Gather around, kids, Grandpa Nick is going to tell you all a story. There was a time when every mascot with a pulse, a catchphrase, and a vaguely marketable silhouette was thrown into the platforming arena to compete with the kings of the genre. The ‘90s, yes, I’m that old, were flooded with attitude-heavy mascots sporting sneakers, gloves, and enough forced charisma to fuel an entire decade of commercials. While Super Mario 64 redefined movement in 3D spaces and Banjo-Kazooie perfected the collect-a-thon formula, dozens of other hopefuls scrambled to carve out their own piece of the genre. Some succeeded, while others disappeared into bargain bins and angry forum posts. But among those heaps of hope and garbage, there was Bubsy. Let’s dive in!
Guess who’s back, back again
The orange bobcat with too many one-liners and not enough self-awareness somehow became one of gaming’s most enduring cautionary tales. Yet, in a bizarre twist nobody could have predicted twenty years ago, Bubsy has clawed his way back into relevance with Bubsy 4D, most notably a sequel nobody asked for, but one that somehow manages to be far more interesting than the punchline it initially appeared to be. To understand why Bubsy 4D feels so surreal, we have to take a look at the franchise itself. The original Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind launched on the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis in 1993 as Accolade’s answer to the mascot wars. Bubsy was fast, loud, and constantly talking, delivering remarks every few seconds as players bounced through colorful stages, collecting yarn balls. Mechanically, the first game was competent enough. Bubsy’s glide ability added some verticality; the pacing was fast, and it visually carried that distinct early ‘90s cartoon energy. But it also introduced one of the series’ defining problems: instant deaths. Bubsy was absurdly fragile, and levels were littered with cheap hazards capable of killing the player in seconds.
That formula continued with Bubsy II, a sequel that doubled down on the mascot identity while simultaneously losing much of the original’s momentum. The game lacked cohesion, hopping between disconnected level themes without much creativity, though Bubsy’s obnoxious personality remained fully intact. Then came handheld spin-offs like Bubsy in Fractured Furry Tales and the doomed leap into 3D with Bubsy 3D, a game still widely regarded as one of the worst platformers ever made. Bubsy 3D became infamous for all the wrong reasons. Think horrendous camera controls, sluggish movement, barren environments, and voice lines burned directly into players’ brains turned the game into a meme long before gaming culture even knew what memes really were. “What could go wrong?” became less of a catchphrase and more of a prophecy. Bubsy effectively disappeared after that, aside from two strange revival attempts years later: Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back and Bubsy: Paws on Fire! Both tried to lean into ironic nostalgia, acknowledging Bubsy’s reputation without ever really overcoming it. They weren’t terrible, but neither justified the franchise’s return.
Bubsy 4D
Which leads to what makes Bubsy 4D such a strange anomaly. because this time, there’s genuine ambition behind the joke. Developed by indie studio Fabraz, the team behind the excellent Demon Turf, Bubsy 4D feels less like a cynical nostalgia cash-in and more like a bizarre redemption arc (or at least, they tried). Atari reportedly encouraged developers to pitch unconventional ideas for the Bubsy IP, explicitly avoiding “generic platformers.” Fabraz answered by leaning directly into Bubsy’s infamous legacy instead of pretending it never happened. What we got is a game that constantly walks the line between satire and sincerity. Bubsy himself is portrayed almost like a washed-up celebrity, painfully aware of his reputation, which leads the game to break the fourth wall endlessly, referencing memes, platforming clichés, and even Bubsy’s own disastrous history. Sometimes it works brilliantly, other times it feels like the developers are desperately nudging the player in the ribs, saying, “See? We know this is ridiculous, too.” And that’s a bit tiresome sometimes. Surprisingly, though, the gameplay itself is where Bubsy 4D starts earning actual respect.
“What could go wrong?” became less of a catchphrase and more of a prophecy.”
Movement is the centerpiece here, and Fabraz clearly understands what makes platformers satisfying on a mechanical level. Bubsy controls with a level of fluidity the franchise has never come remotely close to before. His moveset combines momentum-based traversal with layered mobility options that reward experimentation. The glide returns from earlier games, but now flows naturally into wall climbing, bouncing attacks, rolling boosts, and the newly introduced “Hairball Mode,” which essentially transforms Bubsy into a chaotic pinball hurtling across stages at dangerous speeds. And honestly? It feels good, and no, not consistently good, but good enough to genuinely surprise you.
There’s an immediacy to Bubsy’s controls that resembles modern platformers like Super Mario Odyssey more than the stiff collect-a-thons of the late ‘90s. Chaining together movement options becomes increasingly satisfying once the game stops tutorializing every mechanic and lets players experiment. Advanced movement techniques allow skilled players to completely break intended routes, launching themselves across levels with absurd speed while barely touching the ground. And that’s where Bubsy 4D becomes fascinating. Beneath the self-aware humor and ironic marketing lies a genuinely deep movement system built for replayability and speedrunning. Levels are designed with multiple paths, hidden shortcuts, and collectible routes that encourage mastery. Time trial leaderboards and ghost data reinforce this design philosophy even further.
Glitches, bumps, and hairballs
Still, the game isn’t without issues, and why wouldn’t it be, since it’s a Bubsy game? Bubsy’s momentum occasionally becomes a problem rather than a feature, especially in tighter platforming sections where precision matters more than speed. Hairball Mode is undeniably entertaining, but it can also feel unpredictable, especially when environmental collision struggles to keep up with the pace. Several sections devolve into controlled chaos, where success feels partly accidental. There’s a fine line between expressive movement and outright slippery controls, and Bubsy 4D sometimes tumbles over that edge. The camera doesn’t always help either. While leagues ahead of Bubsy 3D’s infamous disaster, it occasionally struggles during high-speed traversal or cramped indoor sequences. Fast movement combined with vertical-level design creates moments when visibility becomes unreliable, leading to frustrating deaths that feel disconnected from actual player skill. And no, I’m not some platforming genius, but I know what feels like a glitch and what is a glitch.
Then there’s the actual structure of the game itself. The worlds are visually creative, embracing this stitched-together arts-and-crafts aesthetic filled with wool, fabric, and bizarre alien machinery. Yet despite the charm, many levels feel stretched thin. Collectibles are plentiful, but objectives often blur together after several hours. The game borrows heavily from the classic collect-a-thon formula without fully modernizing its pacing. Players spend a significant amount of time vacuuming up yarn, hunting blueprints, and revisiting stages for completion percentages. At its best, Bubsy 4D captures the same compulsive energy that made old-school platformers so hard to put down. At its worst, it feels like a reminder of why the genre largely disappeared in the first place. And yet, the sheer weirdness of the experience keeps pulling you back in. Why, you might ask? Because Bubsy 4D fully embraces its own identity as gaming’s strangest comeback story. The dialogue is relentless, but intentionally so: Bubsy never shuts up, constantly firing off self-deprecating jokes and absurd observations. Sometimes it lands, most of the time it becomes exhausting. But unlike earlier Bubsy games, there’s at least a sense that the developers understand exactly what kind of character they’re working with. Ironically, the biggest problem with Bubsy 4D may be that it occasionally tries too hard to prove it deserves redemption. The game constantly references its own existence, almost as if it’s afraid players might forget the historical baggage attached to the franchise. Self-awareness becomes both a strength and a crutch.
More glitches or speedrunning paradise?
Then there’s the technical side of things, where Bubsy’s rough edges remain impossible to ignore. For every clever movement sequence or inventive level gimmick, there’s another moment where the game feels unmistakably half-baked. Collision detection can be inconsistent, and animations occasionally snap awkwardly between states. Certain environmental assets look unfinished, while physics interactions sometimes behave like they’re held together with tape and wishful thinking (very Bubsiesque). There’s a persistent sense that Bubsy 4D is one ambitious patch away from becoming significantly better than it currently is. And some might argue that these flaws almost enhance the experience strangely. Bubsy has always been messy, which would mean that a perfectly polished Bubsy game would arguably feel wrong. The jank becomes part of the identity. You stop asking whether something is broken and instead start wondering whether the chaos was intentional.
Trying to imagine the speedrunning community tearing this game apart might be one of the most entertaining aspects of the entire package. Bubsy 4D feels specifically engineered for sequence breaking. Momentum exploits, collision glitches, and unintended shortcuts practically beg to be abused. Watching experienced players launch themselves halfway across a level using some absurd Hairball Mode exploit feels less like cheating and more like discovering the game’s true form. That underlying speedrun potential gives Bubsy 4D surprising longevity. Beneath the rough presentation lies a platformer obsessed with mastery of movement. Players willing to push past the awkwardness will discover mechanics far deeper than the franchise has any right to possess.
Conclusion
Still, depth alone doesn’t completely save the experience, which clocks out after a good five or six hours of story-driven gameplay. Why? Because ultimately, Bubsy 4D remains trapped between reinvention and nostalgia. It wants to modernize Bubsy while simultaneously preserving everything people remember about him, including many of the frustrating parts. The game constantly brushes against greatness without ever fully committing to it. You can see glimpses of an incredible platformer buried underneath the noise, but those glimpses never fully stabilize into something consistently excellent. And maybe that’s the most fitting outcome possible for Bubsy. Because, against all odds, Bubsy 4D actually succeeds in making Bubsy relevant again. Not purely as a meme, but as a legitimately entertaining, occasionally brilliant platformer revival with genuine mechanical ambition behind it. That alone feels borderline impossible. Unfortunately, even breathing new life into the franchise couldn’t fully save Bubsy from the same issues that have haunted him for decades. The uneven pacing, the frustrating design decisions, the technical roughness, and the overreliance on repetitive collect-a-thon structure keep dragging the experience back down whenever it threatens to truly evolve. Bubsy 4D is fascinating. It’s weird, it’s ambitious, and it’s messy. Sometimes it’s even genuinely great. But in the end, it still feels like Bubsy, and maybe that’s exactly the problem.
