Bubsy in Fractured Furry Tales

Bubsy in: Fractured Furry Tales[lower-alpha 1] is a platform video game developed by Imagitec Design and published by Atari Corporation exclusively for the Atari Jaguar in North America on December 9, 1994, then in Europe on January 1995 and later in Japan by Messe Sansao on July of the same year.[1][2][3] It is the third entry in the Bubsy franchise, which is preceded by Bubsy in: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind and Bubsy 2. The title itself is a word play in reference to Fractured Fairy Tales, a segment from the animated television series The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends.

Bubsy in: Fractured Furry Tales
Cover art in all regions by Ken Macklin
Developer(s)	Imagitec Design
Publisher(s)	NA/EU: Atari Corporation JP: Messe Sansao, Inc.
Producer(s)	Faran Thomason
Designer(s)	David Severn Jody Cobb Mark Hooley
Programmer(s)	Andrew Seed Karl West Nigel Conroy
Artist(s)	Colin Jackson Rick Lodge Steve Noake
Composer(s)	Alastair Lindsay Kevin Saville
Series	Bubsy
Platform(s)	Atari Jaguar
Release	NA: 9 December 1994 EU: January 1995 JP: July 1995
Genre(s)	Platform
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

When all of the fairy tales suddenly become corrupted, Bubsy is now tasked on venturing through Fairytaleland and fixing them in order to protect all of the children in the world from these altered stories. Originally planned and advertised to be a port of the first entry in the series as part of a deal with Accolade for the Jaguar, Bubsy in: Fractured Furry Tales later became its own original title during development, while retaining all the gameplay elements from the original game.[4][5][6]

Bubsy in: Fractured Furry Tales received mixed reception since its release. While some critics praised the game's graphics, music and difficulty, others panned the controls, camera, level design, voice acting and personality of the main character. Reviewers also criticized the game for its lack of use of the hardware and compared it to the previous 16-bit iterations. By April 1, 1995, the game has sold less than 9,000 copies though it is unknown how many were sold in total during its lifetime.[7] The series continued with Bubsy 3D, which was released in 1996 for the PlayStation. Retrospective reviews for the title have been equally mixed in recent years.

Gameplay

Bubsy is about to turn the signal light post from green to red during the game's first level.

Bubsy in Fractured Furry Tales is a side-scrolling platform game in which the players take control of Bubsy, the game's protagonist, across five worlds comprising three levels each that are themed after well-known fairy tales that have been corrupted such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Jack and the Beanstalk, Ali Baba, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Hansel and Gretel to restore them back into their original state.[8][9][10][11] Although it plays very similarly to the previous two entries in the series, the game has more emphasis towards puzzle elements in order to progress through the levels themselves and it closely follows the design and mechanics from the original title. While it has a password feature that allows players to resume their last progress, the cartridge's internal EEPROM only saves high scores and other settings made by them. The game also has a two-player option which allows two players to play the game by alternating turns with either one or two controllers.

The player must maneuver Bubsy through the levels by jumping and gliding, while also collecting objects scattered across the levels that grant points, now called Bubsy Balls instead of the orbs and yarn balls from previous titles and when 500 are collected, an extra life is granted and more lives can be earned by collecting numbered t-shirts. Players start off with nine lives at the beginning of the game, which are lost if Bubsy comes into contact with an enemy or an enemy attack, falls into either a spiked pit, a body of water or from heights without gliding, gets crushed, or running out of time and once all lives are lost the game is over, though players can keep playing from the last level they died by finding a continue item.

Bubsy can only take one hit before losing a life, instead of three hits as in Bubsy 2. Another omission from the second game is the Nerf gun, which leaves Bubsy without any other means of facing against enemies and bosses besides jumping on them. Some of the enemies and bosses in the game are themed after their respective levels representing one of the five fairy tales and when killed, enemies do not respawn on the level, even after the player loses a life. Unlike the second game where players could choose stages, stage progression on Bubsy in Fractured Furry Tales is instead linear.

Other returning elements from the first game are crates containing objects that either benefit or harm players, invincibility t-shirts that render Bubsy immune to enemy contact and attacks but not from environmental hazards, checkpoints that let players restart at the last location reached after dying, among others. New to the game are signal light posts placed at a fixed position on the level, which act as switches to deactivate spiked doors that block a section of the level if they are colored red and when colored green the doors open, allowing players to progress further through the stage. Also returning from both the first and second title are doors that warp Bubsy into another section of the level or a hidden room.

Plot

The fairy tales on the world have suddenly become altered after Mother Goose, who maintained peace and balance throughout them on Fairytaleland, was captured by both Hansel and Gretel, leading to the appearance of creatures that corrupted these stories. As a result, Bubsy sets out to stop the creatures and antagonists of the now-altered stories in order to protect the kids from their current state.[12] After Bubsy defeats both Hansel and Gretel as well as freeing Mother Goose from her captivity, all of the stories in Fairytaleland revert to normal and the creatures disappear afterwards, with Bubsy deciding on what is next for him.[13]

Development and release

In November 1993, Accolade signed an agreement with Atari Corporation to be a third-party developer for the Jaguar and licensed five titles from their catalog to Atari Corp. in order to be converted and release them to the system:[14][15][16][17] Barkley Shut Up and Jam!, Brett Hull Hockey, Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind, HardBall III and Jack Nicklaus' Power Challenge Golf (later renamed Jack Nicklaus Cyber Golf[18][19]). The original intended idea was to port the first Bubsy title to the Jaguar, with magazines advertising it as such.[4] According to producer Faran Thomason however, it was decided to create an original title in the series while using the source code from the first game as a base at one point during development.[5] Some of the enemies were created by artist Shaun McClure at Imagitec.[20] Mark Hooley was responsible for designing some of the levels in the game.[21] Bubsy in Fractured Furry Tales was showcased in a playable state at SCES '94.[22][23][24][25][26] It was the only title out of the five games from the Atari-Accolade deal that was released for the system.[6]

Reception

Contemporary reception
Review scores Publication Score Next Generation [10] AllGame [27] Atari Gaming Headquarters 4 / 10[28] Consoles + 60%[8] Electronic Gaming Monthly 32 / 50[29] Game Players 45%[30] GamePro 13 / 20[9] Jaguar 65%[31] JustClaws [32] MAN!AC 57%[33] Mega Fun 57%[34] Player One 75%[35] Play Time 57%[36] ST-Computer 50%[37] ST Magazine 72 / 100[38] Video Games 65%[39] VideoGames 4 / 10[11]

Bubsy in Fractured Furry Tales received largely mixed reviews. The scores given by Electronic Gaming Monthly's five editors averaged to a modest 6.4/10, but reviewer Mike Weigand (who gave it a 7) lauded the game, commenting that "Bubsy fans will love this version of the popular character, and this one will prove challenging to even the most hardened veterans of the series. The levels are huge, the graphics are very detailed and the sound is equally impressive."[29] GamePro commented that "Bubsy offers a muddled mix of good and bad ingredients", citing colorful graphics but jerky animation, good music but raspy sound effects, inconsistent control responsiveness, and fickle collision detection.[9] Next Generation said it has colorful and visually pleasing graphics but generic gameplay, and concluded, "Not a bad title, but platform fans will probably find Zool 2 a little more entertaining and a lot more innovative."[10]

In a retrospective review, IGN stated that while the fairy tale theme worked, the game's attitude felt very forced, the extras and improvements from Bubsy 2 had been dropped, and that the game overall felt like "one giant step sideways".[40] Atari HQ was equally critical of the game, citing a frustrating combination of sloppy controls and high difficulty, and suggesting Jaguar owners buy the original Rayman instead, due to better graphics and sound.[28] Many reviews found the game to be too close to the previous installments of the games in the Bubsy series, which were not rated very well either.[41][42][43][44]

Additionally, several reviewers found the graphics to be impressive by Super NES standards, but not necessarily for a system that was advertised to be more advanced.[41][42][44] The Atari Times, however, gave the game 70%, complimenting the graphics and music, though criticizing the animation and control.[45] Electric Escape was also positive of the game as they gave it 7 out of 10, and stated "Enthusiasts of the first Bubsy adventure and of platformers in general will find this a decent title to add to their collection."[46] Oldies Rising scored it 15 out of 20, stating that while the game does not show the qualities of a 64-bit system, pleasure can still be found in it.[47]

The book Inside Electronic Game Design by Arnie Katz tells that 50,000 copies were sold the first 6 months of release, with only 60,000 being produced.[48]

Notes

1. Also known as simply Bubsy (Japanese: バブジー, Hepburn: Babujī) in Japan.

References

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5. doctorclu (May 23, 2016). Interview with Faran Thomason about Bubsy on the Atari Jaguar. YouTube.
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External links

• Bubsy in Fractured Furry Tales at AtariAge
• Bubsy in Fractured Furry Tales at GameFAQs
• Bubsy in Fractured Furry Tales at Giant Bomb
• Bubsy in Fractured Furry Tales at MobyGames