Bounty Star review — All hat, no cattle

Picture this: you're piloting a massive mech through the scorched deserts of post-apocalyptic Arizona, hunting down bandits for money. Then you head home to water your crops, cook some burritos, and feed your chickens. Sounds pretty cool, right? This is exactly what indie developer DINOGOD’s debut title, Bounty Star, is all about. This unorthodox marriage between mech combat and farming simulation is admirable, but the overall package falls short of its lofty goals.

Bounty Star tells the story of Clementine McKinney, also known as Graveyard Clem, a former soldier who earned her grim nickname after being forced to bury an entire town she failed to protect. The prologue walks you through the worst night of her life in detail.

What makes Clem work as a protagonist is her blunt authenticity. She drinks too much, swears like a sailor, smokes constantly, and comes across as someone past her prime. The narrative never treats her as some kind of power fantasy hero. Instead, Clem is just trying to piece her life back together, one bounty at a time. 

The supporting cast includes the expected Western archetypes. There's the local sheriff, a scientist who looks like he doesn’t belong at all, and various other folks who help Clem on her journey. The plot itself follows a fairly standard revenge and redemption arc. It won't surprise anyone familiar with Western stories, but it's told with enough heart for an indie title. 

Gameplay splits its time between piloting the Desert Raptor MKII mech in battle and managing your homestead between hunts. On paper, this sounds brilliant. In practice, it's a mixed bag that never achieves the synergy it's aiming for.

The mech fighting has some actual weight to it. Each swing of your melee weapon and every shot from your firearms packs a punch. The game introduces a gun-cancel mechanic that combines your melee attack with your primary fire to create a dodge while reloading. It's clearly inspired by Armored Core, and when it works, it's satisfying. The problem is that it never becomes second nature, even after hours of play. Swapping abilities mid-combo is awkward, and trying to use defensive systems like shields during encounters results in noticeable lag between input and execution.

The heat management system adds a layer of complexity. Your mech can overheat or freeze depending on the weapons you use and the time of day you accept contracts. Mornings are neutral, afternoons are scorching, and evenings are cold. Each piece of equipment either heats or cools your mech, and letting the temperature bar fill completely in either direction causes a shutdown that leaves you stunned. It's a clever idea that forces you to think about loadouts, but it rarely presents an actual threat.

Battles follow a rock-paper-scissors system where enemy armor types have weaknesses to specific damage types. Blade damage works on certain enemies, boom damage on others, and bludgeon damage on the rest. This should encourage build variety, but you can brute force most encounters regardless of loadout. The optional objectives that ask you to use specific weapons or avoid damage add some challenge, but the rewards are so minimal that they rarely seem worth the effort.

Bounties themselves are mission-based rather than open-world. You select a target from your board, prep your loadout, and get dropped into a small arena to complete objectives. Most assignments boil down to killing everything or taking out a specific target. The lack of variety becomes apparent quickly, as you'll revisit the same handful of locations over and over.

The homestead management seems tacked on. Between jobs, you return to your converted gas station base to tend crops, collect water, craft ammunition, raise chickens, and cook meals that provide stat buffs. It's all functional but never particularly engaging. Cooking especially lacks substance. The screen just cuts to a quick shot of Clem's back as she stirs something off-screen before the meal magically appears. For a title that wants you to slow down and appreciate the quiet moments, the farming mechanics lack depth.

Here's where things get frustrating. The developers gate story progression behind specific bounties or times of day. Sometimes you'll finish available contracts only to discover you need to advance the clock to unlock the next story arc. This artificial pacing makes the experience drag despite its actual 10 to 15 hour runtime. 

Controlling Clem herself is oddly clunky as well, and is set to a right shoulder angle. Most games have a left shoulder camera angle by default and a setting to change this, but not here. Very weird and hard to get used to.

Progression revolves around earning money from bounties to upgrade your mech and home. You can purchase weapon blueprints, augments, and cosmetic paint jobs from an online shop that becomes available early on. The customization options are decent, allowing you to build the Raptor for different playstyles, but the game showers you with so much cash that making purchases becomes trivial.

Your base expands as you invest in infrastructure. Water and power supply lines need building, workbenches require materials, and livestock pens need maintenance. Each upgrade unlocks new bonuses or reduces deployment costs. The problem is that money flows so freely that economic pressure never materializes. By the midpoint, I had more funds than I knew what to do with, which removed any sense of meaningful choice from the upgrade path.

The difficulty curve is uneven, and there are no options to choose from. Early contracts are suitable challenges as you learn the systems, but the experience plateaus quickly once you've assembled a competent loadout. 

There isn't much endgame content to speak of. Once you complete the story, you can replay contracts to finish any missed optional objectives or hunt for collectibles, but there's no new game plus, additional difficulty modes, or post-story content to chase. The campaign is designed as a narrative-driven experience with a beginning, middle, and end. 

On a base PlayStation 5, Bounty Star runs at a solid 60 frames per second with no noticeable drops during my playthrough. Loading times between assignments and your base are reasonable, though they occur a little too frequently. I encountered no crashes or game-breaking bugs. 

The main technical issue isn't performance but polish. Cutscenes routinely feature characters staring expressionlessly ahead during conversations. Sound effects occasionally go missing during story sequences. The same map overview cutscene plays before every single bounty, which grows tiresome despite its utility for checking enemy positions. 

Bounty Star embraces a distinctive Wild West meets post-apocalypse aesthetic that sets it apart from typical mech titles. The Red Expanse appears desolate, all dusty canyons and scrubland under an oppressive sun. The art direction leans toward a slightly cartoon-like presentation that works for the setting. Everything is drenched in reddish-brown hues during the day, which captures that Southwest atmosphere effectively. At night, the desert transforms. Purple flora glows under moonlight, creating an almost alien beauty that contrasts with the harsh daylight. 

However, asset repetition becomes noticeable over time. You'll see the same environmental objects, enemy types, and structures across multiple assignments. The maps themselves are small and reused frequently. 

Over on the audio side of things, the music embraces that country Western style you'd expect, and it fits the setting perfectly. Guitars twang, harmonicas wail, and the score knows when to swell during dramatic moments. My only complaint is that tracks can sound the same across the runtime. See the pattern here?

Voice acting across the board is solid. Clem's performance carries the experience, delivering lines with weariness and occasional dark humor. The supporting cast presents themselves well, even if their characters don't always get enough screen time to make lasting impressions. The dialogue is fully voiced, which helps sell the story despite the stiff character animations.