The Closeout Warrior

I guess that Bubsy the Bobcat was supposed to be Accolade’s version of Sonic the Hedgehog. Bubsy is a bobcat with attitude, evidenced by the white shirt with the giant red exclamation point on it that he always wears.

The only Bubsy game that I ever played was the debut game for the Super NES, and it was clearly inspired by the Sonic series. Bubsy runs fast, collects things, and has an evil mastermind to defeat.

The story was pretty typical for a video game: aliens have invaded and are stealing the world’s supply of yarn. Bubsy’s a cat, cats love yarn. Bubsy goes out to save the day. Unfortunately, this game suffered from some pretty serious design flaws that made it ridiculously frustrating.

The levels in this game are freaking enormous. You have to go in the general direction of ‘to the right’ collecting the insane amount of yarn on the way (hundreds per level). Problems become apparent once you dive in. Since Bubsy runs real fast, he gets KOd a lot by things that he can’t see. Or rather, things you can’t see fast enough to react to. Add in the jumps where you’re essentially jumping off a multi-screen high platform to an unseen destination with only the trail of pickups to guide you. You’re going to die. A lot.

You’ll notice that at the beginning of each stage, ol’ Bubs will say some snarky phrase. For the first few levels he says, “What could possibly go wrong?” You’re going to hear this phrase no less than two hundred times as you muddle your way through the game, dieing at every opportunity. It’ll drive you to the brink of madness.

And, what do you get if you suffer through the entire game, memorizing stage layouts and sacrificing several thousand bobcats to defeat the invading aliens? You get the most unsatisfying ending I’ve ever seen for the amount of effort involved.

Do. Not. Bother.

I’m a sucker for console role playing games. Give me a good one and I’ll be dead to the world for a few weeks. And when I played Earthbound? I was dead to the world for months.

Why did I like the game so much? It’s hard to say. At first glance it appears to be pretty atypical as far as role playing games go. It’s set in the 90’s instead of some medieval period, the graphics are far from stellar, and

The game starts when Ness, a kid with psychic abilities, is awakened by a meteor crashing down near his house. He goes to investigate, and is befriended by a bee sent from the future who tells him that he’s destined to save the world. He’s then accosted by a robot who was sent back to deal with Ness and the bee.

Then it gets weird.

In your quest to guide Ness to save the world, you’ll encounter street gangs, zombies, aliens, dinosaurs, sea monsters, monkeys, and… ambulatory cups of coffee. Most of these bent by the will of Giygas, the ill-defined evil entity and antagonist of the game. Of course, in typical role playing game fashion, you have to defeat them all, and do a little time traveling to win.

I suppose what I like about this game is that it’s exceptionally well written, and never takes itself too seriously. Sure, there’s a world to save, but no reason to not throw in a gag every now and then. Check out the dialog at about 4:30 in the following clip.

So what we end up with is a game that’s almost completely incomprehensible, yet makes a strange amount of sense in its own universe, and it still manages to somehow mostly come together in the end. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this game to anyone, but you can’t find it. It enjoyed exactly one release here in the US, and all other sequels haven’t made it over here for some reason, likely because of dismal sales of the original, despite a fairly vocal fanbase. Which is a real shame.

And, no, my copy is not for sale.