Bonk's Adventure (TurboGrafx16, 1990)

While the SNES and Genesis were butting heads in the spotlight, NEC's TurboGrafx16 was quietly doing its own thing in the background.  The system was technically the most powerful on the market at the time of its release, being an 8-bit system with some extra processing parts thrown in to make it appear to be 16-bit.  This was during what has been called the "bit wars," where systems were marketed by how much power they had instead of the games you could play on them (like Sega's "Genesis does what Nintendon't" ad campaign).  NEC figured they needed a mascot with a great game to promote their third place (even behind the pre-Sonic Genesis) console, so they came up with Bonk.
Bonk is a large-headed caveman, who is tasked with saving the princess of the moon from the evil King Drool.  He fights by slamming his enormous noggin into enemies, either by headbutting or diving head-first into them.  Enemies in the game are, appropriately enough, dinosaurs.  Bonk has a life meter which depletes as you take damage, and you gain life back by eating fruit.  If Bonk can find and eat some meat, he becomes more powerful.  His attacks shake the ground and stun enemies.  Eat another piece of meat and he becomes invincible for a time (but not before his head explodes into a cartoon mushroom cloud).
The game looks and plays fantastic for a TurboGrafx16 game.  Attacking can take some time to get used to, but once you have it down, the game offers a platforming experience like no other.  Since you can control Bonk's falling speed, you have more control over where you land than in most games.  Character sprites are drawn very well, with a cartoon style that takes full advantage of the console's limitations.  The levels are eclectic and atmospheric, taking you to a frozen tundra, underwater cave, deep jungle, even inside the digestive system of a larger dinosaur.
Bonk's Adventure (1990) came just before the big mascot craze of the 90's, when every company felt the need to create a hip (in that 90's kind of way) character to sell their games.  Nintendo had already established a huge cast of characters, with the likes of Mario, Link, Samus Aran, and more.  These mascots of the 90's could be good (Crash Bandicoot, Sparkster) or really bad (Bubsy, Awesome Possum) mainly centered on the quality of the games they were in.  Lucky for Bonk, his game was very good, allowing him a couple sequels on his home console, and a few more on Nintendo consoles.
Even though the TurboGrafx16 was not nearly as popular as its contemporaries, it still had a solid library of games, crowned by Bonk's Adventure, one of the finest retro platformers from before the days of warring technology.  After fading into obscurity for over a decade, Bonk was given a new adventure on WiiWare, which was largely neglected.  It is hard to find a TurboGrafx16 game that has aged as well as Bonk's Adventure has.  It is a gem back from the days before video games even dreamed of being called art.