Bonk's Adventure

Bonk's Adventure is a game released for the TurboGrafx-16, the Nintendo Entertainment System, and the Gameboy. It is the first game of the series released for the TurboGrafx-16 that features the main character Bonk, who according to Hudson Soft was originally created as a comic book character called PC Genjin for their PC Engine magazine. So many people liked the character that there were talks held on giving him a game of his own. Despite his origin, Bonk was elevated to being a mascot game character for that system as Mario became that for the Nintendo systems and Sonic for the Sega systems.

Story
The game's protagonist is Bonk, a strong caveboy who battles anthropomorphic dinosaurs and other prehistoric themed enemies. Bonk's mission is to rescue Princess Za (a small pink Pleisiosaur-type reptile) who has been kidnapped by the evil King Drool (a large, green, Tyrannosaurus-type dinosaur). In the Arcade version, Bonk is also assisted by a female version of himself.

Gameplay
You play Bonk, the hard-headed cave child who battles anthropomorphic dinosaurs and other prehistoric themed enemies. Bonk's mission is to rescue Princess Za (a small pink Pleisiosaur-type reptile) who has been kidnapped by the evil King Drool (a large, green, Tyrannosaurus-type dinosaur). In the Arcade version, he is also assisted by a female version of himself.

Bonk uses his head (quite literally) to defeat his enemies by bonking them. Besides running and jumping, he can use his teeth to climb up cliff walls in the levels he encounters on his journey. He can swallow meat, which powers him up temporarily and incrementally; the second meat he eats after the first will allow him to stun his enemies by pounding the ground with his head, and the third meat after that will give him temporary invulnerability.

Development and release history
The Japanese name for the original game for the PC-Engine is PC-Genjin (PC-原人, literally, PC-barbarian). In Japanese, PC-Genjin sounds like PC-Engine, and the PC stands for Pithecanthropus Computerus, a pun on Pithecanthropus Erectus. It is generally called PC-Kid in English, as he was meant to be NEC's mascot at the time. Later, when the game was ported (or given different versions) for other platforms, it was renamed accordingly, like FC-Kid (after Family Computer, the original Japanese name for the NES, and the FC stood for Freakthoropus Computerus), GB-Kid (after the Game Boy), or the more generic name BC-Kid in some other versions, including Amiga. In North America, this was scrapped, as the game name is always Bonk's Adventure or something similar.

In 2003 Hudson Soft included a 3D remake of Bonk's Adventure in their Hudson Selection series of games released exclusively in Japan for the PlayStation 2 and GameCube consoles. Factor 5, developers of the Amiga port, have made BC-Kid available for free through their company website but it requires an emulator to play. The TurboGrafx-16 version was released for Wii's Virtual Console Nov. 21, 2006, and according to informal surveys it has been one of the most purchased games. Hudson is currently developing a reboot of the franchise entitled "Bonk: Brink of Extinction" for WiiWare. It is scheduled to be released Q1 2010.