Uncle Bubsy has returned! It’s always fun to play another title in the franchise, even if this one does end up feeling a little more dated than the last few. The game doesn’t have the best gimmicks and is a reminder of why sometimes the platformers should really play it straight. When you start to get into all of these gimmicks, it distracts from what could have been a better game. Ah well, that’s just how it goes sometimes though.

The general format here is that of a 2D platformer. You are trying to get to the yarn ball at the end of the level but along the way you will have to dodge several obstacles and take on enemies. Bubsy himself is very fragile so a single hit will take out his life. Yes, there are no rings to protect you or a bigger form to absorb one hit. If you get hit at all then it’s curtains and it is very difficult not to get hit here. I’m afraid that puts you in a rough spot because there are a ton of obstacles here.

The game does not hold back in terms of difficulty. This is the kind of game where you really have to concentrate at all times because if your concentration slips at any moment, then it is curtains for you. There will be no coming back from all of that. Of course that is where the rewind feature comes in handy. Without that, it would be incredibly difficult to defeat this game. You would certainly have to be going slow which is what the developers intended. My problem is that this goes against the genre.

Now this might just be me, but I like to be zooming through levels. I don’t want to have to be going really slow and watching out for things at all times. I want to be having fun going through the levels. This is hardly the only game to do that though so it’s really just a debate between me and the genre itself. If you can get past that, then the game is fundamentally sound. I can’t really give any big negatives against it.

The graphics are also pretty solid and that’s in large part because they have a really fun artstyle here. It’s the kind of artstyle that will continue to look really good even 20 years from now. So Bubsy did good there and the soundtrack is decent although I will say it is a lot more forgettable. I couldn’t recall any of the tunes for you right here but during the gameplay they certainly sounded good enough.

There isn’t a lot of replay value because the game itself is fairly short. Not like there is an extended postgame here or anything like that. Of course that is fairly par for the course when it comes to platformers. Ultimately it’s a game that I would recommend checking out but only because it’s on the Switch Online. If you had to buy it, then I’d say to make sure you could get it for around $10-$15. Purely because you won’t be playing it for very long and you want to make sure not to overdo it.

One of the ways I’d improve this game aside from removing the maze like structure would be to fix the jumping. The mechanics here are way too floaty and it makes things difficult for you when it comes to momentum. The jumps are harder than they should be and naturally that just results in more deaths. Seeing as how platforming is all about jumping and crisp movements, this ends up hurting the game as a whole and should be a top priority to tighten up. I would also say you should be able to endure at least one hit and adding more checkpoints would be a nice addition as well.

Overall, Bubsy is a good game but definitely not a great one. There are too many obstacles to have to run around and the mazes can get rather old. The bosses are also a bit glitchy with one of them just dying and nothing happened so I had to restart the battle. If they had stuck to pure platforming then this would have probably worked but the back tracking and dying to every obstacle really takes its toll here. I will still be hyped for a more modern adventure though because you can see the potential here. It’s just a little dated in multiple ways.

Overall 6/10