It’s pretty remarkable how Bubsy has bounced back time and time again, despite numerous games that, by rights, ought to have seen him never return.
However, cats are said to have nine lives, and with Bubsy 4D — game number seven — he may have finally landed on his feet.
Well, sort of. It’s complicated. I think this is almost certainly the best game starring that talkative bobcat yet, but it’s still not a particularly great one in the grand scheme of things.
What developer Fabraz has nailed is how manoeuvrable Bubsy himself is.
His moveset is massively expanded beyond what’s come before; in addition to his usual jump and glide, he has a Yoshi-esque double jump, a huge horizontal pounce, and the ability to turn into a ball that can build up some serious momentum.
The game feels geared towards speed-running through each of its 15 levels, and that’s reinforced by a timer and leaderboards being present once you’ve finished your first run of a stage.
You have a lot of movement options at your disposal from the off, and you unlock even more by finding blueprints. These include abilities like gripping onto walls (instead of sliding down them), a crouch jump, and a twirl jump — all in aid of giving you even more flexibility while traversing levels.
Most of it feels good to pull off, too. Bubsy is responsive to control, and once you’re comfortable with his robust move set, flinging him around each play space is pretty fun.
Unfortunately, I find the levels themselves are rather dull places to be.
Stages cast an illusion that they’re large, open areas with lots of fun routes to take, but really they’re quite linear obstacle courses that aren’t especially interesting or diverse.
Each planet you visit has a fun and quite unique theme, and they’re used in some neat ways. The planet Craftus features tape measures you have to run along before they retract, for example.
Scattered about each stage are collectable balls of yarn, as well as those aforementioned blueprints, but once you’ve got all these, levels are revealed to be quite static, empty places.
Enemies are underutilised and pose little threat; I’m sort of left wondering why they bothered to sprinkle in the few that are there, as most can easily be ignored.
With little reason to explore and not much to challenge you, all that really remains is getting through the stages with speed and style.
There is something rewarding about mastering the controls, especially as some of Bubsy’s moves can feel a bit unwieldy at first. But if you’re not interested in going for the medals, Bubsy 4D is a short and rather bland-feeling platformer.
It does generally look quite nice, with its cartoonish visuals and colourful environments, and it runs perfectly well on PS5.
Actually, something I should mention is the game’s use of DualSense features; they’re subtle, but there are haptics in play and the adaptive triggers provide some tactile feel to your glide and pounce.
I’m afraid I found it difficult to get on board with the supporting cast. Bubsy’s cohorts aren’t very likeable, really; I barely interacted with them, save for unlocking new moves from the shop.
Ultimately the game is reasonably well-executed, and while I find the level design to be lacklustre, they’re so clearly built to be replayed and blitzed through as fast as you can manage. That’s fine, but it does mean there’s little meaningful exploration, which leaves me feeling a bit cold.
Conclusion
In some ways, Bubsy 4D is the best the series has ever been; the bobcat’s wide range of abilities affords him a huge amount of freedom to move through levels with style. However, a fairly narrow focus on movement means other aspects suffer; enemies may as well not be there, and stages are static and sparsely furnished. The result is a good 3D platforming character stuck in a pretty bland 3D platformer.
