Well, now we’ve gone and done it. Bubsy is back, and it’s going to be tough to get rid of him again. Just couldn’t let the memes go, could you? Gaming’s most infamous bobcat will be making a proper return in next year’s Bubsy 4D, which is highly likely to be a good game given the developer behind it. In the meantime, people now have the opportunity to catch up on the entire Bubsyography via Bubsy in: The Purrfect Collection. All the Bubsy you can handle! What could possibly go wrong?
I suspect almost every review of this collection you read will include that last quote. It comes up a lot when it comes to Bubsy. I think one of the main reasons it became a catch phrase of sorts for him is because you only have to play the first level of the first game to hear it, and the more you die on that level, the more you’ll hear it repeated. Well, don’t worry: the Bubster has a whole lot more to say, and you’re given all the tools needed to hear it all in this collection.
Anyway, this is pretty much as advertised. Every commercially released Bubsy game from the original Accolade era is included here save for the PC port of the first game that went under the name Super Bubsy. You get Bubsys 1 and 2 in both Super NES and Mega Drive flavors, plus the Japanese Super Famicom version of the first game and the extremely unfortunate Game Boy version of the sequel. The Atari Jaguar game, Fractured Furry Tales, is here. That’s very cool, as that is probably the Bubsy game that the fewest number of people have played. The selection is rounded out with Bubsy 3D for the PlayStation, which is the game that most of Bubsy’s current reputation is drawn from. But wait, there’s one more thing! Bubsy 3D: Refurbished Edition makes some changes to the game to try to improve it. Does it succeed? Kind of!
Beyond the games, you get some video interviews with the artist who designed Bubsy and the producer of the Jaguar game, a full music player to listen to all your favorite tunes in, and tons of extra materials like ads, manuals, box scans, and so on. There are even some design documents where you can see the team trying to hammer out the nuts and bolts of the games. Heck, the absolutely terrible pilot for the thankfully never-greenlit cartoon is also here. Enjoy! Overall, I think this is a pretty solid package, even if it’s not quite up to a Digital Eclipse Gold Master. There’s plenty to dig through, and it paints the Bubsy picture well enough.
In terms of options, each game has its own save state so you can take a break whenever you like, plus a few different aspect ratio choices, an assortment of borders, a visual filter, and the ability to boost performance to avoid any slowdown in the original games. You can also rewind your gameplay as needed. That’s a very handy feature for these games. Each game also has a few cheats available if you just want to cruise through. I recommend turning on Infinite Time in the Jaguar game if you don’t want to have a bad time. Your call, though.
Okay, let’s talk about the games. Look, these are not very good games. Surely you aren’t coming to this expecting otherwise. The original Bubsy in: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind is about as good as it gets, and it’s about as average an example of a mascot platformer of its era as you can find. I paid over a hundred Canadian dollars for this game back in the day, and I’d like to act cool and say I hated the game, but I actually really liked it at that time. It’s fine. Play it on Super NES or Mega Drive, as your memories see fit. Personally, I find the audio to be a lot better on Super NES and the gameplay about the same, but the nice thing is you have the choice here. You can even play that nifty Japanese version of the Super NES game in case you wanted to hear Japanese Bubsy.
Prior to reviewing this collection, I had never played Bubsy II. I had always assumed it to be another serving of the same, which is why I didn’t drop the money on it back in 1994. Only so much funds to go around when you’re a teenager, after all. Now that I have played it, I am in awe. Bubsy II is significantly worse than its predecessor in just about every way. It plays badly, the level designs are terrible, and it feels like a game that doesn’t understand what worked in that first adventure. Super NES and Mega Drive are equally poor, but if you want the real hot garbage, the Game Boy version will accommodate you. I mean, the Game Boy can only do so much, but it’s really a slog. The worst game in this set, easily.
Bubsy in: Fractured Furry Tales was another first-time play for me. I didn’t know anyone who owned a Jaguar back in the day, and if I did, I can’t imagine they would have owned this game. After suffering Bubsy II, I braced myself for something terrible here. Much to my surprise, this one’s okay. It’s clearly using the physics of the first game, and that’s a win. The level designs are massive and confusing, and you’ll have to go here and there hitting switches to proceed in many of them. It’s also very hard, mostly thanks to some nasty bees that always seem to come out of nowhere to murder you. I found myself brushing up against the time limit in some stages, which was pretty frustrating. Still, this is probably the second-best game in the Purrfect Collection.
Okay, Bubsy 3D time. To be precise, Bubsy Is 3D in: Furbitten Planet. To be extremely fair to this game, it was mostly developed in a pre-Mario 64 era. No one really knew how these 3D platformers should work, and I applaud the ambition of the developers in trying to make this work. Apparently, the producer got to see a preview of Super Mario 64 late in Bubsy 3D’s development, and the team did what it could to try to improve things without much time left in the schedule. I respect Bubsy 3D. I dig its wacky classic Warner Bros. cartoon vibes. It is not by any means a good game. I’m not even sure I would call it a decent one. But it is an interesting one, and this collection is a good opportunity to poke at it and try to understand it.
On the other hand, there’s the new Bubsy 3D: Refurbished Edition. It’s the same game at its core, but it now features widescreen, analog controls, and the ability to control the camera with the right stick. Those analog controls aren’t tank controls, either. It makes the game feel more like a post-Mario 64 3D platformer, and the camera control allows you to see all kinds of details you wouldn’t have been able to in the original. There are some other changes here and there, such as the way the camera moves when you jump, though that sometimes makes it harder to see where you’re going. Even with that, I suspect the average player would find this to be a better way to play Bubsy 3D. Does it make it a good game? Again, no. But still interesting!
All of the games are emulated and are running via Limited Run Games’ Carbon Engine wrapper. The Jaguar emulation is using BigPEmu, the emulator used in Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration. I’ve played every Carbon release from Limited Run, and it’s been a hot and cold experience at times. Luckily, I can report that, as far as I can tell, the emulation here in the Switch version is very accurate to the original games. I’m less familiar with Bubsy II and Fractured Furry Tales than I am with the other titles, but if there were any issues, they weren’t obvious.
If you are at all interested in the idea of a Bubsy the Bobcat collection, Bubsy in: The Purrfect Collection won’t leave you hanging. It has all of the “classic” games in almost every variation that was ever made, the emulation is solid, and the extras are a fun romp. I don’t think these games are quite as bad as their reputation suggests, but they aren’t much better than that. Nevertheless, there is a unique feel to this series that, for better or worse, makes it stand out from the pack. Ultimately, this is a well-executed collection of some highly dubious yet oddly fascinating titles. A snapshot of an era, no matter how much we might want to forget it. Perhaps that makes it worth its weight in hairballs.
Version Tested: Nintendo Switch
Review copy provided by Atari
