RR Week: Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind

[Double]

Disclaimer: This is not Bubsy 3d. If you were expecting that, I apologize but even I have standards.

Intro: If you were alive in the nineties and played video games you would know that after the success of Mario and Sonic every company seemed to have their own answer to platforming with "edgy" mascots (which more often than not were animals). Bubsy was Accolades* answer to this, and his first game Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind was a multiplatform game released on the SNES and Genesis. This review is of the SNES version.

*<POINTLESS TRIVIA>Accolade was the first of 3 companies to split off of Activision and subsequently name their company so it was higher alphabetically. The others were Acclaim [now owned by Disney Interactive] and Absolute Entertainment [bought back by Activision].</POINTLESS TRIVIA>

Gameplay: The first thing to note is there is no run button to run you have to keep holding a direction for a while. While this may have worked fine in Sonic several areas of the game are made a bit more difficult by the inability to run on command.

Bubsy also has somewhat of an oddity for a 2d platformer, as it has fall damage, or more accurately fall DEATH as everything kills Bubsy in one shot more on that later. This however is quickly alleviated by two things, 1. You can glide back to the ground to slow your descent and not die and 2. The player will subsequently realize that "Up is Bad" and will instead take the lower paths in levels when available.

The game also has its own equivalent of warps in cave doors that send you to another cave in the same area or a bonus level. I will give the game credit for actually making a fairly decent maze out of these in the last carnival level.

In each level there are several yarn balls for you to collect and yarn crates. However these seem fairly useless as you don't get 1-ups from them and your score isn't is not saved. I really think they only put them because they felt obligated too. 1-up shirts (and 2-ups even) are found occasionally through the game however. They don't move they just sort of hang there. Bubsy's only powerups are a shirt that turns him into a weird shadow thing so you can go all Solid Snake on everyones ass or just ignore them and a the obligatory invincibility item. In addition in every level there are multiple check points, signified as !, make your own METAL GEAR? jokes people. However, there are some evil items too. There are crates filled with tacks, which will cause Bubsy to deflate (not an exaggeration) if he touches them. There also crates filled with bananas, Bubsy already has friction problems, the bananas only make things far worse.
11 out of 20

Music: I've been told that the Genesis version has absolutely wretched music. I wouldn't know having not played it. The SNES version sounds decent enough anyways, if slightly repetitive and unmemorable for the most part. The only music I don't like is the river stage, that one is a bit grating on ones ears.
8 out of 15

Translation: Bubsy was in English first so it's not applicable. While I'm not rating it, there's really no other point to mention this, Bubsy had something that was at that time in most SNES games literally unheard, a voice actor, and some of the worst one liners in history.
Not applicable.

Length: At 16 (19 if you count each Train-Desert level separately) levels its fairly short... but the levels are designed to kill you so you will play through them a few times.
11 Out of 15

Rehash Factor: It's the first game in the (short) series, so it really can't rehash.
15 out of 15

Plot: THE YARN HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED BY ALIENS. ARE YOU A BAD ENOUGH BOBCAT TO SAVE THE YARN?
1 out of 10

Difficulty: Let there be no mistake, everything in Bubsy is out to kill you. Cheese, pianos, slightly pointy trees, beavers, hotdogs, tumbleweeds, tacks, sand sharks and eggs; and those are only the ones I can remember.  Bubsy also seems to be HIGHLY anemic as so much as one hit from anything will kill him**, also slightly wading into shallow water will cause you to drown. To supplement the apparent cheap kill design of the game you are given a whooping NINE lives, and passwords every three levels... with those in your hand the game becomes a mere matter of memorization, but it'll still kill you a bunch of times. The games usage of checkpoints also helps it here. Also on your side is the fact enemies STAY dead when you kill them, no respawning. Even so the levels border on frustrating several times.
13 out of 15

**Actually not true, there is one enemy that won't kill you the Ice Cream in the carnival levels will cause Bubsy to turn white and slide backwards... brain freeze?

Total: 60/90 = 66 + (2/3) %

Bubsy isn't as good as I remember but, Bubsy can be fun especially if played while inebriated. Even then there are other better platformers you could be playing and ones that have far less frustrating design. The games two subsequent sequels on the Genesis, SNES and Jaguar were average at best, and pretty bad in some places (Bubsy II's Plane Sections I'm looking at you!). After this the series went on to create one of the worst games of all time Bubsy 3D, the series subsequently died, as did Accolade. Fun fact, Atari bought out Accolades assets. You know you're at the bottom of the rung when that happens.

Positive: It's not like he'll be referenced in Slot Machine Mk II or anything.

Negative: Those damned gumball machine enemies, they're like the egg throwing aliens, but can't die.

Tomorrow the exciting conclusion to RR Week, that list from Mario 64 is finally going to come in handy.