Long Ago in a Place Far Away... Playing Neutopia for the First Time on TurboGrafx-16

Long ago, in a far away place, there was a land called "Neutopia." 

It was a land of peace and prosperity where people worshipped at the Sacred Shrine. A beautiful Princess, Aurora, blessed the people with her wisdom and kindness. 

Until one day, the Evil Demon Dirth appeared.   

The latest game in my TurboGrafx journey is Neutopia, which was released in North America in April 1990.

Neutopia is an adventure RPG that looks a lot like a mix between the visual style of the first Legend of Zelda on NES and A Link to the Past on SNES. 

The visuals are much higher fidelity than the Legend of Zelda on the NES but not quite as good looking as A Link to the Past. All things considered though, the game looks really good, and since this is the closest thing to a Zelda game on the TurboGrafx, it's more than good enough.

The music is pretty good as well, but of course The Legend of Zelda has some of the most iconic music of all time, so it's not a fair comparison. On its own merits, Neutopia has perfectly fine music, but there is certainly better on the TurboGrafx. 

Gameplay-wise, Neutopia feels very close to the original Legend of Zelda, complete with a very similar feeling overworld, and even more similar feeling dungeons. There are bats, skeletons, and other enemies that look better than anything on the NES, but basically look like The Legend of Zelda was remastered. There are even walls you can bomb to open passage-ways. Like I said, it's VERY similar to Legend of Zelda. 

One aspect that is similar to A Link to the Past, is the locked Boss doors that need a special key found somewhere in each dungeon to unlock.  

Overall, the boss fight mechanics are fairly simple but very similar to The Legend of Zelda. (Sorry for all the comparisons, but this game REALLY feels similar and it's hard not to.)

In the overworld, you can use a fire wand to burn trees and reveal secret rooms. Does that sound familiar? I know I make A LOT of comparisons, but honestly its not a bad thing overall that it feels so similar to The Legend of Zelda.

You can watch some of my beginning gameplay from Neutopia in the video below:

Overall I really enjoyed my time playing Neutopia and I think I would have played a lot of this back in the day if I had it as a kid. While it's certainly not up to the same quality as [that famous NES game I keep comparing it to] it is more than fun enough.

While I enjoyed playing Neutopia I'm eager to move onto the next game on my TurboGrafx journey:

Ys Book I and II

I've never played any of the Ys games before, but I've always wanted to try and get into them. Looks like this might be my opportunity.

Until next time!

Bonk Power! Playing Bonk's Adventure for the First Time on TurboGrafx-16

 Evil King Drool is up to it again!

Bonk's Adventure is the latest game I've played on my TurboGrafx journey! I've been waiting for this one to come along in my chronological list of TurboGrafx releases since I associate Bonk with the TurboGrafx more than any other game on the system. 

While I think I may have played it once or twice in the past, I honestly can't recall, and I was very eager to play it now that I've played so many other games in the TurboGrafx catalog. 

As an aside, do you remember when the illustrations in game manuals looked better than the in-game sprites? Well this game was an exception to that rule. Check out these "awesome" illustrations. LOL.

Like most of the TurboGrafx games I've played so far, Bonk looks and sounds great. The sprites are large and colorful, and look really good compared to what gamers had on the NES. I remember seeing screenshots of Bonk back in the day in magazine articles and in advertisements, and it always photographed well.

When North American gamers were introduced to Bonk, they already had been exposed to the Super Mario games and other platformers on the NES, but Sonic wasn't a thing yet. In perspective, the gameplay in Bonk is quite different than Mario, even though it is still a side-scrolling action game. 

Most of Bonk's attacks come in the form of him "bonking" his head into enemies. Of course he can headbutt enemies at the same level as himself, but I really like that when you jump you automatically "bonk" enemies above you, much like Super Mario when crushing blocks above him. 

But Bonk can also dive into enemies with his head, and this becomes critical to traverse certain spaces and attack enemies, especially the various bosses, many of which need to be "bonked" on the head several times in order to defeat them.

Bonk can also wall-climb by grabbing a wall with his teeth and chewing (?) his way up it. Because the TurboGrafx controller has turbo built-in you can use the turbo function to wall climb easier than button mashing.

The bosses in Bonk are interesting as well, since it seems like they are being mind-controlled or something with a helmet on their head, and once you bonk them on the head enough, the helmet breaks and they come to their senses and apologize for their behavior. It's actually quite funny.

Looking back at an old review of Bonk's Adventure in Electronic Gaming Monthly (my favorite magazine back in the day) they seemed to really like Bonk and gave it pretty high scores; much higher than a lot of other TurboGrafx games. (you can click on the image to enlarge it and read more)

You can checkout my very first time playing Bonk for this article. I've gotten better as I've played it more, but getting used to some of the mechanics in Bonk took me a little bit.

Overall it took me a bit to get into the gameplay of Bonk, but I did end up enjoying it, and I think I'll keep playing it from time to time. Would like to complete a full playthrough someday soon, but I haven't been able to yet (although I have tried).

Now that I've played Bonk, the next game on my TurboGrafx journey is...

Neutopia! Released in April 1990, the same month as Bonk.

Don't know too much about this one, but it looks interesting enough.

Until next time...