New game, new worlds, old Bubsy
Bubsy 1 was directly inspired by Sonic. Bubsy 2 looks like Felix the Cat from NES on drugs. Both Felix and Bubsy now have airplanes, but Bubsy fills you with more dense humor than anything before. Both live in the worlds that don’t make much sense.
Bubsy 2 was released in 1994 for SNES, Genesis and Game Boy. Just a year after the first game. As developers later said they already had plans for the second game during the development of the first one.
Parts of the gameplay got changed according to at least some of my complaints about the first game. Sadly, not the death coming out of nowhere and the overall frustration of platforming.
Bubsy got the endurance to hold three hits and it makes the process more forgiving.
Game in general finally acquired a separate pace and attitude in comparison to Sonic.
I still don’t see any reasons to play Bubsy 2 aside of curiosity or personal attraction to the character according to Rule 34. Same as it was with the first game.
Bubsy 2 lost woolies and somehow started to make even less sense in what you’re dealing against.
The hub
There is no linear progression anymore. Instead you start in a hub zone where you select one of the five levels.
After five levels are complete you get access to a boss fight.
Much like in the platformers of the future.
But it’s always 5 themes you can pick from. No additional ones appear during the progress through the hub’s floors.
First looks like a wild west in the hub’s ornament but instead it’s a level in space with no relation to wild west.
Second is Egypt. Sphinxes are nice, I like how they look at the player.
In third Bubsy becomes a pilot of an airplane. With a machine gun. That sometimes produces shooting sounds without a projectile. Aerial theme has teleports as well as entire houses built into the tree trunks. You also have an ability to reverse movement of your airplane using R and L buttons.
Forth theme is music where you jump from note to note and climb to the top of the level. The enemy on a screenshot below remind me of H. R. Giger. Mass of muscles on a distorted human flesh. Bubsy 2 triggers dark sides of my imagination.
Fifth is medieval. This one looks more like the first Bubsy’s game.
There are only three floors in the hub. So through the whole franchise Bubsy keeps the amount of levels close to 15. Same as with Bubsy 3D and Bubsy 4D.
Before you enter the hub you need to choose “East Wing” and “West Wing”. They have different level layouts but the same themes so the variety is questionable, but Bubsy 2 provides you an illusion of choice.
I bet developer’s plan was to make the game a bit longer and that’s it, instead of spending time on more themes. Cause if you play really well one wing of the hub would be simply short.
New abilities
Bubsy got an inventory.
Aside from a bomb with the most boring animation of enemies’ annihilation Bubsy now have a gun.
Literally a gun that shoots bullets.
And somehow developers of Bubsy don’t learn from the games released on Sega MD or NES.
Bubsy on SNES sometimes doesn’t shoot at all when you press the button. Sometimes he produces sound of shooting but without a projectile. Like with the first game I thought for a moment maybe the problem is with ROM or emulator but no. This game was just released unpolished.
Even more. You can fly an airplane on the space level as a mini game and you need to press inventory switch button for your gun to start shooting again after the flight. Otherwise it does nothing. A very specific bug if you use machine gun a lot but how QA missed it I have no idea.
Probably if I get a real SNES one day I just play it to compare the experience because these problems are hard to believe into. Hard to believe such flaws went to production.
At the end of the level you can exchange items in your inventory for cards (some kind of money) and cards for items. Many enemies drop cards you collect to exchange later in the shop.
And it’s not bad. It’s just hard to use the inventory. But aside of it the idea itself is actually good. And if shooting was been done properly it would be even fun. They should have made Bubsy into contra.
Also you got a diving suit that you can put on at any moment and a level escape item to return to the hub.
Mini games
Have you watched pilot of the Bubsy’s cartoon? Well, it was just a pilot episode but part of it went into the second part of the game. Sadly, cartoon didn’t depict any woolies and instead Bubsy is now … living a normal Bubsy’s life?
Now there are mini games, very much like in Sonic but worse.
In the first mini game you need to throw a frog into a pool with a giant beaver, stars and boats. There are boats that twice smaller than beaver. They are like a beaver kaiju – Beazilla.
The only good animation over here is the flying path of the frog that is for some reason controllable mid-flight with the dpad.
If you destroy enough objects you will get an additional life.
I bet all the money for this mini-game went into frog’s animation. Even Bubsy is terribly animated.
To enter the second game you need Bubsy to put on the diving suit and jump into the water.
Stage looks like an underwater platformer with fish where the goal is to collect the bubbles. The main antagonist is water tornado that returns you to the surface. You’re getting only the score: I didn’t notice any additional bonus if you collect all the bubbles on the level.
Third one is truck and armadillo. The one from the show’s pilot. Yes, he can be wound on a wheel of the truck but it won’t kill him. Instead it will nullify the rest of your time and you won’t get a time bonus. So you need to choose a correct pipe to fall down.
Armadillo was scared of trucks. But even more he was scared of Bubsy. I would be scared of Bubsy as well.
Inside the truck is a labyrinth. You control fans that push armadillo around until the timer runs out or you’ll find an exit into the wheel or between the wheels. Sometimes among the collectible balls there are lives.
Considering how mediocre the platforming is it’s hard to say was it a good idea to add mini-games or not. I find these mini games horribly made but they still add to the character of the game. Without them Bubsy won’t be Bubsy.
I just wish for a better implementation.
Boss fights
What if I tell you that the boss of the second floor is the same as the boss of the first floor just more difficult? Well, sometimes it’s okay, when boss is interesting to fight.
But what if I tell you that it’s just regular enemies that temporary appear from the windows to shoot projectiles?
It is this bad. I honestly expected the third boss to be the same but it appeared to be a robot that shoots lightning bolts and pies.
The pilot of the robot is Oinker P. Hamm, a boar and a capitalist (who else could it be?).
Music
I rarely put an accent on music. There are two cases – it’s too good to not to mention. Or bad. Music in Bubsy 2 is terrible.
Not only this but speed of the music is bond to the speed of Bubsy. In other words faster you move faster the music goes and creates the cacophony of farts.
Gameplay
Gameplay partially stayed the same – you jump on enemies. Sometimes there are so many enemies and enemies with more than one hit point that you can get a half a minute air time.
The only savior over here is the machine gun because it one shots all the enemies excluding bosses.
Game simply lags on SNES, when a lot of stuff is happening on the screen. And a lot of stuff happens frequently. The funniest part is that the level ending sphere always shoots so many collectibles that it always lags and developers just left it be that way (I’m still unsure what these balls are representing. In first Bubsy it was fleece, but in second they changed collectibles into abstract balls).
A lot of older problems stayed the same: you still unsure what will kill you and what will not. Some fire kills you. But fire on lamps at Egypt levels just makes you confused. The diez symbols on music levels kill you without a reason. They don’t even look sharp. Space levels have weird green columns that look like a part of the level’s background art but they kill you as well. At first I didn’t even understand what applied damage to me.
Some enemies look like background arts as well. You won’t expect a small butterfly to apply damage but it does. How it’s even possible? Or the rocks with eyes at Egypt levels. You have a lot of background arts with eyes.
Only trials and errors help you understand what is dangerous for the player.
Camera still works in the way you don’t see upwards very well. Enemies and traps from above still damage you frequently.
Bubsy is unable to do low jumps. He is able only to do high jumps and super high jumps so sometimes you need to figure out how to jump onto a specific platform with a high jump.
When you jump on enemies they push you upwards so powerfully you hit other enemies and lose hit points. This happens all the time. Bubsy is not Sonic so he doesn’t apply damage when he hits an enemy from bellow. Why to even implement such a strong push upwards? It’s beyond my understanding.
I think only once or twice in the game I encountered a ladder of enemies where you really needed this push.
Conclusion
I have mixed feelings about Bubsy 2. Some problems of the first part developers have fixed. Some problems they worsened. Some problems they added.
With the first Bubsy game I already felt the lack of care to anything besides Bubsy. Without doubts they worked a lot on the bobcat himself. In the second part it’s just pure no care at all. Why do I even fight a woman that kicks me with her leg? Why do I fight musical instruments? Why do I need to kill kangaroos to crash capitalism?
How capitalism made butterflies and bees to fight Bubsy?
These questions stayed unanswered.