Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Bonk Is Here landed on Game Forest GF today and this commercial marks the moment NEC and Hudson Soft tried to give the TurboGrafx-16 its own answer to Mario and Sonic. Bonk's Adventure, known as PC Genjin in Japan, was designed by Red Company with development work from Atlus and supervision from Hudson Soft, releasing in Japan in December 1989 before reaching North America in 1990 as the system's second pack in title. Bonk himself actually started out as a comic strip character featured in Hudson's own PC Engine magazine, and he proved popular enough there that the company decided to build a full game around him.
The Japanese name hides a clever little joke too. PC Genjin combines PC, standing for Pithecanthropus Computerus, a play on the scientific term for early Java Man, with Genjin, meaning primitive man, and the whole thing is designed to sound like PC Engine, the console's own name. In the actual game, Bonk rescues Princess Za from the evil King Drool by smashing through prehistoric enemies headfirst, literally headbutting them instead of jumping on top of them like most platform mascots of the era, and eating meat powers him up in stages, eventually granting temporary invulnerability.
Funny enough, the name Bonk did not travel well everywhere. British reviewers pointed out that the word counted as inappropriate slang in the UK, so European releases were retitled PC Kid or B.C. Kid instead. The game still sold 350,000 copies and went on to spawn two more TurboGrafx-16 sequels, an NES port, and a Game Boy port, with Entertainment Weekly naming it the third greatest game available in all of 1991.
Let me know in the comments if Bonk's Adventure was the first game you owned for the system. Subscribe to Game Forest GF for retro gaming content every single day.
#bonksadventure #turbografx16 #pcengine #hudsonsoft #retrogaming #classicgaming #90scommercial #retrocommercials #90sgaming #oldschoolgaming #vintagegaming #gaminghistory #90snostalgia #nec #platformers
Bonk Is Here landed on Game Forest GF today and this commercial marks the moment NEC and Hudson Soft tried to give the TurboGrafx-16 its own answer to Mario and Sonic. Bonk's Adventure, known as PC Genjin in Japan, was designed by Red Company with development work from Atlus and supervision from Hudson Soft, releasing in Japan in December 1989 before reaching North America in 1990 as the system's second pack in title. Bonk himself actually started out as a comic strip character featured in Hudson's own PC Engine magazine, and he proved popular enough there that the company decided to build a full game around him.
The Japanese name hides a clever little joke too. PC Genjin combines PC, standing for Pithecanthropus Computerus, a play on the scientific term for early Java Man, with Genjin, meaning primitive man, and the whole thing is designed to sound like PC Engine, the console's own name. In the actual game, Bonk rescues Princess Za from the evil King Drool by smashing through prehistoric enemies headfirst, literally headbutting them instead of jumping on top of them like most platform mascots of the era, and eating meat powers him up in stages, eventually granting temporary invulnerability.
Funny enough, the name Bonk did not travel well everywhere. British reviewers pointed out that the word counted as inappropriate slang in the UK, so European releases were retitled PC Kid or B.C. Kid instead. The game still sold 350,000 copies and went on to spawn two more TurboGrafx-16 sequels, an NES port, and a Game Boy port, with Entertainment Weekly naming it the third greatest game available in all of 1991.
Let me know in the comments if Bonk's Adventure was the first game you owned for the system. Subscribe to Game Forest GF for retro gaming content every single day.
#bonksadventure #turbografx16 #pcengine #hudsonsoft #retrogaming #classicgaming #90scommercial #retrocommercials #90sgaming #oldschoolgaming #vintagegaming #gaminghistory #90snostalgia #nec #platformers
