Bubsy is back, and he’s wearing new sneakers. Bubsy: Paws on Fire! puts the bobcat hero through his paces across three worlds and over 100 levels, and it mostly works — but it never quite lands the way it wants to. This is the sixth game in the Bubsy series, and it arrives on PlayStation 4, PC and Nintendo Switch after a long wait. The game asks players to guide Bubsy and his allies through a scrolling adventure full of enemies, tokens and secret paths, and it offers four playable characters with distinct moves. The result is a game that feels like a love letter to the series, but one that never fully commits to being something new.
Trailer, via Accolade Game.
The Characters and Their Moves
The core of Paws on Fire! is its four playable characters, each with their own moves and abilities. Bubsy himself glides and pounces, while Virgil can double-jump and duck to avoid obstacles. The Woolie soldier flies a ship and fires rapidly, and Arnold rolls through tunnels gathering fruit and crystals. That variety is the game’s biggest strength — it lets players approach each level from different angles, and it rewards players who switch between characters mid-game to solve puzzles.
Each character also collects a different item: Bubsy gathers yarn balls, Virgil collects atoms, the Woolie takes golden yarn balls, and Arnold picks up crystals. These items act as currency for buying new costumes, giving players a reason to keep playing even after they’ve finished a level. It’s a small touch, but it adds a layer of replay value that the base platforming doesn’t always demand.
The levels themselves scroll automatically, which removes some of the control that defined earlier Bubsy games. Instead, players focus on timing jumps, dodging enemies and collecting pieces of victory tokens. Three checkpoints mark each level, and losing a life sends the player back to the last checkpoint they touched — a change from earlier games, where a death ended the run entirely.
The Levels and the Amazootorium
The game is built around three worlds, each with nine levels: the Village, the Research Lab and the Amazootorium. Players move through these worlds collecting victory tokens, which open up the bonus levels and eventually let them face off against Oinker, the game’s main villain. The Amazootorium serves as both the setting and the goal — Bubsy and his friends are trying to stop Oinker from capturing animals for his personal zoo.
If a player collects all three tokens from a level, they unlock a 3D forward-scrolling bonus level as Arnold. These bonus stages ask players to roll through a tunnel, gather fruit and crystals, and avoid obstacles along the way. They’re a nice break from the standard side-scrolling action, though they don’t add much to the overall difficulty.
The boss battles follow a familiar pattern. Bubsy faces off against Oinker at the end of each world, and in two of those fights, he has to jump into the Woolie’s ship to defeat the boss. That switch changes his abilities to match the Woolie’s, giving players a chance to use a different set of skills in the middle of a fight. It’s a clever twist, even if the actual fights themselves aren’t especially demanding.
The Story Behind the Scroll
The plot is simple. Bubsy and his friends are celebrating the 14th Annual Yarn Ball when the Woolies’ twin queens Poly and Ester warn him about Oinker’s return. Oinker, a corrupt entrepreneur, is capturing animals across the universe for his personal zoo, the Amazootorium. With the help of his sidekick Arnold, scientist Virgil Reality, Poly and Ester’s finest Woolie soldier, and a new pair of sneakers from Bubsy’s nephew and niece Terry and Terri, Bubsy sets out to find Oinker and put an end to his business.
It’s a thin story, but it does the job of setting the stage. The game leans on the established lore of the Bubsy series — the rivalry with the Woolies, the history of the Amazootorium — rather than building anything new. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, since the series has always been more about the platforming than the narrative. Still, it leaves little room for surprises or character development beyond the usual setup.
What Works and What Doesn’t
The game succeeds when it lets the characters do what they do best. Bubsy’s glide and pounce feel natural, and switching to Virgil for a level that requires precise timing is a pleasure. The level design varies enough to keep the game from feeling repetitive, even when the scrolling pace stays constant. The music, drawn from the BIT.TRIP series, gives the game a distinctive electronic pulse that fits the fast-paced action.
But the game stumbles when it relies too heavily on repetition. Some levels feel like they’re designed to test the player’s patience rather than their skill, and the auto-scroll can occasionally make it hard to react quickly to an enemy or obstacle. The game also leans on pixel art and retro-inspired visuals, which look sharp in motion but can feel dated next to newer platformers.
The difficulty curve is uneven. Some levels are forgiving, letting players progress without much trouble, while others punish small mistakes with repeated deaths. The checkpoint system helps ease the frustration, but it doesn’t completely remove the sting of losing progress.
The Cast and Their Roles
The game brings together a full cast of characters, each with their own role to play. Bubsy is the lead, and his moves are the default option for most levels. Virgil provides the height needed to reach high platforms, while the Woolie’s ship gives players a way to deal with enemies from a distance. Arnold rounds out the team, offering a different perspective in the bonus levels.
Poly and Ester, the Woolies’ twin queens, serve as the warning figures early in the story. They alert Bubsy to Oinker’s return and set the plot in motion. Terry and Terri, Bubsy’s nephew and niece, provide the sneakers that help Bubsy move faster. It’s a small cast, but it covers all the bases the game needs.
Here’s a quick look at how each character contributes:
- Bubsy: Glide, pounce, the default player
- Virgil: Double-jump, duck, height-based moves
- The Woolie: Ship flight, rapid fire, aerial combat
- Arnold: Rolling, tunnel movement, bonus level star
That list shows the range of options available to players, and it’s one of the reasons the game holds together despite its rough edges.
The Verdict on Bubsy
Bubsy: Paws on Fire! is a competent, sometimes fun platformer that never quite reaches the heights of its ambition. The four characters and their varied moves give it a replay value that few other games in the genre offer, and the bonus levels add a welcome twist to the standard scrolling format. But the uneven difficulty and the reliance on auto-scrolling keep it from feeling essential.
The game is best enjoyed as a curiosity — a reminder of what the Bubsy series once offered, dressed up with new moves and a fresh coat of paint. It’s not a masterpiece, but it’s not a failure either. It’s a game that knows what it wants to be, even if it struggles to fully deliver on that promise.
Score: 5.6 of 10.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
