Bonkies

Genre: Arcade

Players: 1-4 Co-Op (Local)

.

Review:

Bonkies is a physics-based Arcade-style game with some light Puzzle elements released in 2021 for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. This game has you playing as astronaut monkeys looking to construct various shapes using building blocks they are given.

The presentation here is good, if a bit simple, making use of decent but unimpressive 3D visuals to represent the 2D gameplay, with these visuals backed by a detached synthesized soundtrack that’s nothing memorable, but works well for the spacey atmosphere of the game. And of course you have plenty of monkey noises to go with that too.

As for the gameplay, this game has a pretty solid foundation of challenging players to construct specific shapes within a time limit, and provides enough different types of blocks to make for some fun variety, and working to compensate for this game’s physics is mostly a fun challenge, especially in co-op mode, where players really need to communicate and coordinate to complete goals.

Unfortunately, moving your robotic arm feels needlessly unintuitive – this setup feels like it would be naturally-suited to using a second stick, but the game doesn’t even allow for that option. In addition, while the game gives you a limited ability to boost, most of the blocks in this game cannot even be carried without using that boost, making it feel less like a helpful element, and more like another burden the game is placing on the player.

While Bonkies has a number of issues keeping it from being as fun as it had the potential to be, this is still a fun physics-based Arcade-style game with some excellent co-op. It could have done with more control options and better control overall, but it’s still a fun time worth playing, especially if you have friends to share it with.

tl;dr – Bonkies is a physics-based Arcade-style game that has players working as monkey astronauts to construct shapes out of various blocks they’re given. The controls here has a few frustrating issues weighing the game down, but overall this is a solid game with great co-op.

Grade: B-

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are MB, Andy Miller, Johannes, u/RamboFox, Exlene, Eli Goodman, Ilya Zverev, Stov, Connor Armstrong, and K.H. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}