Bubsy 4D was provided by Atari for review. Thank you!
Bubsy has had quite a contentious time in the spotlight. It had a great run with its first few games, then started a downhill spiral with Bubsy 3D. Since then, the games have not had a chance to let the wisecracking bobcat shine, with The Woolies Strike Back and Paws on Fire being critically panned. Now, Bubsy 4D is a chance at redemption for the franchise, answering the age-old question: Can Bubsy be fun again?
As developer Fabraz has proven, yes, he can.
Fabraz showed their skill for 3D platforming with their recently released Demon Tides, and I’m happy to say it carried over to Bubsy 4D. Bubsy’s moveset caters perfectly to the environment, with double jumps, lunges, glides, and turning into a giant furball to roll around at fast speeds. And they can all work together seamlessly to overcome obstacles. Want to get up an extremely tall building? Jump onto it, jump off, do your double jump, lunge onto the building to crawl up it slightly, jump off again, and then glide back to the roof. And that’s only if you want to use the building alone to get up, as there are most likely other buildings or structures that you can use if preferred.
What makes it so great is how easy it is to swap between them. All of the moves really only use a few buttons, and it all feels so snappy and immediate when using a different move. It’s very important in a platform like this to have that, but with the variety of moves that can influence each other, Fabraz balances it well. Even if there are some unstable moments, like when you’re in your ball form and you veer off course, quick thinking can pull you back with lunges and glides.
The levels are designed wonderfully, encouraging quick thinking and multiple solutions, while also not feeling overwhelming. Each level has a timer as well, so speed running in finding shortcuts, or combinations of moves, to shave off a few seconds to get to the end of the level is encouraged. However, taking time to explore the level will be beneficial, since it will usually have other collectibles or blueprints to unlock new moves. These collectibles can also unlock new outfits, including the infamous Bubsy 3D look. The levels may be short, but they are sweet and fun to experiment with.
However, it’s an extremely short game. While there is some replayability to each level to unlock all of the moves, beat the target time, and get all of the costumes, there isn’t much reason to keep playing after the credits roll. I beat the game with a 70% completion rate in 3.5 hours, and I had taken extra time to search through the 15 levels and get as much as I could find. It was fun, but with the limited scope of each level, I felt like I had seen it all.
The only things I was missing were the costumes and extra moves, but I almost never found myself using the moves that I unlocked. They were nice extras, and it was cool to expand the moveset, but I realized that at the end of the final boss, I never really used any of those moves. The OG Coyote Time move to walk off of ledges was useful to a degree, but the core moveset satisfied everything I needed to get through the levels, and I never felt like the unlockable moves changed much. The Item Sniffer will be nice to find collectibles around the levels when trying to 100% the game, and the extra life is a nice touch, but apart from those two, I didn’t feel like the other upgrades were worth it. The costumes, on the other hand, are great. Most are different jackets, but we have some of the humor in there with the Hedgehog outfit and bringing back the Bubsy 3D look.
With the scope of the game being smaller, the story ends up feeling like a means to an end, but that’s not where the team focused its efforts. The overall narrative follows Bubsy and friends as they travel to alien planets to get back their Golden Fleece that was stolen by the Baabots. It provides just enough motivation for the team to keep going, but it’s definitely not anything to write home about.
However, Bubsy’s humor is in full swing and firing on all cylinders. From Oblivia constantly getting Bubsy’s name wrong to his aversion to doing any extra work or fighting against the bosses, the comedic timing and script kept things interesting and had me laughing. The comedy is sprinkled throughout, from the one-liners to the easter eggs (try dying in the Bubsy 3D costume). These moments, including discussions with the team within levels, were the highlight of the narrative experience. I understand it technically has nothing to do with the narrative, but because this kind of humor is so intertwined with Bubsy, it still feels significant.
Bubsy 4D got the Steam Deck Verified badge ahead of its release, and based on Fabraz’s previous game, Demon Tides, I expected performance to be around the same. And I was right. With the default settings, we get around 60 FPS with lower battery drain, around 10W - 14W.
Honestly, I would probably keep the settings here. The most noticeable issues with the quality come from grass and terrain details popping in. However, we have to bring the entire quality of the grass and terrain up to fix this, and it’s still not completely fixed. Even at the High quality preset, the grass and terrain will still change or pop in when running around. On top of that, there are still some spots where the framerate will throttle and drop to 40 FPS. This doesn’t usually last long, so it isn’t a big issue, but it happened enough times to be noticeable.
Ultimately, the default settings keep the battery drain low and the world looking great. I would prefer to fix the pop-ins, but the cost is too great and not worth the sacrifices with battery life and more constant drops. For what it is, I would consider it very playable and enjoyable like this.
When all is said and done, Bubsy 4D is a great return to form for the series. The tight 3D platforming in great level design is mixed with the humor to create something extremely fun in the moment. However, the length of the game is much shorter than I would have liked, and I didn’t find much motivation to replay, even after I finished. Still, it is without a doubt the best Bubsy game since Bubsy 3D.
And despite some minor grievances with pop-ins and drops, it’s an incredible experience on the Steam Deck.
このレビューはPC版に基づいています。
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Bubsy 4D is a return to form for the wisecracking bobcat, though it's still missing some of the magic needed to be a must-have game. However, it's great to play on the Steam Deck.
