Bubsy 4D Review

What should a Bubsy game be in 2026? I thought the answer to that question was obvious to everyone: It shouldn’t. But here I am reviewing Bubsy 4D, the new take on the sarcastic cat from Atari and developer Fabraz. And I’m glad that I am because this is the best Bubsy ever. 

Now, that’s not saying a lot. Bubsy was never good, and he has even left me personally aggrieved with his first 3D platformer for the PlayStation. You can throw all of those previous outings away, though. Bubsy 4D takes the character and puts him into a modern-yet-very-indie platformer that is all its own. If anything, this adventure takes more cues from the failed Bubsy television pilot (although that atrocity has spilled over into previous games as well). 

Bubsy 4D is a very fun platformer. It gives its feline hero a movement suite that rivals some of the more dynamic entries in the genre. You can run, jump, double jump, long jump, side flip, glide, run up walls, air dash, and then you can unlock even more. You’ll even find a little bit of Sonic the Hedgehog with the ability to dash into enemies to attack them or by inflating Bubsy into a ball and running around at the speed of sound.

You can string all of the movement and offensive techniques together to quickly traverse the levels, and the game’s core strength is that it will challenge you to do exactly that. 

In an early level, I was getting used to all the abilities at my disposal and assumed I was going off the beaten path by wall jumping around the edges of a rectangular cuboid. This was difficult enough that it required a few attempts and multiple last-second recoveries to get to the top. Once on the summit, though, I realized that this was the intended path forward. Forcing players to engage with the vast majority of the movement system is smart because it is the best thing Bubsy 4D has going for it. 

The meat of the content in Bubsy 4D are these obstacle-course-like levels. While the game has a handful of other collectibles, your primary goal is to gather five golden yarn balls across three worlds. Each yarn ball exists in its own remixed version of the course, so you just need to figure out how to get past each hurdle and to the end. 

If that structure sounds sleight, it’s because it is. The kind way of putting this is that Bubsy 4D does not overstay its welcome, and I want to be kind because I’m not too upset by this. 16-bit platformers were never the longest games, after all. Even by those standards, however, Fabraz has built something that feels like an abridged experience. The idea is to go back and get all the collectibles, but even that shouldn’t take you too much longer after mainlining the core campaign. 

It’s almost like Bubsy 4D had the budget of a meme game even if it doesn’t really feel like that when you’re playing it. Part of that is the excellent core mechanics that make this stand up next to any equivalent (indie) platformer, but it's not like the game also spends hours making jokes at Bubsy's expense. Don’t get me wrong, that does happen, but it’s nothing over the top. 

The jokes mostly come in the form of banter between Bubsy, Terry, Terri, Oblivia, Virgil Reality, and a couple of others. And no, I don’t expect you to know who any of those characters are. Wisely, the game doesn’t bog itself down with dialogue. When Bubsy does talk to one of the others, it’s most often a quick exchange of witticisms to varying degrees of success. 

Bubsy 4D’s true problem is its uninspired and barren worlds. This is a staple of the series in a way. That is to say that Bubsy 3D for the PlayStation was barren because it was one of the very first 3D platformers ever made, and Bend Studio (yes, the Days Gone people) was just trying to figure out how to get the tech to work. But in a way, this is way messier and far less charming than Bubsy 3D. 

I called the levels obstacle courses because they are often just long, isolated floating platforms that lead from one to another. When you do find a denser part of the level, it often looks garish and bland simultaneously. Everything has this weirdly harsh cel shading on it that feels like an attempt to add more personality than the underlying game can really withstand.  

I’m coming away from Bubsy 4D feeling like this is an excellent way to revive a character like this. The ironic love for Bubsy is one of those things that always felt like it could tip over into an earnest appreciation, and this game stands ready to catch that affection. It excels and even fails in the right places. Fabraz prioritized making it fun to move Bubsy over filling the world with interesting visuals, and I’m happy to take that deal. And Bubsy should as well because he’s never had it so good. And despite my desire to shed the undeserved reputation that I am “the Bubsy guy,” I would love to see more games in this style. What could pawsibly go wrong?