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 Information
| Rank: | 128 (13 in Super Nintendo) | | Rating: |
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| Cheats: | None available | | Also For: | Sega Genesis (1993) |
Reviews Mediocrity at its finest, August 14, 2008 Rating: 10.0/10 By cward20 from Austin, TX Who is the mascot from the early 1990’s that single-handedly kept a company alive and even had his own Saturday morning cartoon? If you said Alex Kidd go directly to the nearest toilet insert your head and flush, the answer is Bubsy. (Sonic the Hedgehog was created in 1989). In the early 1990’s video game mascots were everywhere, they were extremely popular and were an easy way to sell subpar games (Mario is Missing), due to the success of Mario, Sonic, and Bonk. Bubsy: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind (Bubsy for short) was Accolade’s somewhat misguided attempt at a mascot, a cat that can run as fast as Sonic, but instead of rolling into a ball he can glide. While not as good as Sonic, Bubsy’s gameplay is at least comparable.
Gameplay: 7/10
The gameplay is fun in the same way as the Sonic series, you get to run extremely fast, stomp on enemies, and collect things, in this case balls of yarn. The down side is that the balls of yarns serve no other function than to give you points, but the game makes up for this by putting a lot of extra lives in each level. This game loses points however because like Sonic, the control gets slippery once you’ve built up momentum by running, and also when you’re standing on small platforms. There is also the distinct lack of power-ups, one power-up to be exact; a shirt with an exclamation point on it that makes you invincible, unless you want to count the extra lives but that’s really reaching. The biggest issue with the gameplay is that often times you are required to walk off platforms or make a “leap of faith” when you have no idea what is down below; which will get you killed more than anything else.
Story: 5/10
The story is dull and nonsensical, the latter is not really a problem because games like this don’t need to make sense, the problem is the limited scope of the story. In most platforming games the hero is trying to save the world and/or his girlfriend from the bad guys, but Bubsy breaks conventions for something much less exciting: to save the world’s supply of yarn balls from a group of aliens called the Woolies. The story goes something like this: one night Bubsy was in bed sleeping when all of a sudden he was abducted by aliens along with his extensive collection of yarn balls. Bubsy is ejected soon after, and he promptly begins his quest to retrieve his balls of yarn and save the world’s yarn supply. While not the stupidest story line I’ve ever heard or most abstract (that would be Kool-Aid Man on the Atari 2600 for both counts), they should have made it a little more epic, as this was Bubsy’s virgin game.
Graphics: 8/10
On the positive side the graphics are bright, colorful, and aesthetically pleasing; aside from the phallic-shaped mesas in the background of the first area and title-screen. While they are nothing spectacular, they keep the stages from looking dull or uninspired.
Audio: 7/10
Once again nothing special here, the music gets the job done without being very memorable. Moreover, Bubsy’s catch-phrases while mildly amusing at first, get annoying once you’ve heard them 50 times over. Also, the sound quality of the music and sound effects could stand to be improved, especially on the Genesis version.
Challenge: 9/10
I was tempted to give the challenge a 10/10, because it’s about as hard as they come, but some of the challenge is for the wrong reason. This is really Bubsy’s strong suit, for reasons mentioned above and the fact that you die in one hit. To give you some idea, think of the levels in the Sonic series, only twice as long and with four times as many enemies. Also, there are 16 levels total, which is a lot for a game like this, broken up into six areas with three chapters in each area, except the last one. Another thing that makes this game hard is the bosses, if you don’t hit them just right you die, and once you hit a boss with your glide-attack you bounce to the other side of the screen and it’s very hard to control where you land. Lastly, there is the funky hit-detection; if even one pixel of your body touches an enemy you die.
Replay Value-3/10
Once you’ve spent the countless hours it takes to finish this game and seen the bad 15-second ending there really is no reason to play this game again, other than to prove to people that you’ve actually beaten it. They could’ve at least rewarded you with a sound mode.
Overall Conclusion: 7/10
Some people think Bubsy is a kind of poor man’s Sonic the Hedgehog, because of the similar gameplay, but Bubsy is a good game in its own right despite popular opinion. I’ve played it enough to know that while the gameplay is similar, it is not a rip-off of Sonic the Hedgehog. Instead, it is the product of a small-time company trying to compete with the “big guys” the only way they know how, by imitation. Even though there are a lot of games like that out there (i.e. Hydlide, Mystery Quest) this title stands out, as in general it is a better quality game. The best way that I can put it is that it’s mediocrity at its finest. With that said I would recommend buying this game if you’re into old-school platformers, just make sure you get the SNES version as it has better graphics and a lot better sound. You can find it cheap on Ebay, as it’s not well known or well liked, it’s definitely worth the 99 cents you’ll spend on it.
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