Introduction

Bubsy in: The Purrfect Collection is the kind of nostalgia package that arrives like a politely persistent relative: you didn't ask for it, but now it's in your living room and has unpacked a lot of cardboard. Compiled by Limited Run Games and published by Atari, the collection bundles the first four console-era Bubsy titles-originally released between 1993 and 1996-onto modern hardware via the Carbon Engine. The Switch release on September 9, 2025 gives you an afternoon's worth of platforming history, a museum of marketing oddities and the baffling spectacle that is Bubsy 3D, now with a "Refurbished Edition" that promises analog controls and widescreen support. If you're the sort of person who enjoys video game archaeology, or who keeps a shrine to questionable 90s mascots, there's a lot to like here. If you are coming purely for modern platforming thrills, you will be comforted by some quality-of-life features but likely not converted. This collection is half museum, half repair shop: it preserves, annotates and applies a few modern Band-Aids to games that peaked when the word "edgy" meant rough polygons and a leather jacket.

Gameplay

The Purrfect Collection assembles the following console variants: Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind (SNES and Genesis), Bubsy II (SNES, Genesis, Game Boy), Bubsy in Fractured Furry Tales (Atari Jaguar) and Bubsy 3D (PS1). Limited Run's emulation via Carbon Engine brings them all under one roof, and that roof includes a handful of mercy features: save states, rewind, cheats and the usual scanline filters for viewers who like their retro dust visibly applied. On the surface, playing these games feels like leafing through a very opinionated picture book of 90s platforming. The 2D entries have the familiar architecture of the era-collect things, avoid things, and occasionally leap when your reflexes were asleep. The collection doesn't rewrite the rules; it dresses them up with convenience. Save states and rewind, in particular, are not just niceties but survival tools, because some of these levels demand frame-precise jumps and problem-solving that modern patience levels treat as suspicious. Cheats are present if you'd rather speed-run through Bubsy's museum tour than actually play the museum. Bubsy 3D is the headline act and the reason most people buy the ticket, whether out of righteous curiosity or to confirm a long-held suspicion that old 3D mascots were carving their way through awkward controls with nothing but optimism. The Refurbished Edition deserves credit for adding analog input and native widescreen support, both of which make the PS1 original less of a test of endurance and more of a playable curiosity. It still retains the awkward collision and level design that defined its reputation, but the control changes and accessibility options make it possible to admire the architecture without being flung into the void every five minutes. The collection also leans into context. A built-in music player and the Meowseum-an in-game repository of manuals, comics, ads, developer interviews and even the 1993 Bubsy TV pilot-do more than pad the extras menu. They create a tone, turning gameplay time into an exhibit on how marketing, platform limitations and design optimism conspired to produce a character who remains amusingly earnest decades later. Audi Sorlie gets producer credit on this reissue, and you can feel the curatorial hand: this is a preservation-minded release, not a reimagining. If there's a gameplay caveat, it's the mismatch between what these titles try to be and what modern players expect. The collection supplies modern tools to bridge that gap, but it can't entirely rework level pacing or the sometimes dubious checkpoint placement that fuels rage-quitting beats. In short: the QoL bits make these games approachable, the extras make them interesting, and the base gameplay will make you nostalgic or annoyed depending on your tolerance for 90s platforming design choices.

Graphics

Presentation in The Purrfect Collection is honest about its limitations and occasionally smug about them. The emulation is clean and the optional scanline filters and screen borders are present for anyone who wants to be formally dressed in CRT chic. Bubsy's 2D titles retain their colorful, cartoonish palettes-bright, simple and exuberant in a way that dates them charmingly rather than convincingly. The Jaguar entry and the 16-bit versions look exactly like what they are: competent, sometimes awkward forum posts from the era of cartridge constraints. Bubsy 3D is where the visuals provoke the most response. The Refurbished Edition's widescreen support is a pragmatic improvement; it doesn't remove the blocky geometry or the odd animations, but it reduces the claustrophobia that made the original release feel like a hall of mirrors with missing exits. Filters can mask jaggedness, but they can't rewrite the polygonal comedy of errors at the heart of PS1-era 3D. For collectors and historians, the Meowseum's scans, comics and ad materials are a treasure trove: printed ephemera often looks better than the game itself, and the extra media are presented in a clean, accessible viewer that makes time travel feel like a guided tour rather than a scavenger hunt.

Conclusion

Bubsy in: The Purrfect Collection is not a reinvention. It is a restoration project that sometimes doubles as performance art. Limited Run Games and Atari have delivered an edition that will satisfy archival appetites: everything is present, the emulation is respectful, and the extras are surprisingly rich. The QoL features-save states, rewind, cheats and analog controls for Bubsy 3D-transform what could have been an exercise in masochism into something playable and occasionally fun. If you want a tight, modern platformer, this is not it. If you want a contextualized look at a franchise that tried very hard to be both cool and a mascot, while occasionally tripping over its own hype, then this collection is a small, well-labelled museum crate you'll enjoy unpacking. For Switch owners with a soft spot for the era or an appreciation for video game oddities, it's worth the price as a curiosity and as preservation. For everyone else, it's an amusing detour that proves some mascots were never meant to be rescued, only remembered. Final verdict: a competent, lovingly assembled compilation that's more interesting as a historical document than a timeless play experience. 6/10.

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