STAR WARS™: Bounty Hunter™ Review Summary

Faithful, fun, and nostalgic remaster: The remaster successfully captures the nostalgic charm and fun of the original game, enhanced by improved graphics, controls, and quality-of-life features. Many reviewers with fond memories of playing the game as children found the remaster to be a worthwhile and enjoyable experience.

Improved controls and graphics: The updated control scheme, especially with keyboard and mouse, significantly improves gameplay. Reviewers also noted enhanced graphics, textures, lighting, and other visual improvements, as well as quality of life improvements.

Expands Jango Fett's story: The game expands upon Jango Fett's story, providing backstory and context to his role in the Star Wars universe. Reviewers appreciated the opportunity to delve deeper into the character's origins and motivations.

Fun bounty hunting with jetpack: The game allows players to experience the thrill of being a bounty hunter in the Star Wars universe, enhanced by the fun and versatile jetpack mechanics. The jetpack adds verticality to level design and provides a unique combat advantage.

Unlockable Boba Fett skin: The inclusion of the Boba Fett skin as an unlockable bonus is a welcome addition, fulfilling a long-standing desire for fans of the original game. This feature adds extra replay value and a sense of reward for completing the game.

Bullet sponge enemies, unfair difficulty: Enemies are often bullet sponges, requiring excessive ammunition to defeat, and they appear in overwhelming numbers. The game's difficulty spikes significantly in later levels, with enemies dealing excessive damage and the player having limited lives. This, combined with sparse checkpoints, leads to frequent deaths and significant progress loss.

Numerous bugs, glitches, poor design: The game suffers from numerous bugs, glitches, and poor design choices, including enemies clipping through walls, getting stuck, or spawning behind the player. Level design is confusing, requiring backtracking, and the game lacks autosaves, forcing players to restart levels after dying. These issues, combined with a limited lives system, contribute to a frustrating and repetitive experience.

Poor control customization options: The game lacks modern control customization options, such as key remapping and sensitivity adjustments. The default control scheme is often described as clunky and unresponsive, making aiming and movement difficult. This lack of customization limits player options and contributes to a frustrating experience.

Clunky, erratic camera system: The camera system is frequently criticized for being clunky, erratic, and difficult to manage, especially in enclosed spaces and during combat. The lock-on system is unreliable, and the camera's behavior can be unpredictable, hindering navigation and aiming. These issues contribute to a frustrating and disorienting experience.

Shallow, frustrating bounty hunting mechanic: The bounty hunting mechanic is shallow and frustrating, with targets being difficult to identify and often killed by friendly fire or falling off cliffs. The credits earned from bounty hunting cannot be used to purchase upgrades, limiting the impact of the system. This makes the bounty hunting aspect feel less meaningful and more like a tedious chore.

Fast-paced action, varied environments: The game features fast-paced third-person shooting and platforming across diverse Star Wars environments. Players utilize a jetpack for enhanced mobility in open, vertically-oriented levels. The level design encourages exploration and alternates between combat and platforming challenges.

Jango Fett's prequel story: Players control Jango Fett in a prequel story that explores his origins and connections to the events of Episode II. The story, approved by George Lucas, reveals how Jango was chosen for the clone army and his encounters with key characters like Count Dooku and Zam Wessel.

Dated, monotonous gameplay experience: The gameplay feels dated and monotonous, resembling early 2000s third-person shooters. Issues include a problematic camera, short targeting range, questionable target prioritization, and long levels. The core gameplay remains largely unchanged from the original, with the remaster primarily improving textures.

Challenging, somewhat repetitive gameplay: The game offers a straightforward but challenging experience with strategically placed items and competent enemy AI. However, the difficulty can be frustrating due to platforming sections, enemy hordes, level length, and the lack of manual saves, with limited evolution in gameplay mechanics.

Choice of modern/legacy controls: The game offers both modern and legacy control schemes. The modern control scheme allows free aiming while running, which complements the run-and-gun style, but some reviewers find the legacy controls more effective.

Good performance and optimization: The game generally runs well on PC and Steam Deck, often at high frame rates and resolutions. Some users reported needing driver updates for optimal performance, but the port is generally stable and well-optimized, especially considering its age. The PC version also supports gamepad and higher resolutions out of the box.

Ultrawide and 4K support: The game supports ultrawide monitors and 4K textures, which is a welcome addition for PC gamers with high-end setups. This allows for a more immersive and visually appealing experience for players with compatible hardware.

Ambient occlusion impacts performance: The ambient occlusion setting can significantly reduce performance, causing a large drop in FPS on higher settings. This suggests that the setting is particularly demanding and may require users to adjust their graphics settings for optimal performance. Disabling this setting may improve framerates.

Lower resolution cutscenes: Cutscenes run at a lower resolution than the game itself, which can be jarring and detract from the overall visual experience. This inconsistency in resolution can be particularly noticeable on higher resolution displays.

Enjoyment relies on Star Wars fandom: Many reviews indicate that enjoyment of the game heavily depends on nostalgia and being a Star Wars fan. Some suggest it's only worth buying on sale or if you're a die-hard fan, while others recommend it regardless of prior experience if you like Star Wars. Some reviewers even state that they would not have purchased the game if it wasn't a Star Wars game.

Purchase on sale recommended: Many reviewers suggest waiting for a sale before purchasing the game. Some feel the full price is not justified due to the game's flaws, while others recommend buying it only if it's heavily discounted. Some reviewers also mention the low replay value as a factor in their recommendation to wait for a sale.

Dated design and systems: Several reviews mention that the game has aged poorly, with outdated systems and design choices. Some reviewers cannot recommend it to those without nostalgia, while others suggest skipping it altogether. This is often in comparison to modern games.

Camera and save issues: Several reviews mention issues with the camera and save system. Some reviewers cannot recommend the game in its current state due to these issues, while others suggest waiting for them to be fixed. Some reviewers even refunded the game due to unacceptable performance issues.

Strongly negative reviews exist: Some reviewers express strong negative opinions about the game, with some suggesting to avoid it altogether. Some reviewers recommend playing other third-person shooters or Star Wars games instead. These reviews often lack specific details, and may be review bombing.

Expands Jango Fett/Clone backstory: The game expands upon Jango Fett's backstory and the origins of the clone army within the Star Wars universe, fitting between Episodes I and II. It provides context to the prequels and offers a Legends-era perspective on events that shaped the Clone Wars.

First time on PC: This remaster marks the first time the 2002 PS2/GameCube title, Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, has been available on PC. While staying true to the original, it offers a glimpse into the past and potentially opens the door for more console-exclusive titles to be ported to PC.

Good story, some irritating elements: The game features a well-told story with quality cutscenes that effectively connect the levels and lore. However, some players may find certain ideas and enemies introduced in the game to be somewhat heavy or irritating.

Includes unlockable bonus content: The game includes bonus unlockable content such as a full comic book, trading cards, concept art, and a Boba Fett skin upon completion. These extras provide additional value and content for players to discover.

Unnecessary flashlight addition: The addition of a flashlight in the remaster is questioned by some reviewers, who find it unnecessary based on their past experiences with the original game. The purpose of this new feature is unclear to some players.