Every now and then, a piece of culture comes along your path that doesn’t necessarily have wide appeal or grand success, but yet it speaks to you on some level. You understand beyond a shadow of a doubt what its creators set out to do, how perfectly they achieved that task, and as a result, that particular slice of art somehow becomes yours as well.
In these cases, you’ve simultaneously taken on the rare honor of relatively exclusive ownership (and all of the smugness that knowledge entails), while also being given the mantel of responsibility of trying to share the good word. You are not merely an observer of greatness; you’re also now a part of it.
I have before, am now, and will in the future be forever a preacher at the alter of Air Zonk.
Air Zonk
Genre: Shooter
Released: 1992
Platform: TurboGrafx-16
Avg. Critic Score: 8/10
The relative obscurity of the title is directly tied to the convoluted explanation for how this game came into being in the first place. Starting at the beginning, it was an exclusive title developed at the behest of Hudson Soft for its TurboGrafx-16, a system that was enormously popular in Japan (called the PC Engine) and much less so over here.*
* This is putting it mildly. I think in the U.S. it was somewhere between a bunion and the Russian national basketball team on the 1990 popularity index.
So it had an uphill battle in the states at the outset.
That it was a spin-off of a semi-popular mascot “Bonk,” who was himself partially conceived as a play on words (“PC Genjin”) — yeah, his character’s success hinged on how punny he was — and further that Air Zonk eschewed any resemblance in game play to that original game were more logs on the “this ain’t gonna hit” fire.
But…
God bless them for making the game anyway.
Because stripped of this background and any consideration given to popularity, Air Zonk is a fun, creative shooter that won’t hold your hand … nor stomp on it with spiked boots.
The story and game play are simple enough, as they often are in this type of game. “The world is in peril! Shoot everything that moves!” Sure, okay, let’s do that.
That’s a common theme: Air Zonk does a competent job of getting the basics right. So much so, that this game acts as a kind of introduction to the shoot ’em-up genre at large. Some of those games are TOUGH, to the point that a common response is controller chucking.
There is no controller chucking here. The learning curve is super manageable, and the game comes with three difficulty levels, so as your skills improve, you can challenge yourself more and more to your heart’s content.
On the easiest setting, I beat this game on the first day that I owned it. Returning to it nearly 30 years later with the Turbografx-16 Mini, I once again beat it on Day 1. So it’s on the easier side of these kinds of games, and its visual style — cute, silly, cartoonish — will appeal to children and beginners as well (this type of game is affectionately referred to as a “cute ’em-up”). But … and this is important … it doesn’t overdo it either. You shouldn’t leave the game thinking you were ripped off or that it insulted your intelligence. It’s balanced in its approach, and it rewards multiple play-throughs.
And for fans of the original Bonk games, this game has a ton of Easter Eggs and references (and a super similar visual style) to reward long-time players. Does any of that preclude new players from jumping in here? Not remotely. The story is still easy to follow.
So what makes it worth playing today?
What makes Air Zonk really stand out, apart from its general absurdity as a game stuck in the 1990’s yet set in a anthropomorphized future, is its vast array of different power-ups as well as its buddy system. The collection of power-ups are both imaginative (boxing gloves, sunglasses, pincer teeth) and varied, providing incentive to swap power-ups often … and to play the game over and over. On their own, they do a tremendous job of keeping the replayability high.
But the buddy system cranks that up further. Similar to other shooters that utilize on “option” — an external entity that mimics your character’s actions — Air Zonk allows the player to select a buddy before each stage who will do the same when you grab a giant smiley-face power-up. But beyond even that, if you grab a second smiley-face power-up, you combine with your buddy to become even more powerful (and even invincible for a period of time). The logistical challenge of trying to grab those smileys in such a manner that you can maximize damage on your opponents is a HIGHLY satisfying play mechanic.
It’s a beautiful game, rich in color (all the neon!), parallax scrolling, and big, inventive character designs. And the soundtrack is pretty damn epic itself, full of catchy tunes that will stick to the inside of your head for days (if not months or years). That it plays well, is not like crawling over broken glass in terms of difficulty, and has that amazing power-up system (a cool power-up system is one of those things that separates the wheat from the chaff in the shoot ’em-up genre) makes this just a fabulous introduction to shooters … maybe the best of all time.
Yes, it’s hilarious that they tried to tap into the Zeitgeist of the time and bathe everything in neon and sunglasses to make things “cooler.” But that doesn’t make the decision a poor one. Instead, it gives the game a specific voice and announces that it came from a particular time and place.
This game is Japanese as hell, it’s shoot ’em-up as hell, and it is 1992 as hell. The inability (or rather, unwillingness) to shake those characteristics ends up defining the game as a particularly good example of all of them. For fan’s of the medium’s history (or history in general), this time capsule of a game is absolutely worthy of preservation … and experiencing.
Dave’s Score: 10/10
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How to play
- Original hardware (Turbografx-16)
- Turbografx-16 mini
- Virtual Console (Wii & WiiU)