In the early ‘90s a whole bunch of video game developers were trying to copy Sonic the Hedgehog’s whole animal with attitude thing. There were a lot of characters that came out of this. But there was one character we got that didn’t really have attitude. He was just an idiot. In 1993 we got Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind. This isn’t a very bad game but it isn’t notable in any respect. It’s just a throw away title. In fact it was so throw away that we got a sequel called Bubsy 2 in 1994, followed by another game that came out for the Atari Jaguar. Then in 1996 we got what was thought to be the last Bubsy game. A game that was so bad it killed the franchise dead or so we thought. Bubsy 3D for the PlayStation. Let’s find the positives.
In 1995 the creators of the original Bubsy games decided to get together and make a fully 3D platforming game using Bubsy as their main character. At the time no one had done this before. Super Mario 64 was still a year out from being released and most people didn’t know what it took to make a 3D platforming game. But these guys wanted to be the first. So they started developing the game for the 32X. But because of how bad the 32X did on the market they eventually switched platforms to the PlayStation. Now I have a sneaking suspicion that the reason why this game is so bad is because it was originally developed for one platform and then moved over to another. But I have no way to prove that. But if you’ve played this game before then you know as well as I do that this is the worst 3D platforming game ever made.
Bubsy 3D follows the infamous bobcat as he goes around a series of very poorly designed 3D levels trying to collect rocket ships and atoms. While you can avoid collecting atoms you really do need the rocket ships in order to actually beat the game. This is a terrible game. And a lot of you uninitiated are probably thinking how bad could this game possibly be. I want you to think about Super Mario 64 and how you use the analog stick on the N64 controller to run around and it just works. Well Bubsy 3D doesn’t have this. In absolutely every way that Super Mario 64 shines Bubsy fails. It’s hard to attack enemies, it’s hard to move around, it’s hard to jump, it’s hard to do pretty much everything that a platforming game requires you to do. The visuals are sub par considering that were games that came out at the same time and looked way better in 3D. I’ve read that the creators of this game struggled with making a 3D game because at the time that they were developing this the tools at their disposal were limited. And it’s kind of obvious when you play the game. It feels like an alpha or beta of a game that wasn’t ready for prime time. I personally haven’t spotted too many glitches in the game which is surprising. The game does actually play. What I have noticed though is that the game isn’t really well designed. I’ve been told again and again this most people who attempt to play this game can only last about 10 minutes. Well I played it for a little bit longer than that and I really didn’t have a fun time. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t find a few positives. It was a struggle but I found some.
In every single one of his games Bubsy says a few lines that are comedic every so often, usually at the start of a level and sometimes when he dies. And in Bubsy 3D this doesn’t change. In fact if anything he speaks a heck of a lot more. Now while a lot of people may consider that a negative, and I’m right there with you, I have to imagine there are people out there that enjoy these comedic lines. Now despite the quality of his jokes, and they’re really bad, hearing the jokes gives you something to look forward to in an otherwise dismal game experience. So that’s the first positive, Bubsy has a bunch of comedic dialog. What seems like a very common occurrence in the Bubsy games is that they’re not good platforming experiences. Even in the original games they’re just not fun to play. They introduce all of these weird rules that are foreign to the players who are familiar with more competent platformers like Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Bros. Now one thing that Bubsy does that’s kind of better in Bubsy 3D is that it offers a different type of stage that’s a little bit better to play. While the platforming levels are complete garbage I have to say that the swimming levels are kind of better. The swimming stages, unlike the above ground stages, are a lot easier to play because you’re kind of floating around and the controls suit this well. Bubsy feels like he’s a submarine, which works believe it or not. This makes the level much easier to play. I enjoyed these stages more than any of the other levels in the game. So positive number two is that the underwater stages are actually pretty cool.
I’ve spoken to a lot of people that like old video games and I’ve had people defend the original Bubsy games to me. And I have to say I don’t agree with them at all. I don’t think the original Bubsy games are that good and I really don’t think people should rush to go back and play them. There are far better platforming games out there. But if you were a fan of the Bubsy franchise and you played Bubsy 3D you probably were happy because it did reference the original games. In Bubsy 3D there’s these miniature rocket ships you can ride that are reminiscent of the ones you would have found in Bubsy 2. On top of that a lot of the enemies in this game are referenced from Bubsy 1. This may seem uninteresting to most people but the fact that they actually made references to the original games shows that they were trying to put some care and time into making a 3D game that would please the fans of the original series. I don’t know how many fans are actually out there but if you are a fan and you haven’t played Bubsy 3D well you might smile once or twice from some of these references. So the third positive is this game references the original games in the franchise.
There are many animations throughout this game that reference classic Warner Brothers cartoons and their comedic sensibilities. For example take the end animations that play when you complete each level. They’re really fun to look at and believe it or not I enjoyed them. In fact these happen all over the game. When you leave your idle for too long a different animation will pop up where Bubsy will say play with the settings on your TV. It shows that there was a little bit of time and effort put into this character. These animations are one of the highlights of playing this game. In fact if you’re going to play this game for any reason whatsoever it should just be to see the funny animations they made. So the fourth positive is that this game has some really great animations.
This game is one of those really difficult ones. It’s not fun to play, it’s annoying actually, and I didn’t enjoy the game experience. Those animations really saved it from being one of the absolute worst games I’ve ever played in my entire life. To be fair it’s evident that this game was made with a purpose and drive. These people who were making the game obviously had some idea just the execution of that idea was way off. If Bubsy 3D had come out for the 32X back in 1995 I think we’d be looking at this game as an evolutionary stepping stone to what would become the future of 3D platforming games. Instead it came out a month after the North American release of Super Mario 64 and by then we had all seen what good 3D platforming games could be. And Bubsy simply wasn’t up to that standard.
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