Going in without any nostalgia was going to be interesting as I felt the Battlefront remasters were held up entirely by nostalgia, and so having had no previous experience with it, would Bounty Hunter hold up in 2024 or should it have been left in 2002?
Set between episodes One and Two, Jango Fett is tasked with killing rogue Jedi Komari Vosa who leads the cult Bando Gora, for his troubles he will be paid 5 million credits, so off Mr Fett goes to track him down and kill him. The game has eighteen missions set across 6 worlds. The locations are a big strong point, they are faithfully and vividly brought to life - obviously the graphics show a lot of age - but the locations throughout do grab your attention.
The story and voice acting are the two things that stand out, Star Wars media can be a bit hit and miss at times when it comes to the narrative, but I really enjoyed the tale all the way to the end, enough interesting things happened to keep me engaged and the voice acting was superb. The missions had short but enjoyable lengths, they could feel brief, but I personally enjoyed the pacing, you can finish the whole game in about eight or nine hours.
Sadly, it’s mechanically where the age really starts to show. First things first… the camera, my god does it not like to stay in one place. do anything and off it goes with a complete mind of its own, I don’t know what the bigger enemy was - the cult or the camera. Changing from your scanner to your Blasters was also weirdly fiddly, I would hammer the button and for some reason it would take a few seconds to change, and when you’re in a sudden battle - it can pose a bit of a problem.
I tried to explain to the people shooting at me that it wasn't fair as I seemed to be having a problem pulling out my guns, but they had little sympathy for me and continued firing at me. Excited to have a jetpack I was…but it gets taken off you early on, although you do get it back very quickly.
So, how cool is it being able to fly in Bounty Hunter? Not very cool at all, as flying straight up for about four seconds is all the jetpack can manage, so don’t you dare fall too far or you’re going to have a hard time getting back up. Throughout the levels are little vents and shaft you need to go down, and some are surprisingly hard to find, in the first level I was stuck for an awkward amount of time as I couldn’t see the little tunnel you needed to go in, when I looked it up on the internet I did feel both embarrassed and stupid as it was very close to where I had been searching, but they can be hard to miss as well, it also doesn’t help if you’re a bit thick.
SUMMARY
Gameplay has a ton of issues, but even without playing it in 2002, it still has a charm.
Yes, I was frustrated at times, and yes I cursed the jetpack when I fell down a platform and took twenty minutes to get back up to where I originally was, but I had a good amount of fun playing it, and the story and voice acting are excellent.
If you can put up with a lot of frustration and have a healthy love of Star Wars, maybe a dip back to 2002 is worth your time.
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