So, who is Bubsy? Bubsy was a 2D mascot platformer from the 16 bit era appearing on Snes, Jaguar (which had it's own exclusive Bubsy game, nice) and most importantly Mega Drive. I played a lot of Bubsy 1 and some of 2, and they were okay, but as a kid when I only had a handful of games so for many years I would play games over and over again, and Bubsy 1 was one of these games. As a mascot he's not exactly Sonic (or Mario I Guess), hell, he's not even earthworm Jim, more of a Gex or James pond kinda guy, so it's easy to see why few people would have heard of him. Obviously, with my lifelong love of Megadrive, and the whole bizarre nature of a game being released in a long since forgotten series 21 years after it's last instalment, (which was Bubsy 3D, which itself is known to be one of the worst video games of all time (never played it but looks pretty awful)) I was always going to buy this, no question. But then I saw the price, was shocked, then bought it anyway (what am I like?).
So, the actual game. Good god it looks bad, 2.5D, urgh, I get that real pixel work is expensive but at this price maybe they should've made an effort because it instantly made me think of Mighty number 9, not a comparison anyway wants. As for how it plays, well, Bubsy was never a great game, and unfortunately there is no difference here, don't get me wrong, it's not the worst game ever made but it's average at best. Trying to be positive now they've introduced an interesting idea on a platformer that I have never come across before where they give you a set amount of lives at the start of each level (9, cause he's a cat (Did i mention that yet? That was where the yarn joke at the start came from)) rather than carrying lives level to level. This is an interesting idea but not implemented well, because there's too many lives. Some of the levels towards the end of the game are quite difficult (what with their insta-death sections (that being a part of a level that will kill you that the only way you would know it's coming is by dying to it already (or dumb luck) that appears in varying amounts in platforms depending on how well designed they are)) but due to being given a large quantity of lives you can brute force your way through these levels fairly easily.
They also have an interesting idea on bosses where the damage dealt to the boss carries over even after you've died (until you've lost all 9 lives anyway) which is great for me because it makes them easier and as I say nearly every time, I hate bosses. For a player who isn't so easily frustated as me this would no doubt make it way too easy to defeat them. that said, I still struggled a lot of the second boss (yet got through the last one on the first time of asking). A final issue, this game took me approximately 3 hours to complete, maybe less, and half hour of that was being stuck on the second boss, sure there are collectables but I have no interest in getting them (maybe if it had a platinum trophy (still probably not)) and this game was £25! twenty five pounds!
In many ways it's somewhat unfair to judge a game on its price, but right now on PSN for £25 or less you could get the likes of Resident Evil 7, Fallout 4, Dying Light and my personal 2016 game of the year Doom, which is £9.49! Bubsy is a below average 2D platformer that could only appeal to the likes of me who has an undeserved attachment to the game from 20+ years ago, because it's certainly not going to get good reviews (if it even gets any beyond some guy with 500 youtube subscribers) or word of mouth. If it was less than a tenner then maybe I could forgive it as a half hearted attempt to bring a long forgotten franchise back, mainly for the lolz, but for £25, no.
I guess if you like this game you could also play mighty number 9, but just play Sonic Mania (£16) instead.
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