Bubsy 4D review

For every Mario or Sonic that evolves across hardware generations, there are a number of forgotten mascots waiting backstage for another shot at relevance. Over the last few years, gaming has revivals from characters that seemed trapped in the late ’90s and early 2000s. Gex strode back. Spyro returned in remastered form. Klonoa got another chance. Hell, even Alex Kidd made a new appearance. Crash Bandicoot managed the rare feat of actually evolving with 2020’s excellent It’s About Time. Others, like Croc: Legend of the Gobbos, felt more like a halfhearted boy-band reunion. As a former second-string star, he tried to kindle some popularity, but his remaster didn’t understand that audiences had moved on.

Then there’s Bubsy.

For decades, Bubsy has been less of a revered platforming icon and more of a punchline. The wisecracking bobcat became associated with all of the excesses of mascot-era gaming, with 1996’s Bubsy 3D cementing a reputation as one of gaming’s cautionary tales. For better or worse, that history is acknowledged by Bubsy 4D. Surprisingly, the game embraces that infamy rather than pretending it never happened.

The Bobcat Knows He’s a Meme

Certainly, the smartest thing Bubsy 4D does is acknowledge that its protagonist is outdated. Early on, Bubsy’s zoomer niece and nephew treat him like an aging boomer who’s stuck in the past. They recycle his catchphrases with irony and react to his merch the same way a kid might sneer at an Atari 2600 game. Their teasing turns 4D into something more interesting that a straightforward reboot, offering a glimpse into the psyche legacy character who knows his best days are behind him. While Bubsy 4D certainty isn’t in the same league as Aronofsky’s The Wrestler, the game’s perspective is broader than just basic nostalgia.

Instead, the game positions Bubsy as someone trying to adapt to a style that barely resembles the one that once made him famous. And here’s the surprisingly thing: the old bobcat adapts better than expected. Developer Fabraz demonstrated with Demon Tides that they can build a solid platformer that’s built around exploration rather than delivering a traditional test of reflexes. So, instead of adhering to straightforward left-to-right movement, Bubsy 4D sends you trekking through a trio of 3D worlds that contain five stages apiece. Each is designed to feel more like a playground than a tightly scripted platforming gauntlet.

Freedom, But At What Cost?

Undoubtedly, navigation is Bubsy 4D’s focal point. The protagonist now has a rolling ball form that immediately recalls Samus Aran’s Morph Ball, particularly when navigating curved tubing at high speeds. These moments add a welcome sense of momentum even if Fabraz doesn’t know quite to do with the mechanic. But now, Bubsy can launch himself across distant gaps, and ricochet between vertical spaces in a way that feels much closer to a parkour game than a traditional mascot platformer.

As such, exploration is less about carefully timing every jump and more about learning how to maintain momentum. Levels goad experimentation with different routes and traversal techniques, encouraging experimentation as you make your way through each envioment. And there are moments when 4D genuinely feels exhilarating, particularly when you’re able to chain together multiple abilities without losing speed.

Teaching an Old Mascot New Tricks

Yes, Fabraz understands what makes open-world platforming fun. You can feel the influence of games like Mario Odyssey and even a bit of Astro Bot. But Bubsy 4D forges its own identity with an emphasis on verticality and goading you into finding a rhythm rather than telegraphing where every jump should be. At best, Bubsy bounces, rolls, and launches himself through levels in way that keep the traversal engaging and the objectives simple.

That said, 4D favors freedom over precision, and that looseness has a cost. Bubsy’s jumps often end with a floatiness that can make landings feel a bit uncertain. Launch mechanics sometimes send him flying in ways that are harder to predict than they should be. While wall-bounding looks flashy, the move lacks the tactile demonstrated by Bubsy’s rivals.

At the start of the game, these issues are easy to overlook because the levels give players room for error. Missing a jump usually means losing momentum rather than suffering major punishment. But as the campaign progresses, stages begin demanding tighter execution while the controls remain somewhat slippery. Narrow platforms, trickier combo sequences, and more punishing hazards reveal some of the limitations of Bubsy’s movement system.

“What Could Possibly Go Wrong?”

There were some instances where failure didn’t feel entirely like my mistake. Instead, it felt like the game and I disagreed about how Bubsy was supposed to move through things. Still, even when the precision falters, the sheer energy of Bubsy 4D remains appealing. The game constantly throws new traversal challenges at you, and the willingness to embrace experimentation helps offset some of the frustration. It may not achieve the polished mastery of Nintendo’s best platformers, but it also avoids feeling stale.

The campaign itself is fairly brief, lasting around five hours depending on completion goals. And I think anymore more than that might have pushed things toward tedium. There is some additional replay value through the game’s ‘9 Lives’ mode, which adds higher stakes to each run. It’s a decent extra, though it feels like a missed opportunity, given there’s no scoring. Bubsy 4D is at its best when players are improvising routes and maintaining flow, and a point system would have been a pleasant callback to the the bobcat’s roots.

A Short, But Enjoyable Ride Through the Fourth Dimension

Ultimately, Bubsy 4D doesn’t completely redeem its lead as a gaming icon. The game is uneven, occasionally frustrating, and can be rough around the edges. But unlike many mascot revivals that feel content to coast on nostalgia alone, this one actually tries to reinterpret its character for a different era of platforming. Bubsy may still be a boomer mascot in a zoomer world, but 4D proves an old bobcat can still learn a few new tricks.

Bubsy 4D was played on PC with review code provided by the publisher.