This is hands down the best video game I've played in a long time, in terms of its writing, its cast of corky and lovable characters, it's addicting gameplay, it's fun story, and most importantly it's fantastic use of representation. I can't tell you how happy I am to see 2 gay characters who don't feel like they were either put in there for browny points or are what a straight person thinks a gay man is like.
Basically what I'm trying to say is go buy this game right now, I will not rest until Bugsnax is seen as the gold standard for any other game that wants to do representation the right way.
GO NOW BUY THE GOD DAMN GAME ALREADY WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR.

A surprisingly endearing game that leaves me excited to see what Young Horses makes in the future. A great cartoony art style, a varied and fun cast (with great LGBT rep!), and some legitimately fantastic creature designs. Also the theme song is incredible, gotta love Kero Kero Bonito!

All that great stuff aside I found the gameplay to get pretty damn stale pretty damn quick. For the first couple of hours catching each unique Bugsnax feels like a cool little puzzle. Unfortunately, when you're catching your 4th Strabby recolor that enjoyment wears thin.

I'm gonna be honest and preface this review with the following: I picked up this game expecting to play it ironically. It was never my intention to play this game for more than 30 minutes, and I absolutely did not see coming that this would be one of my favorites of the year.

There were 2 things I knew about the game: it was similar to Ape Escape (series I haven't played so I can't confirm nor deny), and that everyone desesperately wanted this game to be an undercover horror game (this includes me).

Despite doing something as stupid as booting up a game for "ironic" purposes is, I'm really glad to say I was met with a really entertaining and charming cast of characters, a bopping ost, and a really engaging story.

Despite Bugsnax's characters filling the role of an archetype (the jock, the nerd, the gossip girl), they are all cleverly written and have actual depth to them. The relationships that the Grumpuses have with eachother make them feel like actual characters instead of walking tropes. Dialogues are also very well written, finding a good balance between comedy and character development. I found most of the cast to be very likeable and charming, and was very interested in seeing how their stories developed and concluded. This is all neatly tied with a superb voice acting ribbon.
Not to mention how nicely the LGBT representation is handled, caught me completely off-guard.

In terms of plot, I was really surprised to see how quickly I found myself engaged. The underlying mystery that surrounds Snaktooth Island and Lizbert's dissapearance keeps you guessing while you traverse the levels to unlock the next clue. Finding out the events that transpired before your arrival feels satisfying, culminating in a climax that had me at the edge of my seat and an ending that got me on the feels a little.

Surprisingly, the only aspect of Bugsnax that I found kind of lacking was the gameplay. Don't get me wrong, it's perfectly serviceable, but it also feels clunky.
Bugsnax operates on a pretty simple loop:
Get a quest -> find bugsnax -> catch the bugsnax -> resolve quest -> get more story.
The one that matters most here is the catch the bugsnax part, where you'll use a small arrange of tools to catch bugsnax. Of course, it's not always a simple task, with some bugsnax having gimmicks attached to them (such as being on fire, or needing to be cooled down, or being too big for the trap). These gimmicks are what lay the foundation for the puzzle aspects of the game, sometimes requiring you to lure bugsnax to different areas in the level in order to capture them.
Sadly, I think it falls short on the puzzle aspect. Luring out bugsnax isn't really all that challenging, just annoying. It also doesn't really go further than having to cool down one that's on fire with water/ice and viceversa, which mostly leads to a lot of luring bugsnax into eachother or the environment. This is mostly just annoying, or just feels really clunky. This also happens with some capturing methods, like combining the launchpad with the trap, or finding a surface to place the tripwire. A lot of the time, I felt that a succesful catch was mostly luck or brute force instead of actual puzzle solving.
Another weird mechanic includes day/night cycles and weather, both of which affect certain bugsnax' spawning, but it's fairly underutilized (specially weather, since only one bugsnak is affected by it).
There's also a severe lack of replayability, unless you wanna see the characters being bugsnaxed or if you missed a bugsnak (which doesn't take long to complete since there's not a lot of them).


Still, I really can't stress enough how good this game is. The amount of charm and quality the writing and the characters have is really impressive. And if you're on the club of people that wanted this game to have a horror underside, you're definitely not gonna be dissapointed.

Un poco de bicho y un poco de bocadillo
Intenta atraparlos en tu trampa
Alimenta a alguien y verás
Somos lo que comemos
Encuéntralos escondidos en la arena
Romper un parche de ketchup
Ven a Isla Bocatadiente y
Descubre su Bugsnax

Escuché que en algún lugar lejano en el océano
Allí se encuentra una isla donde deambulan las criaturas
Un explorador famoso me dice que son deliciosos y sin embargo
Hasta ahora son desconocidos

Podrías pensar que suena imposible
Hasta que hayas visto arrastrarse una zanahoria

Un poco de bicho y un poco de bocadillo
Intenta atraparlos en tu trampa
Alimenta a alguien y verás
Somos lo que comemos
Encuéntralos escondidos en la arena
Romper un parche de ketchup
Ven a Isla Bocatadiente y
Descubre su Bugsnax

Oh-oo-oh
Es bugsnax

Oh-oo-oh
Hablando de Bugsnax

Oh-oo-oh
Es bugsnax

Y si el rumor no es una tontería completa
Entonces es la historia del siglo
Así que toma un diario, escucha y haz nuevos amigos.
Para resolver el misterio

Una expedición de trece personas
De gruñones que todos partieron
Buscando una vida mejor
En la isla Bocatadiente encontraron
Una búsqueda sabrosa para llenar el agujero
Que muchos sienten dentro de su alma
Aventúrate profundamente para alcanzar la verdad
Y tal vez tú también aprendas algo

Podrías pensar que suena imposible
Hasta que hayas visto un sándwich trepar por una pared

Un poco de bicho y un poco de bocadillo
Intenta atraparlos en tu trampa
Alimenta a alguien y verás
Somos lo que comemos
Encuéntralos escondidos en la arena
Romper un parche de ketchup
Ven a Isla Bocatadiente y
Descubre su Bugsnax

Oh-oo-oh
Es bugsnax

Oh-oo-oh
Hablando de Bugsnax

Oh-oo-oh
Es bugsnax

Oh-oo-oh
Todo el mundo habla de Bugsnax

Es bugsnax

I'm talkin' bout Bugsnax

Bugsnax is a fun adventure puzzler driven by hilarious characters, an endearing world, and thoughtful and heartwarming writing.

There's something strange and yet completely enrapturing about this game, the facade of being a kitschy children's puzzle game is constantly undercut by shockingly human and mature themes that eventually crescendoes into this "holy shit what" ending.

One shortcoming of Bugsnax, however, is it's tedium. The puzzles are sometimes fun... but often confusing and more based on luck. I feel as though if you go through this game following the critical path, you'll likely find the maximum enjoyment out of it, as the 100 percent route was oftentimes a bit of a slog for me.

Great LGBTQIA+ representation too, real happy to see happy, positive representations of queer relationships

7/10, would snak again

also it's genuinely wild to me that this is the first true PlayStation 5 game I've finished playing through 100 percent lmao

GAME OF THE YEAR, BABY!

In all seriousness, I found Bugsnax to be really, really fun. It scratched that same itch that Pokémon always has, especially when it came to filling up the encyclopedia of Bugsnax. I would love for a sequel to lean even further into the similarities it has with Pokémon while adopting even more concepts from it. If there was some sort of battling or competitive mechanic, I'd be really psyched. I will say that I didn't love how some Bugsnax were really difficult to figure out how to catch -- I couldn't really find any good clues for a few of them, but perhaps I wasn't looking hard enough. Regardless, it's awesome that I got it with PS+ and I'd happily jump back in if more Snax were added in an instant.