The promise of Bubsy
Michael Berlyn, the future creator of Bubsy, spent an entire week playing Sonic The Hedgehog 14 hours each day to find inspiration. Tremendous effort. He had been working in the game development industry since 1981 and had a lot of experience.
Bubsy won a title of the “Most Hype for a character of 1993” before the release of the first game. Promises were great – speed of Sonic with the depth of Mario.
So, my expectations of the first Bubsy game were quite high, even if the game was released in 1993 and currently it’s 2026 outside.
As high as was my disappointment. It is nothing like Sonic. Not only on the technical and visual side of things, but on the game design part as well.
Platforming
In platforming genre jumping is one of the key features. Games intentionally break the rules of physics to give player ability to enjoy the game. Platformers allow you to control your character mid air. Something that is barely possible in real life, at least with natural human abilities.
Sonic is able to control acceleration during the high speed flying between paths. Chip’n’Dale or Darkwing Duck are able to control themselves well during jumps in their NES games.
In other words Bubsy had a lot of inspirations to make jumps right. And developers somehow failed. I honestly don’t understand how.
When you jump with any relative speed Bubsy follows the inertia of this jump. You naturally will need Bubsy to stop midair to avoid an obstacle or strike an enemy from above with Bubsy’s mighty rear paws (they are big). You press the arrow button to reduce inertia; release the button to fall straight down, but Bubsy starts to accelerate again sideways with inertia he had acquired before the jump.
Even more, you can release all the buttons and let Bubsy jump over enemy heads without losing any inertia he accumulated.
It feels terribly wrong and uncontrollable. Especially considering how game is unforgiving: hitting an enemy instantly kills you. All the fleece you gather on the level don’t protect you like rings in Sonic. Even more Sonic turns into a ball of needles, or spiky fur if you’re playing as Tails. But in Bubsy speed literally kills you without such abilities so calling this game fast is just inappropriate. Fast here is only how you lose lives.
But that’s only the top of the iceberg.
Sonic games never had water on the same level as the ground. Water kills Bubsy for unknown reasons. And you don’t know where is the area of water that kills you actually starts because it merged with the ground on the same level. Same as with other tiles – you don’t know where is the edge of the platforms. Sometimes it’s in the middle. Sometimes it’s really on the edge.
Same goes with enemies. There is a giraffe at the wild west train levels. When I encountered giraffes I already knew that you can’t apply normal game logic in Bubsy. Head of giraffe kills you but other parts of the animal don’t. Why not just let giraffes not to kill Bubsy? What Bubsy even did to them?
Everything in this game acts without logic: At carnival level touching hot dogs is killing you, but ice creams just apply a temporary stun.
You already have no idea how to perceive these obstacles but without hitting them you have no ways to determine the outcome. You learn by losing in-game lives.
Even roller coaster cart wheels are killing you, but not the other parts.
Sometimes you just die for no reason. Especially until you learn that even height is able to kill you. Maybe that’s how they justified gliding abilities of Bubsy. Glide is the only option to avoid death by falling.
At any moment of time you may also be killed by an egg flying out of nowhere from an enemy you can’t see because somehow they messed up the camera in 2d game. How frequently you have used the ability to look up in Sonic? In Claws Encounters because of the terrible camera you will need to use it a lot. Otherwise you will just hit an enemy with your head. Unlike Sonic Bubsy doesn’t become a spiked ball during jumps so he dies if he hits an enemy with his head.
So, platforming here is unforgiving, devastatingly difficult and just simply not funny.
Humor
I need to give it a credit game looks like a hallucinogenic trip while still having recognizable objects. Same as future games like Bubsy 3D and Bubsy 4D. Why are you being attacked by hotdogs and ice creams? Why do birds drop eggs on you? Well, that’s part of the style.
I find it funny. I find even Bubsy funny when he is being annoying. He is a character with severe ADHD issues many people can relate to.
Bubsy is dying from everything while a moment ago he looked like a cool bobcat at you. And Bubsy has variety of dying animations and they feel like the game is trolling you for losing. Even more Bubsy sometimes feel like a villain. Without backstory it looks like Bubsy is terrorizing handless rabbits. They already have no hands, Bubsy, stop making them suffer even more.
Woollies, as they are called, have their own unique sprites depending on the theme of the level. At the carnival they look like clowns. At green hill level they look like themselves. And all the time they are mocking Bubsy with their animations.
Also Bubsy says his iconic “What could possibly go wrong” and you just want to tell him “everything”.
Game Design
There was an exact moment when I concluded that Claws Encounters are a smoker’s clone of Sonic. When I finally found at least one invincibility bonus I decided to enjoy doing whatever I want while I have it and found out that it works only against the enemies. It doesn’t work against spikes. How do I even know that considering majority of the best platformers of the era gave you immunity against spikes together with invincibility?
Second – not all bonuses are actually bonuses. There is a box with an anvil that you literally can’t open. And even more there is a box with push pins that look like a bonus but kill you.
One of the goals of game design Is to make the experience of the game to be enjoyable. Game design together with level design are helping you to perform something epic and enjoy the game.
In Claws Encounters you learn fast to be afraid of doing blind jumps because they are unforgiving. You learn not to go too fast because you lose control over a character thanks to inertia.
You learn to be cautions about bonuses. Sonic has spoiled bonuses as well but Sonic dies only if he has no rings and this bonuses are very rare.
Enemies that looks the same have different behaviors. Until this game I assumed that when you want to add something new – you should change the graphics and add some different details. Or be consistent that old enemies on new levels may behave differently. But in Bubsy it’s pure random. At least in future games they fixed this part.
Another topic – Bosses. Sonic shined with bosses and different mechanics to win against them. When at the second location in Bubsy in Claws Encounters I encountered (pun intended) the same boss as at the first location I couldn’t believe they tried to compete with Sonic.
Pure foolishness and courage. It feels Bubsy himself made this game.
Conclusion
Some parts I liked, as usual with Bubsy. But this game feels extremely frustrating.
I understand that games need time to learn. But Bubsy doesn’t help you learning at all and makes the learning process itself painful.
It’s not the worst game out there. Just to be clear I would call it more on the average side. But even today Bubsy sets some expectations and fails to deliver.
Does it worth playing nowadays? Only if you’re a fan of this bobcat. How this franchise is still existing is incredible.
Read Bubsy’s story in my other article