Introduction to Star Wars: Bounty Hunter Remastered
A few months ago, I reviewed the hastily put-together Star Wars Battlefront: Classic Collection, developed and published by Aspyr Media, and had very little good to say about either the weirdly revamped multiplayer gameplay or the package as a whole beyond it looking somewhat passable. This team has had years to get better at remastering these games, and I have to wonder, moving onto Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, whether Aspyr is at this point just checking boxes off of a list rather than putting any real passion into this franchise.
Nostalgic Storytelling with Dated Gameplay
Bounty Hunter was originally released in 2002 for the sixth generation of consoles, developed and published seemingly in-house by LucasArts. Its story takes place in between The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, telling the tale of how Jango Fett (Boba’s dad, if you forgot) became a legendary enough figure to have the Republic’s Clone Army based on his DNA. He gets his son’s famous ship (recently renamed the Firespray, after its original model), his partner, and unravels a drug trafficking conspiracy, all in around eight hours of gameplay.
The story of Bounty Hunter is, especially now that it’s definitively non-canon anyway, largely inconsequential and was mostly written at a time when LucasFilms thought people were going to be more invested in Prequel-era characters. The gameplay takes center stage in large, explorable levels filled with bad guys to take down…and that’s where the game starts to lose me.
Archaic Combat Mechanics and Controls
Bounty Hunter is a third-into-almost-first-person shooter that, having been released in 2002, feels totally archaic now. The player defaults to third-person mode, wherein the game will clumsily auto-target foes that Jango is facing. Given enough shots, they eventually go down, but I noticed basically immediately that the game is lacking any real feedback to the player to make the gunplay satisfying or really even indicate that they’re hitting their target.
The remaster job looks serviceable, but the level design quickly becomes repetitive and uninspired.
Enemies don’t make a ton of sound when they get hit, so you largely have to rely on the visual laser to determine whether your shots are hitting or going off-course, and while I eventually got used to this, it never felt particularly fun. Drake of the 99 Dragons infamously attempted to use pretty much the same gameplay style, and while this certainly works much better than that, it still very quickly loses its luster, and switching to aiming down a crosshair doesn’t really fix the issue either, instead just leaving you open to the other enemies surrounding you. You also have equipment that you start the game with, which is never actually explained to you properly. It is something that was probably solved at the time with the manual in the case but is now just left without a tutorial.
Bounty System: Potential Wasted
The bounty system also doesn’t really end up feeling particularly engaging – the way the game introduces it to you is very deliberate, but it sets me up for disappointment. Shortly into the first level, you’ll be alerted that the guy in front of you has a bounty on his head, and you have to scan him with your helmet to identify and mark him before you can wrap him up and collect the reward. Given how large the levels seemed to be, what I guess I was hoping for was that the bounties would offer character moments or at least be a cool reward for diligently exploring…but in actuality, the majority of the bounties in each level are just mixed in with the other generic mooks, so if you really want to collect them, you’ll constantly have to navigate the game’s inventory system to check every group and then try not to kill the wrong person.
Switching items feels clunky, and like the combat, could have absolutely benefited from modernization – you have to scroll through the list every time you need to switch from your guns to your visor, to your electrowhip, and back to your guns, a process that gets repeated very often if you’re going for completion. It feels like a gameplay mechanic that could have easily been made better by turning it into a weapon wheel and mapping a dedicated button to the visor, given how frequently you need to use it. This remaster does put the game in slow motion while you’re using the scanner, but this doesn’t address the full problem.
Bounty Hunter is a third-into-almost-first-person shooter that feels totally archaic now.
The bounties themselves don’t offer many rewards, either – Jango earns credits for each one captured, but the credits are spent unlocking concept art, an idea that made a lot of sense in 2002 but would feel utterly pointless to a modern player going in for the first time unless they were only playing for the sake of nostalgic indulgence. It’s an incredibly cumbersome system that doesn’t provide any gameplay benefit, but it’s also the central identity of the main character, so the game becomes a generic run-and-gun shooter if you don’t engage with it.
Visuals and Platforming: The Saving Grace?
There were elements of Bounty Hunter that I did enjoy. Once again, the remaster job looks serviceable, with the city-planet of Coruscant being a standout that looked faithful to our first glance in Attack of the Clones. However, the level quickly moves indoors after the first part and ends up looking a lot less interesting. More of this game than I would like takes place in hallways and hangar bays, and it makes locations lose their sense of identity and become indistinct from each other.
I also actually enjoyed the platforming, for the most part. It’s a bit janky, but I got a kick out of dashing around with Jango’s jetpack, though it is admittedly hard to fly and shoot at the same time to really replicate the style Jango and Boba used while wearing the armor. I liked exploring the levels, even if there was rarely much of a reward for doing so.
Conclusion: A Remaster Stuck in the Past
Star Wars: Bounty Hunter left me feeling confused about what Aspyr wants to be doing with these games. One of the most crippling flaws of their Battlefront remaster was a change they made to the multiplayer that was breaking something that never needed to be fixed, but many of the things in Bounty Hunter that could have done with improvement appear to have been touched. The combat feels archaic and mostly unsatisfying, the control scheme needs to be tweaked, and the bounty system needs a more interesting reward to make it worthwhile for how much of a chore it is to identify and secure your targets, even if it’s slightly easier to tag them now. It looks nice and doesn’t feel terrible – if you liked the game in 2002 or are yearning for the days of middle-card releases, this remaster might let you recapture some of that magic. For basically anyone else, it’s an easy skip.
Star Wars: Bounty Hunter (PC)
Star Wars: Bounty Hunter Remastered attempts to bring the 2002 classic back to life with improved visuals and a nostalgic storyline. However, the game’s archaic combat mechanics, clunky controls, and unrewarding bounty system may deter modern players. While fans of the original may find some enjoyment in revisiting Jango Fett’s journey, the overall experience feels outdated and lacks the refinement needed for a successful remaster. For most, this title might be better left in the past.
The Good
- Nostalgic Appeal
The Bad
- Archaic Gameplay
- Clunky Controls
- Unrewarding Bounty System
- Repetitive Level Desig
- Limited Appeal