umm, i'm trying to make sense of your post, what's NEC got to do with Antartic Adventure and the rest of this thread's subject?
NEC is the the company responsible for PC-Engine, which Hudson developed for, and one of Hudson Soft's game's was PC Genjin, the deemed "mario-type mascot" for the console.
i was only pointing to the possible reason of why she knows who Bonk/PC Genjin is. it was fairl popular for quite a while, way back.
honestly, i dont know what antartic adventure is.
but the penguin game you were talking about was probably Konami's
Yume Penguin Monogatari, which was actually released for the Famicom/NES.
and about the Sonic-Brazil thing, that's because Nintendo wasn't marketed in Brazil, but Sega did well there.. (esp. the Master System)