Why Bubsy Pawsome Edition On Nintendo Switch 2 Surprised Me
The infamous Bobcat is back to bounce onto our screens, and against all odds, this new iteration brings a massive smile to my face on Nintendo’s new hardware. You are dropped into a bright, colourful cartoon world where you can jump, glide, and roll across huge open spaces that give you total freedom to explore. After putting serious time into the rough PlayStation 5 version, playing this out in the wild on the Nintendo Switch 2 feels like a breath of fresh air with vastly improved control responsiveness. It is an ambitious 3D adventure that genuinely celebrates physical gaming media, giving players a nostalgic package that makes the entire experience feel special from the moment you open the box.
QUICK NAV: [Specs] [Gameplay] [Performance] [Settings]
Bubsy Pawsome Edition Nintendo Switch 2 Review: Specs & HUD
- Physical Goodies: This physical release comes packed with an awesome double-sided poster of our Bubsy, a high-quality art book filled with great images, and an actual physical game manual, which is amazing to finally say after so long!
- Physical Media Integration: Features a beautiful red game card that even shows up as a red game card on the Nintendo Switch 2 UI when you pop it into the system.
- Download Size: Requires a small 1.1GB download size, even though you have the game card ready to go.
- HUD Options: Interface options let you hide ui, display a level timer, track a game timer, and show your streamer name.
- Tutorial Features: Includes an optional tutorial menu option alongside tutorial pop-ups that feature a handy little video showing what it’s saying.
- World Map: World map level select clearly shows what you have or haven’t collected on the map, letting you replay levels to grab missing wool or collectables and quit out instantly since everything saves.
- Checkpoints: Cat litter trays serve as the checkpoints, triggering whether you are really close or really far away, so have fun with that.
- Lives & Respawns: You respawn when you hit water or get hit by an enemy; you can take 3 hits before going back to the level start as default, but you can find upgrade scrolls/blueprints to spend in the hub shop for new unlocks and abilities.
- Unlockable Perks: Let you purchase helpful abilities like fast travel between checkpoints within a level or resting at spots to get health back.
Bubsy Pawsome Edition Nintendo Switch 2 Review: Gameplay Review & Mechanics Breakdown
The gameplay delivers a full 3D action platformer experience across a 3D game world with 360-degree camera control, where clicking the right stick re-centres the camera instantly. Action-wise, you have double jumps, lunges, and gliding, and you can combine them to literally dance across the levels and the air, with the added option to turn into a ball at any point and roll around using a dedicated boost button. The levels themselves are actually very open, allowing you to go off in any direction and do whatever you want, however you want. At the same time, the level design is highly experimental and can feel like a bit of a maze with many routes where you never quite know the right one. But yet exploring the massive spaces is genuinely fun.
The game keeps you busy with tons of mechanics and ideas from a handful of games, using wool balls as the main thing to hunt down. You learn pretty quickly that collecting the wool is mostly a chill extra since you get nothing massive from it outside of a tick in a collectable box, but it does let you unlock a handful of new skins like the awesome old school retro look that transforms you into a pixel Bubsy. The map is heavily populated with enemies that are placed all over the areas, and they just take a single satisfying pounce to take out. There are also plenty of jokes and attempts at humour scattered throughout the journey, which perfectly match the classic, cheesy brand history of the character.
Bubsy Pawsome Edition Nintendo Switch 2 Review: Performance & Fidelity
- Visual Presentation: Delivers beautiful, bright cartoon graphics that look fantastic on the screen, though some pop-in and pop-up can happen occasionally when looking ahead.
- Character Animations: Bubsy himself is very animated with silly jumps and sliding animations that look good and offer a fun change, even if the exaggerated movements can sometimes trick your jump or gliding estimates.
- Switch 2 Performance Leap: The controls are tight and responsive, and I found the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition was a lot better control-wise than the tedious PlayStation 5 version, which is a massive win for the Pro controller setup.
- Camera & Rolling Chutes: The camera gets wild during the rolling parts on tight half-pipe chutes, but thankfully, on the Nintendo Switch 2, these sections don’t seem to be as common as they were on the PlayStation 5.
- Audio Experience: In-game cutscenes and character interactions look nice; the cutscenes are fine, but the in-game interactions are just text-based and have no voice work apart from the occasional word or mutter.
- Online Features: Includes online leaderboards for each stage, where you can filter what you see and set a challenge ghost based on completion times, though I just wish you could view the replays.
- Fun Animations: Slamming into the ground does a hilarious pancake-like animation, though it adds a slight delay to the platforming flow.
- Quirks & Glitches: Glitches do happen, such as getting stuck in scenery, jumping or grabs not counting, or falling through platforms, alongside a weird glitch where the first boss fight turns into a slowed-down, low-gravity-like state that can carry over into the main game.
- Retro Skin Glitch: When you use the unlocked old school skin, you get the classic game over screen, though it can trigger a long black screen while waiting for the level to reload.
Settings, Customisation & Control Details
- Accessibility Suite: Packed with great options like invincibility, a game speed slider, a grounding visualizer to help line up jumps, and reduced text effects.
- Camera Customisation: Features a field of view slider and a screenshake toggle to smooth out the action.
- Cutscene Toggles: The ” Skip cutscenes option can be toggled on or off so you can jump straight back into the action.
- Handling Tweaks: Offers tailored handling options for a hairball held variant, hairball boost camera, and traditional tank controls.
- General Game Settings: Includes lock-on style adjustments (none/colour/reticle/both), hitstop toggles, vibration, adaptive triggers, and a controller speakers switch.
- Immersive Hardware Features: The game fully uses haptic feedback, the controller speaker, and flashes the controller light dynamically whenever you pick up wool.
- Climbing Mechanics: Includes rope net sections where you can grab on and climb around, though you cannot slide directly down onto them.
- Controller Mapping: Controller settings let you invert axis, adjust sensitivity sliders, tweak deadzone sliders, remap the controls completely, and assign actions that have no default button, like camera zoom in and out.
Related Gert Lush Gaming Reviews
- Bubsy: The Woollies Strike Back Review
- Bubsy: Paws on Fire! Review
- Yooka-Laylee Nintendo Switch Review
Bubsy Pawsome Edition Nintendo Switch 2 Review
Summary
GOOD STUFF
This physical edition is an absolute dream come true for collectors, hitting it out of the park with a fantastic double-sided poster, a gorgeous high-quality art book, and a real physical game manual that brings back the glorious magic of old-school unboxings. Getting to pop the physical red game card into the Nintendo Switch 2 and seeing it perfectly register on the system’s UI is an incredibly satisfying touch. On top of the brilliant presentation, the game is loaded with amazing accessibility options like invincibility toggles, game speed sliders, and a grounding visualizer that makes lining up jumps a total joy. The gameplay feels vastly superior on this hardware compared to the PlayStation 5 version, with tight, responsive controls that shine when using the Pro controller, while the open-ended levels give you complete freedom to explore in any direction you want. Plus, the world map functionality makes hunting collectables highly efficient since everything saves instantly when you quit out.
BAD STUFF
While the game is a massive step up on the Switch 2, it still carries some technical baggage, like noticeable pop-in that can make it tricky to see the path far ahead. The wacky character animations look great, but they can occasionally throw off your precision jump or gliding estimates during tighter platforming moments. The open level design can easily turn into a confusing maze where you lose your bearings, and the rope net sections can be slightly annoying since you cannot slide straight down onto them. There are also quite a few glitches to watch out for, including moments where you might slip through a platform or get stuck in the scenery, alongside a strange low-gravity glitch on the first boss fight that can slow the action right down. Additionally, choosing to play as the awesome retro pixel skin triggers some annoyingly long black screens when waiting for the game to reload after a game over.
FINAL VERDICT
Bubsy Pawsome Edition on the Nintendo Switch 2 completely turned things around for me, offering a wonderfully fun and vastly superior experience compared to the tedious PS5 version. The physical package alone is worth celebrating, delivering a nostalgic punch of goodies that makes it a must-own piece for your physical collection shelf. Despite dealing with some common platforming glitches and performance quirks, the tight controls and incredible accessibility options make this a genuinely enjoyable cartoon adventure. If you are looking to jump into Bubsy’s latest outing, the Nintendo Switch 2 physical edition is absolutely the definitive way to play. Ultimately, for me, it’s the controls and performance that won me over in this version.
