The Legend of the Steam Locomotive
Kids crowd around a boxy CRT TV while the parents chatter inconsequential details in the dining room. All attention is on the Super Nintendo and the spunky bobcat that it powers. Onscreen, the next level "The Good, the Bad and the Woolies" is announced, and a wild-west scene with Bubsy atop a classic steam locomotive caboose fades into view. No one in the room had ever made it this far--seen what the game had in store beyond the grassy flatlands and carnival mazes of the game's first half. Today, a playground legend would take root.
I wasn't in the room when the kids got to the Wild West levels of Bubsy on the SNES. I wasn't at the playground when rumors of "the train level" began to circulte. No, it wouldn't be until decades later that I'd hear the story, told by none other than someone who was there, huddled around the CRT that day.
Am I making a big deal about reaching level 7 in a 32-year-old mascot platformer whose reputation is overshadowed by the galaxy-tier black-hole known as Bubsy 3D?
Yes.
Come on, I played through Bubsy '93 on the SNES, let me have this.
A Friendly Challenge
"I triple dog dare you to suffer through SNES Bubsy and write about it on the Lete blog."
-Words uttered by someone I considered (past tense) a friend.
Okay, jokes aside, when I got that message, I had to do it. I'm as contrarian as someone shouting "it's not just a phase" on Opposite Day; I'm genetically predisposed to step up to the challenge. So after some light research into Bubsy in: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind--which hereon out I'll just refer to as Bubsy--I was on my way to Bubsyville.
The story in the opener is by all accounts (one account) pretty accurate. Fortune had smiled--or maybe smirked--at a friend of mine, gracing them with the opportunity to experience Bubsy on the Super Nintendo. And those past memories were rather positive, notwithstanding constant progress-killing game-overs. I'm as guilty as anyone for the tongue-in-cheek teasing of Bubsy's less-than-successful venture into 3D, but I've always wondered how the 2D sidescrollers of the series fared. The gameplay seemed harmless enough as a 90s mascot platformer. What did classic Bubsy have up its sleeve? Now was the perfect excuse to finally sate that curiosity while stepping up to the plate to meet a part-challenge, part-whim.
Playing through Bubsy on the SNES
Jagged Cliffs, Rocky Start
Naive as I was, I figured I could jump straight into Bubsy without much prep. It's a mascot platformer on the SNES: you just run and you jump. How bad could it be?
After getting stuck on Chapter 3: "A Bridge Too Fur," I had to reevaluate my approach.
Bubsy (as in the character) is fast and fragile: a killer combo in a 4:3 game zoomed way in to show off the admittedly wonderful cartoon graphics. If you've ever played a Sonic the Hedgehog game on the Game Gear or Game Boy Advance, you'll know what I'm talking about: screen crunch so bad that leaps of faith are regularly necessary, and running into offscreen enemies is constant.
In Bubsy?
Imagine all that and you die in one hit. You take fatal fall damage. Running into a wall at speed stuns you for a very long time. The pounce attack doesn't grant invincibility frames, so jumping on two enemies in close proximity can kill you. Imagine doing this in massive, three hundred screen-width levels, with missable checkpoints.
So I had to pause my play for a moment to make some changes. First, I actually read the instruction manual and learned that I couldn't play Bubsy like I would Sonic or Mario. Then, I had to swallow my pride and turned off my emulator's hardcore mode. When playing games for Better Lete Than Never I generally avoid emulator QOL like savestates, rewind, and fast-forward so I can get a more accurate sense of difficulty, pacing, and the intended gameplay loop. But Bubsy brought enough whoop-ass to make it very clear that if I ever wanted to see the credits, I'd need some help. I was improving with practice, sure, but losing a majority of my lives on the earlier stages is not a conducive way to learn the unforgiving one-shot-kill hazards of the later ones.
So, equipped with the power of modern emulation and the knowledge of what exactly the "pounce" and "glide" buttons do, I began my quest anew.
The Playthrough Experience
Reading the instruction manual is essential to approaching Bubsy's challenge in a remotely fair way. Not only does it teach you the tricks to effectively using Bubsy's offensive pounce and mobility glide--two moves that look and act nearly identically in their beginning frames--it also explains some of the enemies and items you'll encounter, most helpfully in terms of what will kill you and how. The in-game demo will give you some hints, it's true, but not to the level of detail that the manual will provide. And you'll really benefit from that detail.
Now that I'm ready to power on the totally-in-my-living-room SNES again, the first thing you'll notice about Bubsy right from game boot is the 90's cartoon look of everything, especially Bubsy the Bobcat. The art animation is detailed and charming, and honestly? I think Bubsy's kind of cute. The way the bobcat emotes and reacts is some primo stuff. Bubsy's voice clips are also not intolerably obnoxious to me... save for the "WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?" that taunts you after each death on the first stage.
Press Start and you're dropped into Chapter 1: "Cheese Wheels of Doom." The game spans five worlds made up of three levels each, plus a grand finale concluding stage, for sixteen levels called Chapters. Each world shares not only gimmicks and enemy variants, but whole-on structure and design cues. For example: Chapters 7-9 all take place in the Wild West. Every level there starts with a train segment where you run from the caboose to the cab, pull the brakes, and then proceed through the desert canyon on foot.
The game's challenge ramps up in two big ways: first off, the platforming gets tighter with more enemies and traps that the game expects you to get through unscathed. And second, each in-game area will bring with it a set of world-specific gimmicks, with every successive set of gimmicks generally being more tricky (or deadly) to work with.
Each area ends with a fight against the twin queens Poly and Ester (heh) themed to the given world. And finally, once you reach the final Chapter 16, you've got one last hurrah where you take the fight to the Wooly menace's own space ships (to an on-the-nose homage to the classic Indiana Jones theme), ending in a climactic, teeth-shatteringly difficult final boss fight before you tie up the Woolies for good.
When the Credits Roll
Er, spoilers for a 32-year-old mascot platformer that you can clear in less than two hours, but the Woolies' attack on earth, their thievery of the yarn balls and Bubsy's escapades to stop it all? It was all an act--literally. The game is a movie starring Bubsy, and title itself "Bubsy in: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind" is an in-universe movie title! The final scene shows a satisfied Bubsy wrapping up a day of filming, with the Woolies' ships revealed to be no more than wooden backdrops. The bobcat boards his stretch limousine and rides off into the sunset, and the (real game's) credits roll, capping off the game in a decidedly "theatrical" manner.
The Review
Eyes Up Front and Ears Perked for the Cartoons!
I don't think it's controversial to emphasize just how good Bubsy looks and sounds: it fully embraces its classic 90's cartoon inspiration. Characters emote in exaggerated and slapstick ways. Items look hand-painted. Each music track sounds appropriately catchy without becoming annoying (usually). 16-bit console power is put to good use, presenting everything in smooth motion. The screen is zoomed in to show off the detail of all the sprites and background work, and there's a subtle look-ahead effect when you move, helping lessen (albeit not eliminate) the screen crunch.
Bubsy's voice samples are generally reserved for quips at level start or end, with a few short clips during gameplay to warn you of hazards like ledges and big drops. They're not the crispest quality, but you can still make out what the bobcat's saying and they're not physically painful to listen to.
Honestly, one of the main things I'll remember fondly about Bubsy is its presentation. It's charming and full of personality--even though I'm not a big fan of 90s cartoons or mascot platformers. Good stuff.
The Fluffy: Satisfying Game Feel
As for the gameplay, I want to give this game credit where it's due. I'd assert that Bubsy on SNES controls great. Full stop. Now, granted, my first half-hour in game felt rough, with Bubsy feeling simultaneously twitchy and floaty. I was constantly anxious I'd run into one of the game's giant enemies with my own humungous Bubsy sprite. But the way Bubsy controls is quite intentional. After just 30-40 minutes you'll be comfortable and in control. And once you are...
You get access to some great-feeling, tightly-tuned platforming. You're fast and responsive, which lets you pull some hairbreadth precise moves in a game that requires some quick reflexes due to the limited screen real-estate. By the endgame especially, the game expects you to make some crazy jumps and maneuvers that seem to have very little margin for error. And for the most part, you're more than equipped to step up to the challenge.
Occasionally the game takes control away from you--either partially or entirely--during things like the pounce attack recovery or the Looney-Tunes-esque "dangerous ledge" warning animation, but these disruptions are usually brief and easily recovered from. On the topic of Looney Tunes, some obstacles, like the banana boxes that will explode into slippery peels, can be avoided entirely if you're observant enough.
Your basic run and jump are capable on their own, made even better by your pounce-jump and glide. All together, Bubsy's kit makes for some really satisfying platforming where more often than not, the answer to whether you can make an iffy jump is a resounding "yes, and then some!"
The Hairy: Unforgiving Difficulty
My main issue with Bubsy is its difficulty, but it's a big enough topic that I want to split it up into topics.
One-Hit Wonder
Bubsy has no health bar: one touch of an enemy, projectile, or stage hazard and you're dead. Sent back to the last checkpoint or even further back if you run out of lives. Power-ups granting invisibility or invincibility are sparse, with the game's main pick-up besides the point-granting yarn balls being extra lives. And while the game is decently generous with 1-ups (500 yarn balls will also grant an extra life; some pickups even grant multiple additional lives), the 9 lives Bubsy starts off with soon feel necessary rather than a simple cat joke.
Let's make a comparison: in Super Mario Bros., a mushroom or fire flower lets you survive a single mistake. In Bubsy? No leeway: one touch of an enemy or obstacle and you've lost a life. There's a literal infinite difference between a margin of error of "existent" and "nonexistent."
Now add in the previously mentioned issue of Bubsy's unreliable i-frames. Pouncing on an enemy will send you into a Tom-and-Jerry-esque cartoon ball of violence that lacks any clear "safe" period. If there's another enemy nearby, one touch at the wrong angle will instantly kill you. Bubsy physics are what I'd call "ballistically eager" in taking every opportunity to send you on a trajectory, and quick. Enemy groups that should be a simple matter of pouncing in sequence a la Mario can end up killing you due to how wildly you bounce and some less-than-forgiving hitboxes that register you taking damage instead of the enemy. And when one hit kills, one misjudged pounce leads to frustrating setbacks.
Visibility Issues
We've talked screen crunch already: it's going to be responsible for a lot of your deaths. You can pan the screen in the cardinal directions while at a standstill, and the camera does subtly shift in the direction you're running to give you a touch more headway, but these don't fix the problem of a camera zoomed in far too close for how fast and far you're moving... vertically and horizontally.
The charming cartoon style that I praised earlier? The compliments still stand, but the level of detail can cost you in-game lives. Is it a safe platform? Just part of the background art? Or a stage hazard that'll kill you on touch? It's all a guessing game when you're running or falling at speed. Sometimes you'll discern what it is in time, but when you don't, you die and get sent back to the last checkpoint.
Every new area comes with setting-appropriate enemies and level gimmicks that you'll have to learn. What hurts you? What can help you jump? What potentially does both? Reading the game manual will help demystify some of these questions (like how the manhole covers are height-boosting platforms that can kill you if you touch it wrong while its damage hitbox is still active) but not all of them. Sometimes you just have to resort to trial and error, pouncing on something you think might be interactable and seeing whether you hurt it, it hurts you, or you're sent flying.
Giant Trap Labyrinths
Stages in Bubsy are massive. No, look at me, I mean it. These stages aren't just expansive, but layered with plenty of verticality, one-way and two-way teleports, hidden side-areas, and more. These detours are usually filled with goodies to make them worth your while, but along with the yarn balls and power-ups come some of the game's most devious traps and platforming challenges.
As early as the first area, you'll be facing a spike-pit switch puzzle in an underground cave, and the challenge just mounts from there. And even if you decide to skip the side-tasks and make a beeline for the exit, that's not always a straightforward journey either. Just look at the fairground world's hall-of-mirrors door puzzle on the critical path, or the jungle world's Crash Bandicoot-esque vertical climb to the stage exits--rendering "just run to the right" a useless and counterproductive endeavor.
The ten-minute timer Bubsy gives you for each stage is generally more than enough time to navigate these stages, but I've easily spent six or seven minutes in stages while doing only modest exploration. If you're on a mission to collect all the yarn balls, you'll need to hustle--and maybe even have a pre-planned route in mind.
The Fun: The World is Your Litterbox
Despite the prior section, these giant stages end up being mostly a plus. According to sources™ on the internet™ "more secret paths" was one of the actionable design changes Accolade took away from their play tests with kids in the game's target demographic. And that was taken to heart in a way that, I'd say, was pretty successful overall.
The giant maps of Bubsy are a joy to navigate: they have some honestly incredible levels of work put into them. Most levels can be cleared in four or five minutes, but it'd be a disservice to both the game and you the player to end things there. These stages are meant to be explored, gotten lost in, and replayed. Simply running and jumping around the stages looking for more secret doors, caves, and platforms is a lot of fun, especially given Bubsy's responsive, free-flowing movement. It's a shame that half of the things onscreen can kill you with a single touch.
1-ups triggering at 500 yarn balls seems like a harsh limit especially when your running total is reset per stage, but if you're curious in your exploration and tap into that intuitive video-game-sense, you'll uncover plenty of secrets at a regular rhythm. It's immensely rewarding to crack Bubsy's tougher optional challenges, and in return the design doesn't pull punches on the trials that keep the best of its prizes.
It's easy to turn one's nose up at games of the 80s and 90s, especially 2D platformers, that rock a score system for choosing what could be seen as a cop-out solution to replayability. "Just play the same game again but better so an arbitrary number goes up" is a cynical but not wholly untrue take. But in Bubsy's case, the score serves an important purpose: reflecting your mastery of the game. It's a quantifiable way to differentiate rushing straight to the level exit and skipping all of the cool challenges that each stage is packed with, or taking your time (not too much time, lest that 10 minute timer run out!) to experience everything the levels have to offer.
This is why, despite all my issues, I can see myself returning to Bubsy. It's a platformer with giant levels that does platforming and giant levels well. How can I fault a game for excelling at its core?
Final Thoughts
A Big-Ass Disclaimer
Take everything I've said with the world's biggest grain of salt, because my first playthrough was neither on real hardware nor with hardcore emulator settings. I used save states and rewind generously on my full run of Bubsy, and admit there's zero chance I would have been able finish the game without them.
I thought the final boss was ridiculously difficult even with an unlimited amount of retries. Can you imagine the utter hell it would be to attempt that on a first-time run when every attack will one-shot you?
So, yes, even with all of its problems I can still say I like Bubsy in: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind, but that's contingent upon having the cheat-y power of emulation, which gave me the breathing room to see what the game has to offer. I'm now able to go back to Bubsy on a real console and actually make real progress. But I never would have been able to get to this point otherwise.
Should You Play Bubsy?
I'm giving a cautious "yes" here if and only if you feel it in your heart that Bubsy's worth a shot. There's plenty to love in Bubsy, but enough rough edges and sharp spines that I can only recommend with caution. Heck, I bounced off the game the first time and had to take a breather, and I've written above why some of the game's problems are nothing to scoff at.
But if you're a curious gamer like me, with an unquenchable need to experience the game for yourself: first off, I commend you. Next, read that instruction manual. It includes a cute introductory comic and plenty of tips and tricks that will save you grief throughout your play. And, perhaps most importantly, don't feel bad about using rewind/save states. During your first run you won't be familiar with what every enemy looks like, which ones are immune to pouncing, and what heights are fatal without an emergency life-saving glide. Grow comfortable with the controls, the level design quirks, and just enjoy the ride. You won't be "ruining" the game; you're preparing for your next playthrough where you can snag that high score, legit.
Whether or not you choose to have your own adventure with the sassy bobcat, I hope you enjoyed this review (which has turned out to be much longer than planned). Do look forward to when I get inescapably pulled into Bubsy 3D's gravitational pull, and in the meantime, I hope you play something fun today.