Bugsnax is so interesting that I suspect it deserves a pretty short review. The real fun here is discovery and interpretation, two things that both require a little mystery. Really, it would be good for you to stop reading now and go and play it. Go and play Bugsnax. It’s not a spoiler to tell you that it’s definitely worth your time.
If you need a little more than that, know this: a lot of the time Bugsnax is a sort of riff on the creature-collecting genre, more Viva Piñata than Pokémon. You gad about an island composed of various different biomes, collecting the local creatures, known as Bugsnax, which are half-insect and half snack. In the early stages you’ll find a spider that might have French fries for legs, a hamburger that’s also a beetle, and a hotdog worm. Designs are inventive and often funny. My favourite, from much later in the game, is a moth that I think is also made of French toast. I could be friends with a moth like that.
These Bugsnax are caught by using an expanding arsenal of gadgets, starting with a trap that you can put down and then trigger when the Bugsnax is within its grasp, and scaling to include stuff like a sort of hamster ball you can steer by laser, a bounce pad, and even a kind of Hookshot. Really, though, the Bugsnax are caught by studying them – uncovering their likes and dislikes and plotting their paths through the world. Then you have to think about how to use your gadgets – and any other Bugsnax – to get them in range of a trap. How to bring down a flying Bugsnax? How to lure a ketchup-loving Bugsnax out of the bush it’s hiding in? How to increase the size of a Bugsnax that looks like a kernel of popcorn so it won’t escape your trap? How to get a chilly Bugsnax to stop freezing you before you can get to it?
