Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind Review by: yoshirulez! - 5/10
What Could Pawsibly Go Somewhat Okay?In the dark ages when the gaming industry was ruled by Mario and Sonic, those two being mascots of various companies, many people tried to cash in on the craze by creating their own mascots with significantly less originality and some in poor design. A few of these that come to mind would be Awesome Possum, Cool Spot, Aero the Acrobat, Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel, Punky Skunk, and various other horrendous copies of previously existing mascots. Among these is one infamous wisecracking bobcat who goes by the name of Bubsy. A generic name for a generic personality, I suppose. Character design aside, there are some positives about this game as well as many more negatives. Before getting into that though, lets provide some background on the particular title in question for some contrast.
Made in 1992, Accolade whom is responsible for such titles as "Barkley, Shut Up and Jam!" and practically nothing else, Bubsy in "Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind" is the first entry in the Bubsy Bobcat series. Designed after traditional platformers such as Super Mario Bros and Sonic the Hedgehog, the game was built upon the idea of plenty of platforming and plenty of speed. While trying to stand out, Accolade implemented a few features that differ from what its based off of, including things such as fall damage. This is what leads most people to instantly regard the game as one of the most broken and undesirable platformers to hit the SNES market. Most people stop there, but I took it upon myself to experience this game as it should have been, not as people wanted to. And with that, I give you a look at Bubsy from both bad and good sides.
Graphics: 6/10. While most SNES games may have this particular graphics quality, I'd just like to state a few things. This game has fairly decent pixel art, which some games don't quite have. The colors are pleasant to look at, the areas don't feel all the same, and amongst other things the character sprite has a varying amount of animations that most traditional platformers don't have, regardless of the fact most of them are made for deaths rather than anything actually important. Though I do have to admit, dying is a very large part of this game that I'll expand upon later. But before that, let's talk about the character in question, Bubsy. Bubsy is an anthropomorphized bobcat, he can talk and walk on two feet, and he has a white T-Shirt with a red exclaimation mark on the front. That is essentially all the character design that went into Bubsy, and it's not very impressive. Let this be a lesson that you can't create an original character without having some sort of creativity and originality.
Sound: 7/10. Now, I'd have to say the most exceptional part about this game is the music. The music is very cheery, as if it was designed after some sort of sunday cartoon (which would make sense, considering Bubsy had a pilot episode at one point) and it's all very fitting for the areas. I haven't experienced too much of the music, I've only made it to a few areas but from what I've heard it's pretty good. I wouldn't say it's too listenable on its own without some sort of nostalgia factor, but that's subjective. Nevertheless, excellent job with the music. Now, the downside of this category, is the sound. The game contains many voice clips of Bubsy saying cheesy one liners, making awful puns, and essentially just being a great annoyance. Without the option of turning voices off present, you must simply deal with it. The one thing I think that really is negative on this would be the fact that during waterslides, the soundtrack is interrupted, and I really don't want that to happen. It's such a shame. Other sounds include enemy noises that are usually unfitting, and they're pretty much just there. Nothing special about them.
Addictiveness: 4/10. The game is more or less average in addictiveness, its only addictive feature being that of death. Addictive death is something fairly hard to comprehend, but let me break it down for you. There are many, many ways to die in this game. One including fall damage, where if you fall off a cliff too high, Bubsy dies with a specific animation for that. Another death is where Bubsy gets trapped in a car, and it doesn't look like hes dead, but he's technically captured and that counts as a death to this game. There are plenty of ways to experience the sweet release of death, and the game suppliments this by giving you 9 lives. I know this was a cheap and intentional pun, but it still helps you out considering the unfairness. However, if you're intent on keeping those lives, you'll be happy to find out that the way to prevent various deaths is to use the Glide feature. With the addition of fall damage, the glide feature is put there to give him a chance to survive. This can be used with speed as well, so gliding past difficult parts of the stage is very handy. Other than that, you die and revive in an endless loop until you run out of continues. There are checkpoints though, so be thankful for that.
Story: 2/10. Okay, so, game companies usually include a story inside their game manual, but I don't have the manual. I don't even have the box or the game, I played the steam version in Bubsy Two-Fur. Nevertheless, this is my interpretation of the story. Odd aliens invade.. where ever Bubsy lives, and Bubsy has to fight them.. for some reason.. because he's the protagonist, I guess? Well, I was curious so I looked it up myself. The plot is even more simple than that. The Woolies from planet Rayon come to earth to steal all the yarn in the world. I think I like my interpretation better, honestly. This has a plot consisting of nothing.
Depth: 3/10. Well, its a platforming game with average addictiveness, and an only slightly functional platforming system. There's not much to it, but you have 10+ stages to practice with them. I don't know the stages myself, but I wouldn't dare try to finish this game. I'd probably break my laptop in frustration. There aren't any special collectibles, there's just you and the checkpoint. Pretty straightforward.
Difficulty: 10/10. Yes, I consider faulty controls to be an added difficulty. I'm sorry if you don't, but just deduct all the bad controls and then there's your score. Anyways, with some pretty awkward collision detection, you'll wind up running into a lot of enemies and then melting, only to be returned to your last point. Other times, there'll be small projectiles that are nearly impossible to see without the proper focus, and since you have to focus on getting the controls right, you'll wind up missing it most of the time unless you know the level fairly well. And since there are so many levels, I can't imagine the amount of unfairness that might occur. Kudos to you if you finish this, but also stay away from me because you're probably insane by that point.
Overall: 5/10. It's not terrible, but it's not good. It's an average game with average gameplay, and the only thing that can skew these numbers would be the amount of coverage this game gets. It's infamous for being quite terrible and a failed attempt at being the next big mascot, having many famous youtubers talk on and on about the game's shortcomings, usually not bringing too much new to the table. I wrote this review for extra coverage on areas that deserve praise, as well as adding my own opinion on the factors that aren't quite as glorious. I would not recommend this game unless you can get it cheap or even free, as it's really only a piece of history for you to collect rather than an experience you can enjoy to its fullest. It's a nice time waster if you're into dying, or if you dig the soundtrack. But let me cite one more thing that I feel must be addressed... This game is a step above bootlegs, since a lot of bootleg games don't even have the decency to include checkpoints or saving. I'd rather play this than any other bad platformer. And actually, there are other mascot games that are even worse. To be blunt, this game is bad, but it's not the worst.
Graphics
6 Sound
7 Addictive
4 Depth
3 Story
2 Difficulty
10
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