I originally wrote this article as part of our GBAtemp Recommends series. Unfortunately, it was shelved by the editorial staff because I took some potshots at Bubsy 3D, which happens to be my boss’ favourite game. As an act of rebellion against this egregious oppression, I’m publishing the article here, in full, uncensored.
Video games are a unique breed when it comes to expectations regarding their sequels. The music industry is filled with one hit wonders, TV shows have their sophomore slumps and movies tend to go for a “bigger is better” mentality with their sequels, often losing what made the original so special. But video game franchises tend to benefit from taking a second bite at the apple. Whether it’s due to the complexity of game design or the relative youth of the industry, it’s fairly uncommon for the most beloved entry of a game series to be the first one.
Case in point: Bubsy’s 4D Chess. While it’s been a contentious subject among GBAtemp’s magazine staff, I’m actually of the opinion that the original Bubsy 3D is not a very good game. The controls are slippery, the colours are garish and ugly, and Bubsy himself is just a grating character, oftentimes less a real person and more just a vehicle for cat jokes, like his obsession with yarn or his (p)awful puns.
This just makes Bubsy’s 4D Chess even more impressive. After defeating the Woolies at the end of the previous game, things return to normal and Bubsy can lead a peaceful life. That very serenity leads to the central conflict of the game, and of Bubsy’s arc. While Bubsy is praised as a saviour, people’s reverence for him can’t help but diminish over time, and, without the dazzle of his heroics, he begins to grate on people. The cat puns and stereotypical behaviour are thin replacements for a personality, and as we see through flashbacks, Bubsy has always had a hard time with vulnerability, instead choosing to obscure the real him under his obnoxious behaviour. There’s even an implication that Bubsy’s actions in the previous games weren’t born out of generosity or empathy, but nihilism. If he couldn’t gain people’s favour naturally, maybe he could do it by facing extraordinary danger, and if he lost his life trying, what loss was there really?
There’s also an escalation of events that keeps Bubsy grounded and sympathetic as a character, even as his actions become less and less defensible. Floundering to maintain his relevance, he tries changing his appearance, dyeing himself black to revitalize his public image. When that fails, he tries to become a regular street-level crime fighter, but having had a taste of the good life, is less willing to risk his neck for others. In a final moment of desperation, he contacts the Woolies and offers them his collection of yarn, the very thing he risked life and limb to protect previously, if they stage an attack and allow him to “save” everyone again. It’s a breathtaking sequence, watching him shed one false self for another. It’s a smart subversion of audience expectations too, as ridding himself of his yarn collection, and thus his previous self, would be cathartic in almost any other context.
The gameplay cleverly mirrors the regression of Bubsy’s character by reverting back to a 2D, SNES-style platformer. The levels are overly easy, since the threat by the Woolies isn’t real. It creates a bit of an empty, hollow gameplay experience, which reflects how empty Bubsy’s goals are, but isn’t the most engaging for the player. There’s been a lot of debate among art critics if that’s a viable way to present one’s ideas. If a work conveys how boring something would be by being boring itself, does that justify boring the audience? Does putting the audience in the intended emotional state to better convey its ideas inherently make a work “good,” or does art also have to provide entertainment? Does cost or runtime factor into these questions, and how big of a role does the commodification of art play here? These are heady questions I won’t try to answer, but Bubsy’s 4D Chess certainly deserves credit for trojan horsing them so subtly into a 2D platformer.
It’s worth noting that while the level of challenge doesn’t do much to engage the player, there is a lot of work put into the art design that held my attention. The music is spectacularly over-the-top and stylish animations are applied to Bubsy’s animations, showing how he thinks of himself, as this remarkable hero. But the levels themselves are dreary looking and the other characters you see look uninterested, reflecting the reality Bubsy is shielding himself from through his denial. It’s a simple joke, but an effective one due to the work put into Bubsy’s character, and only becomes more effective as we see the further depths of his shallowness.
Bubsy’s 4D Chess may seem like an ill-advised sequel at first glance, but it shows how reworking bad material can sometimes be more effective than starting fresh. Whether you liked Bubsy 3D or not, anyone who’s played it knows Bubsy and has some level of investment in him. If this story was told with a brand new character, we’d know to expect his downfall. But because it’s Bubsy, him being on top doesn’t seem like a setup for a fall, but just the natural progression of the storyline. You also wouldn’t expect a Bubsy game to take its protagonist’s emotional journey so seriously, so you’re blindsided a little when the first dramatic beat happens, without even realizing you’re invested. It even rewards longtime fans of the series by tying it into the previous games, making this tonal twist feel like the final piece of a puzzle popping into place. And that’s what Bubsy’s 4D Chess feels like overall: the missing piece that finally makes mascot platformers live up to their full potential, and allows the genre to cement its place in gaming history.
Video games are a unique breed when it comes to expectations regarding their sequels. The music industry is filled with one hit wonders, TV shows have their sophomore slumps and movies tend to go for a “bigger is better” mentality with their sequels, often losing what made the original so special. But video game franchises tend to benefit from taking a second bite at the apple. Whether it’s due to the complexity of game design or the relative youth of the industry, it’s fairly uncommon for the most beloved entry of a game series to be the first one.
Case in point: Bubsy’s 4D Chess. While it’s been a contentious subject among GBAtemp’s magazine staff, I’m actually of the opinion that the original Bubsy 3D is not a very good game. The controls are slippery, the colours are garish and ugly, and Bubsy himself is just a grating character, oftentimes less a real person and more just a vehicle for cat jokes, like his obsession with yarn or his (p)awful puns.
This just makes Bubsy’s 4D Chess even more impressive. After defeating the Woolies at the end of the previous game, things return to normal and Bubsy can lead a peaceful life. That very serenity leads to the central conflict of the game, and of Bubsy’s arc. While Bubsy is praised as a saviour, people’s reverence for him can’t help but diminish over time, and, without the dazzle of his heroics, he begins to grate on people. The cat puns and stereotypical behaviour are thin replacements for a personality, and as we see through flashbacks, Bubsy has always had a hard time with vulnerability, instead choosing to obscure the real him under his obnoxious behaviour. There’s even an implication that Bubsy’s actions in the previous games weren’t born out of generosity or empathy, but nihilism. If he couldn’t gain people’s favour naturally, maybe he could do it by facing extraordinary danger, and if he lost his life trying, what loss was there really?
There’s also an escalation of events that keeps Bubsy grounded and sympathetic as a character, even as his actions become less and less defensible. Floundering to maintain his relevance, he tries changing his appearance, dyeing himself black to revitalize his public image. When that fails, he tries to become a regular street-level crime fighter, but having had a taste of the good life, is less willing to risk his neck for others. In a final moment of desperation, he contacts the Woolies and offers them his collection of yarn, the very thing he risked life and limb to protect previously, if they stage an attack and allow him to “save” everyone again. It’s a breathtaking sequence, watching him shed one false self for another. It’s a smart subversion of audience expectations too, as ridding himself of his yarn collection, and thus his previous self, would be cathartic in almost any other context.
The gameplay cleverly mirrors the regression of Bubsy’s character by reverting back to a 2D, SNES-style platformer. The levels are overly easy, since the threat by the Woolies isn’t real. It creates a bit of an empty, hollow gameplay experience, which reflects how empty Bubsy’s goals are, but isn’t the most engaging for the player. There’s been a lot of debate among art critics if that’s a viable way to present one’s ideas. If a work conveys how boring something would be by being boring itself, does that justify boring the audience? Does putting the audience in the intended emotional state to better convey its ideas inherently make a work “good,” or does art also have to provide entertainment? Does cost or runtime factor into these questions, and how big of a role does the commodification of art play here? These are heady questions I won’t try to answer, but Bubsy’s 4D Chess certainly deserves credit for trojan horsing them so subtly into a 2D platformer.
It’s worth noting that while the level of challenge doesn’t do much to engage the player, there is a lot of work put into the art design that held my attention. The music is spectacularly over-the-top and stylish animations are applied to Bubsy’s animations, showing how he thinks of himself, as this remarkable hero. But the levels themselves are dreary looking and the other characters you see look uninterested, reflecting the reality Bubsy is shielding himself from through his denial. It’s a simple joke, but an effective one due to the work put into Bubsy’s character, and only becomes more effective as we see the further depths of his shallowness.
Bubsy’s 4D Chess may seem like an ill-advised sequel at first glance, but it shows how reworking bad material can sometimes be more effective than starting fresh. Whether you liked Bubsy 3D or not, anyone who’s played it knows Bubsy and has some level of investment in him. If this story was told with a brand new character, we’d know to expect his downfall. But because it’s Bubsy, him being on top doesn’t seem like a setup for a fall, but just the natural progression of the storyline. You also wouldn’t expect a Bubsy game to take its protagonist’s emotional journey so seriously, so you’re blindsided a little when the first dramatic beat happens, without even realizing you’re invested. It even rewards longtime fans of the series by tying it into the previous games, making this tonal twist feel like the final piece of a puzzle popping into place. And that’s what Bubsy’s 4D Chess feels like overall: the missing piece that finally makes mascot platformers live up to their full potential, and allows the genre to cement its place in gaming history.
