Star Wars: Bounty Hunter is a game that came out 22 years ago on the Nintendo GameCube and PlayStation 2. It came out at a time where the Star Wars prequel trilogy was in full swing. Attack of the Clones had come out in May that year, and Star Wars: Bounty Hunter was released in November. Famously, the prequels aren’t very good. But this was a time where Star Wars video games were usually good and sometimes even better than the movies.
Nostalgia is a powerful force (pun intended) that can influence the way we feel about certain things from our past. I played a lot of Star Wars games growing up, but somehow missed Star Wars: Bounty Hunter. This remastered version is my first proper exposure to the game outside of watching speedruns on YouTube. I don’t have the nostalgia attached to this game in the same way others do. Which really confounds me, because I can’t understand why Star Wars: Bounty Hunter is so well liked in the Star Wars game canon.
This is a remastered game that uses original GameCube coding. The game looks like you remember it, except it has a ton of graphical fidelity upgrades such as much higher quality texturing, lighting that actually works (the original game was famously very dark), and better frame-rate. There is also full mouse and keyboard support for the first time, and some implementation for the DualShock controllers on PS5. Unfortunately, the Nintendo Switch and Xbox Series S|X versions of Star Wars: Bounty Hunter don’t get any control/hardware changes that the PC and PS5 get, making them feel a little left out. I played this on my PS5, so I can’t speak to the keyboard/mouse controls, but I’ve heard the game finally plays well on PC.
The biggest and most impactful changes here are the ones that almost seem inconsequential. Jango Fett now has a flashlight that he can toggle at any time. This was not present in the original release to deal with the horrible lighting back then. However, it almost feels like an unnecessary addition as the overall lighting system has been tweaked. I never found a moment where I felt the flashlight had to be turned on because things are just generally better lit in this version of the game. Arguably the biggest change is that Jango’s scanner now slows down time dramatically. You are often scanning people to see if they have bounties on them, and doing so in the original release looked finicky and next to impossible to properly scan somebody. Now the game slows down almost to a complete halt and makes it much easier to scan and mark your targets.
The biggest issue I have is that the folks at Aspyr didn’t do enough to make combat and overall general gameplay to be fun, or tactile, or engaging. This remaster wears its 2002 GameCube jank on its sleeve. Jango Fett has a few different weapons to use, but there aren’t any hotkeys or macros that allow you to pick the specific weapon you want. You have to cycle through and pick whatever you want in the moment. This deterred me from using things like the flamethrower or the rockets. There is nothing that takes you out of the bounty hunter fantasy more than having to stop, swap over to a weapon, accidentally scroll past it, and then having to scroll back to it to continue fighting. It’s janky as hell and not fun. Besides, Jango’s dual pistols usually do the trick and have infinite ammo, so swapping always feels like a fool’s errand. Enemies also don’t really make any noise if they’ve been hit and there’s no on-screen indicator showing a hit-marker or anything of the sort. You’re often just shooting and waiting for an enemy to fall over, because that’s really the only way you’ll know if you’ve hit someone in a busy gunfight.
Every time a game has a jetpack I get so excited to use it, but that quickly faded away after I realized how limiting the jetpack feels here. You are only able to fly horizontally or vertically at a time. You cannot do both! You have to fly up and then forward, as opposed to flying forward with an upward trajectory. I feel like this is something that maybe could have been adjusted for this remaster, as it just feels limiting for no real reason. Many of the environments are made up of huge open spaces where you are constantly being shot at by constantly spawning enemies. These rooms are extra frustrating to navigate and make up for a majority of the adventure.
My final gripe about Star Wars: Bounty Hunter is that bounty hunting is a mechanic that feels extremely under-utilized. As you scan enemies you’ll see some of them have bounties and need to be brought back either dead or alive. Each successful bounty nets you some credits you can use to spend on concept art. This might have been interesting 22 years ago when you maybe couldn’t access that concept art so easily, but now it feels like a completely wasted mechanic. Obviously it has to be there as the game is literally called BOUNTY HUNTER, but it isn’t interesting, it’s not fun, and it’s not an engaging aspect of the game.
Star Wars: Bounty Hunter was made during a time where they thought people would give a shit about Star Wars prequels and the prequel characters. It’s a janky game with a no-longer canonical story. It’s well performed, but the story takes a backseat to an already bland experience. This is a game that could benefit from a full fledged remake with some love and effort put into making its systems actually engaging. Unless Star Wars: Bounty Hunter happens to be your favourite game ever, I seriously cannot find any real reason to recommend it. It’s boring, it’s uninteresting, and worst of all, its faithfulness to the original release is its biggest detriment.
