Bubsy 4D review

The supporting cast are just terrible. Who needs villains when your friends are unbearable jerks?

Joe Morgan - PC

Growing up in the golden age of platformers spoiled me. I got to be there for the release of classics like Super Mario World and Sonic the Hedgehog. Outside of first-party titles, I expanded my mind with games like Rocket Knight Adventures and Bubsy II. With the speed of a Sonic game and the attitude of an Ace Ventura flick, I found a lot to enjoy about Bubsy. When he faded into obscurity after Bubsy 3D , I was forlorn. When I discovered he was coming back, I knew I had to see what a modern Bubsy adventure could be. As it turns out, curiosity killed the cat’s legacy.

Bubsy 4D puts us back in the role of Bubsy, our titular bobcat hero. The Woolies, an enemy race from previous games, have returned, and this time they’re taking all the sheep with them. In a bid to recover the lost sheep, Bubsy and his crew jump aboard the Woolies’ spaceship and set a course to save the flockin’ herd. Much to their chagrin, they reach the Woolies’ planets only to discover the sheep have actually enslaved the Woolies, taken the Golden Fleece, and are trying to conquer the galaxy using their own army robots.

The story premise is about what you would expect from a Bubsy title. It’s goofy and self-aware in a good way. Unfortunately, the story beats are weak, and the characters are even weaker. Bubsy’s never been a narratively serious adventure, but Bubsy 4D feels like it was assembled by committee in a middle school comedy club.

The 3 different worlds are distinctly designed in fun ways

The characters are just awful, which is a shame since they’re so heavily involved in what little narrative is there. Terry and Terri, Bubsy’s niece and nephew, hijack a bunch of his stuff and sell it back to him via in-game collectibles. They’re irritating in a way that makes you thankful they’re not your kids. Virgil, the tech wiz, is condescending with a layer of thick smarm on top. Oblivia, whom Bubsy clearly has a thing for, is just endlessly cold and mean. I get the feeling that a lot of the character attitudes were intended for comedic purposes (in line with the cartoon they once had), but in a modern context, they all come across as annoying and antagonistic. Who needs villains when your whole crew hates you?

From a gameplay perspective, Bubsy 4D is a relic. It feels like a barely functional product with a team that was just happy to have finished in time. The Bubster can pounce, jump, float, and glide to get around vertically. The controls feel far too loose, though, like every move he makes is underwater. To its credit, the system is pretty forgiving. Unfortunately, every set of jumps ends up feeling like some amalgamation of each maneuver, though, often feeling more like a cobbled-together kludge than any form of meaningful platforming.

The furball is a new mechanic for Bubsy 4D. It's something new but has ups and downs.

In terms of combat, Bubsy’s pounce maneuver will automatically target enemies and launch you toward them, much like a 3-D Sonic title, but it feels less satisfying. Beside the boss battles, there are also only a small handful of enemy types you’ll run into and at most, they’ll require two shots to beat. There just isn’t much going on with combat here.

Bubsy 4D also heavily relies on a movement mechanic that, like Sonic, turns him into a ball and has you rolling around the levels. They set you up for traversal with half-pipes all over the place. While it does provide something different, it almost feels discordant with the rest of the game. Levels do have paths to climb, pipes to zip through, and so on to break up the monotony, but even those are often questionable and frustrating in their execution.

If it doesn't click with you, Bubsy 4D can feel like it's overstaying its welcome.

The game shipped with five levels per planet, with three planets. Each planet follows the same basic flow, ending in a boss fight. Each planet is aesthetically distinct, and I do want to give credit for cool thematic variety between the planets. The levels themselves are big arenas with branching paths where your ultimate goal is to reach a golden fleece (which Bubsy repeatedly remarks is similar to a golden star). Within each level, you have 150 balls of yarn to collect. You can also find a hidden blueprint (for unlocking extra maneuvers) and race to finish each level quickly a la Time Trial mode.

Aesthetically, I can appreciate the cartoony take they’re going for with Bubsy 4D but the animations are a little awkward and clunky at times. The game has some sort of filter that makes it look warm and fuzzy layered over the base game. The character designs (particularly the sheep) toe the line between goofy and insane, not unlike a 3D Ren & Stimpy. Bubsy 4D ’s voice acting comes across and middling-to-weak, though that could be the fault of bad writing. I do hate Bubsy’s constant quipping on the smell of leather, though. While the jazz/big-band soundtrack feels out of place to me, it’s serviceable music in its own right.

If I were scoring this myself, my experience puts Bubsy 4D at a 40/100. Fellow editor David Flynn had a much more positive experience with the game, though, so make sure you check out his thoughts below!

You can find hidden blueprints to upgrade your skillset

David Flynn - Switch 2

Discussing this game with Joe has been very interesting, to say the least. I received a code for Bubsy 4D the day before this review goes live, and spent about 3 hours playing through the whole thing. I also played with tank controls because I hate myself, and still, I liked the game a lot more than Joe did. Bubsy feels good to control, if a little loose and floaty at times, with a small set of moves to combine in different ways for different results. It’s like a more basic form of Beebz’s moves from Demon Tides, which makes sense given the same team developed both at the same time.

Bubsy certainly feels the cheaper of the two, especially given its short length, but it’s still the best Bobcat adventure, and it’s not even close. Levels don’t present much challenge until the final world, but are enjoyable to explore and move through. Some have neat gimmicks, while others are more straightforward platforming challenges. There’s a good mix of both in here so you never get tired of one or the other.

The game features a zany art-style that feels at home with Ren & Stimpy

The level aesthetics are great too. The first world, made of wool and yarn, is somewhat generic, but the two after go in wildly different directions to make up for it. World 2 is made entirely of paper, while the final world is constructed from trashed computer parts. They all look great, even on Switch 2, which can appear a bit crusty at times thanks to some aliasing. I wouldn’t exactly recommend playing with tank controls on, though, as it prevents you from moving the camera, making several jumps way harder than they really needed to be, especially when jumping between climbable surfaces or attempting to perform wall jumps. Sometimes the game will turn off tank controls automatically, like in the rare 2D sections, and that always felt like releasing the shackles, so to speak. I mostly stuck with tank controls because I wanted to see if I could beat the whole game with them or if they were just a joke, and the answer is both.

There are several moments where the gimmicks or level designs you encounter just aren’t fun to engage with, though. In particular, anything with Hairball mode, where Bubsy turns into a ball and careens all over the place, feels like a struggle to control. Usually, you’re shoving him through clear tubes or down halfpipes, but one or two times the game will ask you to precisely navigate a narrow platform using it, and that just feels impossible.

The level aesthetics are fun and each world feels unique

Another stage gimmick is… glue, which does what you’d think: roots Bubsy in place where he touches it. For this stage, it’s mostly on the floor, which is less fun and more just making me constantly jump to move. I imagine the intent is to have you think more about where you’re landing, but you can escape the glue’s grasp the moment you touch it, so that never comes across. There was a spark of brilliance here, though, as right at the end of the level, you need to climb a wall using the glue it’s covered in, which was super interesting but over way too quickly.

The last of the annoying gimmicks are cannons, which felt like trial-and-error machines. No matter where you aim it (Super Mario 64 style), where you end up never feels right. One cannon, I might aim super high and still go incredibly far, while another I’d do the same thing and almost land right where I started. It feels inconsistent. There’s one in the final world that doesn’t have a litter box next to it (the checkpoints) so I had to trek back up there three or four times after losing all my health just trying to guess where I needed to aim.

Bubsy's looks pretty good for an old bobcat

The bosses are also very hit or miss. The first one is pretty bad, using the Hairball mode and requiring you to chase a character around an arena to even deal a hit. The second is fine, reminding me a lot of Sonic Rush’s boss fights with the circular arena and the boss attacking you from the center. The final boss is fantastic though, and I’d say it’s more engaging than even Demon Tides’ final boss. That game certainly had more spectacle and weight, but I enjoyed the challenge here a lot more.

I had a lot of fun with Bubsy 4D. The characters are fun, if way too mean to Bubsy, and overall, the game is just a brisk, good time. I do wish it were a little longer, but I also feel like Bubsy’s moveset was fully explored here, and more levels would just be for their own sake. It’s a good game, not an amazing one, but good nonetheless. It finally feels like Bubsy’s found his home with Fabraz, and honestly I’d love to see the Bobcat again. On my own, I’d give it a score of 65 or 70, but numbers are dumb, and you should stop looking at them.

Review Guidelines

60

Bubsy 4D

Alright

Bubsy has always been hit or miss, well, mostly miss, but Bubsy 4D is the only title in the series to be both. It’s either another stinker or a perfectly decent platformer, depending on who you are.

Pros

• The three worlds are visually distinct in a fun way
• The unlockable outfits are a fun bit of variety
• You can go back and chase the time targets, blueprints, and yarn balls to finish the collect-a-thon

Cons

• Controls aren't as tight as they should be
• Hairball is not fun
• Pawsibly grating writing

This review is based on an early PC copy provided by the publisher. Bubsy 4D comes out on May 22, 2026.