to find those yourself.

Bonk 3: Bonk's Big Adventure Review - Screenshot 2 of 2

The game also introduces some new things. The first, and most important, is candy. Bonk can find blue candy in order to grow in size, and red candy to shrink in size. While being large does not have any true advantages (As you can still be hit) it is fun to walk around and try to crush everything with your enormous sprite (Which looks and moves very nicely, by the way), plus you can breathe fire! If you shrink, you will become one block in height, which lets you squeeze into secret bonus areas or places you otherwise can't reach. You can't stack candy, so for example, if you eat two red candies, you won't become extra small. However, you can eat the other type of candy to cancel out effects - Eating blue while you're small will return you to normal size, and likewise the other way around.

Another big new feature is a 2 player mode. You can play with a friend and run around with two Bonks, which is a lot more fun. You can even stand on each other in order to reach higher places!

The game also has some new level elements, such as ziplines to hang on, sewer pipes to go through and more. There's also a great deal of things from the previous games, such as returning enemies and obstacles.

The music is also worth mentioning. As the game was one of the last TurboGrafx-16 games to be released, it takes full advantage of the sound chip and has some very nice songs to listen to.

Conclusion

Bonk 3 is a very nice ending to the series. Like Bonk's Revenge improved on Bonk's Adventure, Bonk 3 improves on Bonk's Revenge and ends up being possibly the best game in the original trilogy. Now then, will we see Super Bonk for the SNES or not?