Arcade Archives Bonze Adventure

Genre: Action-Platformer

Players: 1-2 (Local Alternating), Online Leaderboards

.

Review:

Bonze Adventure is an Action-Platformer originally released in Japan only in 1988 in arcades. This modern release sees the game coming to PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch in 2023.

Bonze Adventure seems in some ways a lot like a more Japanese-themed take on Capcom’s Ghosts ‘N’ Goblins series, with players fighting malicious spirits as a Buddhist priest throwing prayer beads, with a high difficulty level that’s also reminiscent of Ghosts ‘N’ Goblins. Unfortunately, it lacks the quality of that franchise, with slow movement, punishing level design, absurdly high enemy spawn rates, and lacking weapon variety. Plus, your sole weapon travels in an arc that’s often difficult to aim.

This release of the game includes a new “Hi-Score Mode” that challenges players to score as much as they can in one run before seeing a game over screen. There is also a new “Caravan Mode” that does much the same, but with the limit being five minutes. In addition, this release of the game includes both English and Japanese versions of the game, various display options, sound options, challenge modifiers, button mapping, and online leaderboards.

Overall, Bonze Adventure is an interesting take on the Ghosts ‘N’ Goblins style of Action-Platformer, but one that ultimately fails due to poor execution. The result is a game that I can’t recommend.

tl;dr – Bonze Adventure is an Action-Platformer that has players fighting Japanese spirits as a Buddhist monk, with gameplay reminiscent of the Ghosts ‘N’ Goblins series, but that unfortunately falls well below the quality that series tends to have, with slow movement, poor level design, and absurdly high enemy spawn rates, as well as a difficult-to-use weapon. I do not recommend this game.

Grade: C-

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

^{This month’s sponsors are Jamie and His Cats, Ben, Ilya Zverev, Andy Miller, Johannes, Jaka, Jared Wark, Gabriel Coronad-Medina, Francis Obst, Kristoffer Wulff, Seth Christenfeld, and Vince Verrinoldi. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}