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| Title | Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back |
| Developer | Black Forest Games |
| Publisher | Accolade |
| Release Date | Oct 31st, 2017 |
| Genre | 2D Platformer |
| Platform | PS4, PC |
| Age Rating | E for Everyone |
| Official Website | |
If you would have told me 5 years ago that Bubsy would be getting a reboot, I would have called you insane. However, here we are in 2017 with Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back, an attempt at rebooting a long running series that everyone always remembers for all the wrong reasons. I didn’t grow up during the era of Bubsy, so when I got this game I only had a faint idea of what I was getting myself into. Despite all the negative attention towards the franchise, I’m going to try to look at this through fresh eyes, and see how it holds up.
I have to admit, I really like the visuals of this game. Everything’s bright and vibrant, and feels full of life. I thought the enemy designs were nice, albeit overused, and the levels are simply beautiful. It’s all very pleasing to the eye, whether you’re zipping past it or just taking your time. The music, as well, is as bright and peppy as you’d expect. I really commend the sound composer for making the game sound as well as it does.
The gameplay, as well, is really fun. It’s your basic 2D platformer, but with a few added mechanics such as Bubsy’s pounce mechanic and gliding ability. These add just enough charm and uniqueness to the game that it feels both familiar, but fresh at the same time. The pounce is a bit tricky to get the hang of at first, but once you do it’s really satisfying to pull it off, especially with a big group of enemies. Speaking of enemies, there’s very little in the way of variety. You have the standard enemies that walk side by side, as well as the flying enemies. Other than that you only have one other enemy type in the form of an enemy that runs at you until they either fall off or hit a wall and crumble. They’re very generic enemies, but they do an okay job at what they’re meant to do, which is stop you in your tracks.
I normally wouldn’t spend a whole lot of time talking about the cost of a game, but it really is the killer here. Right now you can pick up this game for $39.99, which is a very high price for the amount of content that you get. Altogether you get about an hour of gameplay. One measly hour. In total there are 10 small levels in this game, with three boss fights against what is essentially the same boss with different moves and patterns. The levels are okay, and the boss fights are decent even if they do get really aggravating, but that it just not enough content to warrant purchasing a very decent hour long game.
Overall Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back is a very average game that is severely held back by being overpriced. It’s very hard to recommend this title to anyone, but if the price drops down drastically, maybe to about $10 then it might be an okay way to pass the time. It’s not an offensively terrible game, it’s just not worth an arm and a leg to play. I honestly had high hopes for Bubsy’s climb back to the top, but it seems like he was knocked back down once again. This was a huge misstep for any company trying to get back into the public’s eye.
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| Overall |    |
Review copy provided by the publisher
