Bubsy is a smart alec bobcat who seems to spend most of his time running around and dealing with the various platform pratfalls and arcade antics that compose his strange little life. Apparently Accolade spent a lot of time and effort developing and promoting what was to be the ultimate Sonic clone. In short, it was overly long in development and overly short in gameplay.
This first game has loads of cheap shots, and the whole point seems to be to see the ultracool death sequences. A sad footnote in the history of Sonic clones.