Punky Skunk

 Revisiting my Childhood once again! Animal platforming are still aplenty in PSX era and very popular. Instead 2Ds like in the 16-bit era, most of these animal platforming games had transitioned to 3D style like Crash Bandicoot or Spyro. Among many of these 3D games there were still some 2D games like Punky Skunk which happened to be one of the earliest Video Game that I played during my childhood and it can be said to be the gateway for me into the Video Game world. Overall Punky Skunk is a solid Animal platformer game but released in 1998 which was way too late for a 2D game to leave a mark as the 3D gaming are dominating on the craze. However given the significant contribution that Punky Skunk gave to my Childhood memories, I feel that I have to return the favor with an article at very least.

 Punky Skunk is an Animal Platforming game made by Jaleco in 1996 as Japanese version which later getting Western release in 1998. This series features an antromorphized Skunk named Punky who is a peppy fellow and along with his friends went on a Quest to fight an army of evil mice led by a Wolf to free animal inhabitants of the Island from the typical oppression of Big Bads.

  Punky Skunk is an animal platforming game that features western style cartoon influence like Disney or Looney Tunes through and through which makes it a very Kid friendly game. The players gets to control Punky travelling from Island to Island with his friends to liberate the Island from BB Squad control. In this journey, the players are served with assorted varieties of colorful landscapes that will pamper their eyes. Overall in terms of difficulty Punky is relatively easy with some rather difficult stages nearing the end but this game certainly will provide a challenge to an 8-year-old kid like myself once.

In Punky Skunk, Punky has Power Up in the form of Sport-themed Costumes ranging from Roller Skates to Skunk powered Jetpacks. The powerups may vary from stages to stages but some of them are mandatory like the Parachutes. Among the assortments of Punky Costumes, the Pogo Stick got to be the most useless one due to the unwieldy control and the unreliability to dispatch the enemy. If Punky Skunk had continued as a series, I could have seen many more sports themed this series could had.

 Given the game is catered to the Kids demographics, Punky Skunk gameplay are relatively simple but they still got powerups obtainable through Minigames which appeared through the midpoint of many stages which grants players some Life Powerups should the player performed well enough. But considering the relatively easy difficulty of Punky Skunk, I didn't bother to grind all the way in my latest playthrough which could have been still pretty useful for the Final Stages which can get rather brutal.

 At each end of Island stages, Punky will face Commander Chew in varieties of gameplay as the Boss fight which do try make the experience to be unique everytime. I used to hate the Boat pedalling stage but it is my current favorite and now the Volleyball fight is my least liked to to wonky targeting. In the final stage you get to fight the Wolf Big Boss himself Badler who barely got screentime despite his BBEG status.

  By the time I am writing this article, I have finished my 3rd Playthrough for Punky Skunk which is a better trip down the memory lane. Back in my second playthrough, the emulation didn't emulate the BGM properly which watered down the experience. Had Punky Skunk released in SNES era, I would believe that this series had a shot to be mainstream success. But unfortunately western gamers just don't have much appetite for 2D Platforming in 1998. This definitely won't be my last time playing Punky Skunk and who knows I will teach my kids to play this game someday.