Nobody actually asked for a Bubsy revival. Honestly, when the news broke back in 2017 that a new game was coming, the internet didn't cheer. It sighed. Loudly. For a solid two decades, Bubsy the Bobcat was the poster child for everything wrong with the 1990s "mascot with attitude" craze. He was loud, his games were punishingly difficult for the wrong reasons, and then came Bubsy 3D—a game so visually offensive it basically killed the franchise on sight.
Then came Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back.
Developed by Black Forest Games and published under a resurrected Accolade label, this title was a weird experiment in irony. It wasn't trying to be the next Mario Odyssey. It knew exactly what it was: a budget-priced platformer trading on the fact that we all remembered how bad the original games were. But here’s the thing—it actually worked, mostly because it fixed the one thing that made the old games unplayable.
The Bobcat Who Refused to Stay Dead
What most people get wrong about Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back is the idea that it was just another "bad" Bubsy game. It wasn't. It was aggressively average. For Bubsy, "average" is a massive promotion.
Black Forest Games—the same team that handled the Giana Sisters revival—built this on the Havok engine. They did something radical: they removed the fall damage. If you played the original SNES or Genesis games, you know that Bubsy would basically shatter into a million pieces if he fell more than six inches. It was infuriating. In the 2017 reboot, he actually feels like a modern character. He’s got a pounce move, a glide that actually works, and controls that don't feel like you're steering a shopping cart through a ball pit.
The plot is thin, but that’s fine. The Woolies (those yarn-stealing aliens from the first game) have made off with Bubsy’s Golden Fleece. You run from left to right, jump on heads, and collect enough yarn to make a grandmother weep. It’s classic 2.5D platforming that doesn't try to reinvent the wheel.
The Self-Awareness Trap
One of the funniest—or most annoying, depending on your patience—features was the "Verbosity Slider." The developers knew that Bubsy’s voice clips were a point of contention. They literally put a slider in the options menu so you could decide how much he talked. If you cranked it up to "Bubsy," he’d never shut up. If you turned it down, you could actually play the game in peace.
This self-deprecating marketing was everywhere. The official Twitter account for the game spent months leaning into the meme of Bubsy being a failure. It was a "so bad it's good" energy that tried to capitalize on the same ironic nostalgia that makes people buy ugly Christmas sweaters.
Why the Critics Weren't Impressed
Despite the improved controls, the game faced a wall of negative reviews. Why? Mostly because of the price and the length. At launch, it was $30 for about two hours of gameplay.
- Total Levels: There are only 14 stages.
- Boss Fights: Only three, and they are mostly variations of the same UFO encounter.
- Visuals: While the backgrounds look decent, the character models feel a bit like a mobile game from 2012.
Critics like Brian Shea from Game Informer called it an "unnecessary resuscitation." IGN dismissed it as a platformer based on nothing but "nostalgic notoriety." They weren't wrong, but they were perhaps missing the point. This wasn't a Triple-A blockbuster. It was a $30 joke that happened to have a functional game attached to it.
The level design is... fine. It’s functional. You’ve got your forests, your deserts, and your space stations. It follows the "Rule of Three" strictly. Three worlds, a handful of levels in each. It’s safe. Maybe too safe. By fixing the broken mechanics of the 90s, Black Forest Games accidentally took away the one thing that made Bubsy "memorable"—the sheer, chaotic frustration of it all.
A Legacy of Irony
Interestingly, Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back actually paved the way for more. It wasn't a massive hit, but it did well enough to justify Bubsy: Paws on Fire! a couple of years later, which was a runner-style game developed by Choice Provisions (the Bit.Trip people).
Even now, as we look at the landscape of retro revivals, Bubsy stands as a weird milestone. He proved that you don't have to be "good" to come back; you just have to be recognizable. The game serves as a bridge between the disastrous 3D era and the more polished, specialized titles we see today. It showed that there’s a market for mid-tier, budget platformers, even if they’re starring a bobcat that most people wanted to leave in the 90s.
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How to Play It Today
If you’re looking to experience this piece of gaming history, you aren't going to have a hard time finding it. It’s available on Steam and PlayStation 4, and it frequently goes on sale for under five bucks.
If you decide to dive in, keep these things in mind:
- Don't overpay. It’s a 2-hour game. Wait for a sale.
- Use the pounce. The pounce move has a weird arc, but once you master it, you can skip half the platforming challenges.
- Find the keys. Each level has five keys that unlock a vault at the end. It’s the only real way to get a "completionist" feel out of such a short experience.
- Set the Verbosity to 0%. Seriously. Just do it. Your ears will thank you.
Whether you love him or hate him, Bubsy is a survivor. He’s the cockroach of the gaming world. He survived the 16-bit wars, he survived the transition to 3D, and he survived a 21-year hiatus. Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back might not be a masterpiece, but it’s a fascinating look at what happens when a meme becomes a product.
For those looking for the "Purrfect Edition" on PS4, be prepared to pay a premium on the second-hand market. Collectors have started snatching up the physical copies because of the weird pack-ins, like Bubsy's actual business card. It's a strange artifact of a time when the gaming industry decided that maybe, just maybe, the bobcat deserved one more chance to get it right.
If you want to see how far the series has come since then, your next move is to check out the recently announced Bubsy 4D or look into Bubsy: Paws on Fire! for a much more polished, rhythm-based experience. The bobcat's journey is far from over, and it all started with this improbable, ironic strike back.