Growing up in the 16 bit era of gaming, we didn’t have many choices when it came to genres. Sure, most of what we have today were around to some extent, platformers were one of the more prevalent offerings at the time. While not as popular as Sonic or Mario, Bubsy did have a few enjoyable entries and didn’t deserve to be forgotten like he was. Twenty plus years later, we have gotten the Bubsy game we deserved. Kind of.
Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back is not a bad game, but it won’t be winning any awards either. There’s not much of a story to be offered in this. A short, motion comic style opening will show us how the Woolies, a race of aliens that seem to have an affinity for balls of yarn, have busted in Bubsy’s wall Kool-Aid man style and stolen his golden ball of yarn. Our hero isn’t having it, so he sets out to retrieve his stolen toy.
You’re given the option to complete a tutorial, but it isn’t really needed as Bubsy has a pretty limited tool box to work with. You’ll be able to lunge forward, which doubles as a means to cross wider gaps and works as a sloppy attack. I found this to be less effective than just jumping on the enemies’ heads, as the game did not always register I was attacking an enemy and resulted in a cheap death. You’ll also have the ability to glide and a very mediocre jump. The tutorial will also explain how the moving platforms work, as certain colored platforms will react differently when landed on. Again, nothing that is too hard to figure out on your own.
The level and enemies do look decent and on par with similar styled platformers, such as the recent Giana Sisters or Max: Curse of the Brotherhood. The variety in enemies is kind of lacking, as you’ll face the same three variants of the aliens along with a few area specific adversaries. The music was also passable and nothing out of the ordinary. I did enjoy some of Bubsy’s one-liners, most of which are plays on sayings or quotes from popular film, game and television franchises; a particular rip on Game of Thrones even got a legitimate chuckle from me.
Much like the presentation, the controls are passable but could have been much better. The jump never feels like it is enough to make a number of the jumps you need to complete, which makes successful platforming feel like luck opposed to skill. A number of the platforming segments require you to use the additional abilities in ways that don’t make sense, nor are ever fully explained. I found using the glide ability after jumping often resulted in adding just the little bit of extra height I’d need, even when I was touching the wall opposed to the ledge above it. With no real gap to traverse, this strategy was found completely by accident.
While I can handle a mediocre game, as sometimes it’s what we need to appreciate the real gems we come across, I really hate short games with little to no replay value. You’ll find a total of 1 tutorial level, 9 platforming levels, and 3 boss fights in this title, which put my playtime at around 2 hours before seeing the finale. The boss encounters were a highlight of that time, with each boss featuring a space ship with different abilities similar to Robotnik in the Sonic series.
While each level/encounter features hundreds of collectibles to be found, there is not much content here for those who don’t enjoy collectible hunting. Without trying to find all of the collectibles, each level’s playtime ranged from 2 to 5 minutes; the levels I did actively search out each ball of yarn, key, or tee shirt put the time at approximately 20 minutes. With no additional game modes or difficulties, this will keep most experienced gamers busy for no time at all, but is too difficult for most younger players, which puts the title in an awkward place as I’m unsure what target audience it was meant for. With this being said, I would exercise caution if purchasing this title at the current $30 price point.
5 out of 10
Pros
- Some Fun One-Liners
- Entertaining Boss Encounters
Cons
- Extremely Short
- Mediocre
- High Price Point
Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back was developed by Black Forrest Games and published by Accolade. It was released on PC and PS4 on October 31, 2017 for $29.99. The game was provided to us for review on PS4. For more on Bubsy The Woolies Strike Back, visit its official site.
Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.
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