Kinda goes without saying how great this is. I’m not too good at hitting shots myself lmao but the main gameplay loop is just a very fun and intuitive interpretation of baseball. Beyond that I love the attention to detail, every character has all these super smooth, lively hand drawn animations, unique theme songs, and distinct personalities and quirks that make them all fun and likable. I also love the casual approach it takes to positive diversity, it’s just a bunch of kids playing together regardless of race, gender, ability, etc., and their personalities aren’t all just stereotypes.

What I love most about Sonic Frontiers might be how little it backpedals from any of the stuff that people make fun of sonic for. It doesn’t just shut up and play the hits, it gives you its weirdest ideas and it’s most melodramatic theatrics from start to end. It’s hard to really articulate what the appeal of sonic is, what the point is and what it all means, but I think above all else sonic can be something really beautiful and freeing. It’s letting go of your inhibitions, to act more sincerely, to love more radically, to forget about all the little worries constantly holding you back because you don’t want to end up looking like a fool. It’s living without fear of expressing who you are, supporting the ones you care about, and celebrating the differences between you and everyone else you meet in this weird little life.

I grew up in the Normal Boots era. As a kid living in the south, I didn’t really have many friends who shared my level of interest in video games, so videos like those where people talk about games with as much passion as I had meant a lot to me back then, and I watched a LOT of them. I’d scour all over youtube trying to find interesting or funny takes on retro games, no matter what level of quality they tended to be. I say all of this because I have watched downright countless videos about Bubsy 3D in my life time and heard countless people talk about how bad the controls are, trashing the game was practically a right of passage. I figured surely with that, I knew what I was getting into.

There is nothing that can prepare you for what it feels like to control Bubsy 3D. From the moment the first level starts after the painful MGS-length opening cutscene, it feels like nothing I’ve ever played in my life. It isn’t just the fact that it uses tank controls, it’s EVERYTHING. The game is infamous for its use of tank controls, and while there’s a reason they aren’t often used for 3D platformers, they aren’t a death sentence (see Croc, a similar game from the era which designed its levels to compliment the control scheme). The problem is that every aspect of the movement just, barely functions. Bubsy has this really clunky sense of momentum to his movement that just plain suuuucks, and the often cluttered level design makes it a huge problem. You’ll be accelerating too slow when you start to move and sliding too far when you stop. On top of this, there are several enemies who can’t be destroyed by jumping on them and move significantly faster than your base speed, so your two options are either going fast enough but barely being able to turn/maneuver yourself around them or having some kind of control over your direction but guaranteeing them to hit you. Hell, forget trying to get through any of the more challenging platforming sections, simply trying to maneuver yourself in order to grab a single one of the countless atoms spread around each level is a predicament all it’s own. It’s seriously insane, you’d be hard pressed to find a game with more alienating controls out there.

The funny thing is, as much as this game is absurdly frustrating, I can’t find it in myself to hate it. When I call this the worst game I’ve ever played, it’s meant with affection. It’s such a perfect storm of annoyance and confusion that I can’t help but love it. Bubsy’s big smug mouth spouting off nonsensical quips that lack punchlines, the wide and abstract hellscapes that make up each of the levels, or the nightmare clown music that makes up the soundtrack. No other game can inspire this kind of anger in me, this kind of determination. I couldn’t let the game beat me, and I kind of loving having a game make me feel that way.

Why are the game’s collectibles atoms? You’re on the planet of the woolies, the villains are named Polly and Esther, Bubsy is a cat, the entire plot is all about saving the world’s yarn, why are we collecting ATOMS and not yarn? Because it’s Bubsy 3D, that’s why. It’s like everything nonsensical about this game summed up in one minuscule detail. Playing this is like the game is bugs bunny and I am Elmer Fudd.