Bubsy 4D Review (Switch 2)

Reputation matters, and few video game characters have spent longer trapped beneath the weight of their own than Bubsy. The wisecracking bobcat arrived in 1993 as Accolade's answer to the '90s mascot-platformer boom and promptly became notorious for clumsy design and punishing controls. Yet, the bobcat kept clawing his way back into new releases regardless.

Since acquiring the rights to Bubsy, Atari has been intent on nudging him through a belated redemption arc. Two underwhelming modern revivals and a poorly received retro collection have not exactly made that easy, but Bubsy 4D, developed by independent studio Fabraz (Slime-san, Demon Tides), is the first of these efforts that feels like it has a real idea of what Bubsy could be.

While still a long way from clawing at the heels of the genre's biggest names, Bubsy 4D gets one very important thing right. It is a solid mid-tier 3D platformer built around speed, momentum, and replayability, and it directly tackles the flaw that has dogged the series from the beginning: Bubsy is now genuinely satisfying to control, if you can believe it.

His double jump, glide, flutter, pounce, and wall-scramble can all be chained together with surprising elegance, giving you multiple ways to correct mistakes in mid-air, while a new hairball roll adds a burst of Sonic-like momentum that sends him rocketing through half-pipes and feeds neatly into the game's obvious speedrunning ambitions.

Bubsy 4D's stages are more sprawling obstacle courses than sandboxes, emphasising traversal while being fairly shallow in terms of exploration. Levels are open enough to invite some poking around for collectibles, but their real purpose is to test how well you can string Bubsy's moves together across long gaps, moving platforms, and timed hazards.

Each stage asks you to reach the Golden Fleece at the end, collecting yarn along the way and hunting for blueprints that unlock new shop items or abilities. Generous checkpointing does a lot to keep that focus enjoyable rather than frustrating. Most failed jumps simply drop Bubsy back to where he started, but he can be kicked back to a checkpoint after taking three hits.

Yarn can be spent on costumes, while blueprint upgrades meaningfully add to Bubsy's moveset, along with unlocking options such as checkpoint warping, healing at rest areas, or extra movement assists. These modifiers can be toggled, which is a smart touch, letting you make the game more or less forgiving depending on how you want to approach it.

A casual run through a level might take 20 minutes or more if you're seeking out optional pickups, like the trickier-to-find blueprints, but the same stage can be blasted through in a fraction of that time once you understand the route. Each level has speedrun targets, and the inclusion of ghost data lets you study other players' beelines through the stage.

The catch is that the overall level design rarely matches the quality of Bubsy's movement. While colourful and competently assembled, stages are underbaked as actual spaces, with nothing in the way of small puzzles or NPC side objectives or diversions that would make gameplay more varied. Exploration rarely has a satisfying 'aha' quality that defines the best 3D platformers.

Yarn balls, Bubsy 4D's main collectible and in-game currency, are frequently laid out in plain sight, scattered across rooftops and platforms with little required beyond spotting them and hopping over to collect them. Blueprints are placed behind more involved platforming sequences and are better hidden in the latter half of the game's 15 stages.

Combat is similarly lightweight. Series staple Woolies serve as standard enemies dispatched in a single hit. Boss fights against cyborg sheep Baabots fare better, with genre-typical three-hit patterns that have you dodge attacks, wait for openings and strike back. They are not especially inventive, but they are mildly challenging and perfectly serviceable.

Visually, garish colour palettes are confidently committed to, but the overall presentation lacks the refinement of stronger platformers. The game's three worlds each carry a distinct handmade aesthetic, from Yoshi-like yarn-covered crafts to paper-and-ruler themes and more. But its environments too often felt sparse, and large open stretches can look a tad unfinished.

Bubsy's cel-shaded model is endearing in a Saturday-morning-cartoon way, and gels with the game's irreverent, fourth-wall-breaking humour. A pointed riff on a certain Italian plumber's gold star collectible and his cheeky self-appointment as the "orange blur" both land with a knowing wink that got a chuckle out of me, as did a few more of his ironic one-liners.

The voice work is generally solid, too. A looping soundtrack of funky, loungey jazz pieces was similarly agreeable without being especially memorable. There is some minor audio jank, however. Bubsy's incidental lines occasionally overlapped with other dialogue, while a death-animation quip kept getting cut off when the game reloaded me at a checkpoint.

Performance on Switch 2 is largely stable in both docked and handheld modes with no major issues interrupting play. Whilst I was reviewing the game, a pre-launch patch was issued that addressed a number of bugs and made the visuals look a touch crisper. It was a welcome improvement, but it did not dramatically alter my broader impression.