Bounty Star Review: The Slow Farm Mech (PC)

When a former protector fails to protect her town, she wallows in her misery. It takes an old friend giving her a new lease on life to snap her out of her self-pity. By building a new home and taking bounty requests for funding, she slowly rebuilds her life. It’s not easy as she no longer has a powerful mech from her former job. But with the help of some friends and allies, she starts creating the ideal life for herself.

Bounty Star combines mech combat with typical base management in a low-risk environment. There are no penalties for failure and you can always start from scratch. Customisation gives you several methods of dispatching enemies and countering threats. However the pace is slow and objectives become unclear after a point. The game is fun for those who like mech combat and farming but might drag on as the game progresses.

Bounty Star is available on PC and Xbox Series X|S for USD 22.49.

Completing side objectives helps you earn money.

Story – After a Big Failure

Bounty Star follows Clem, a bounty hunter who initially lost her purpose in life after a tragedy. She protects her hometown against a threat but is ultimately unsuccessful, becoming the only survivor. Nearly giving up on life, an old friend reaches out to Clem with a new job. She starts over as a bounty hunter, slowly repairing an old settlement once owned by a criminal. As she meets more people, she begins opening up again and regaining the life she envisioned.

The story starts on a sad note similar to On Your Tail but slowly gains an optimistic tone. Clem is rebuilding her life physically and mentally with you helping her make that transition. The game isn’t cozy but it’s nearly impossible to fail. Clem will rebuild her life and regain her motivation while making more friends along the way. It doesn’t break new ground but it lets you accompany Clem on her journey.

Clem slowly begins rebuilding her life after her fall.

However, the game can sometimes be vague about objectives. For example, it can ask you to “clear the next milestone” but not specify what the conditions are. This makes it frustrating to progress the story because you aren’t entirely sure what to do. Improving your home and taking bounty missions helps but better direction would help story progression.

Gameplay – Take Bounties, Develop Land

Most of the game consists of mech combat while you upgrade Clem’s home. Your income mostly comes from bounties at the start of the game though you can supplement this with farming. Combat is in real-time and you configure your mech to adapt to different circumstances. You must adapt to various temperatures to avoid overheating or freezing during mid-combat. Enemies also have different strengths and weaknesses that you must account for.

The blueprints you can build get better as you progress.

Customising your mech lets you configure your playstyle, giving you freedom on how you approach combat. The game does have side objectives that force you into certain loadouts but you don’t have to follow them. As you progress, more equipment is unlocked and you get more variation in combat. It’s exciting to unlock new pieces of equipment and expand your arsenal. You also have several enemy types to test your loadouts.

Completing bounties earns money which you can spend on upgrades or improvements for your home. It’s slow at first but you eventually learn how to set up power sources for machines and start a farm. Eventually you can grow crops and start selling them back as a source of income. As you progress, there are more upgrades you can build to make life easier on bounties and on the farm. However, it takes a long time to get there.

You must prepare for a variety of enemies and environments.

Progress – Where’s The Farming?

Unlike games such as Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land, not everything is available at the start. You must wait a considerable time and do some story progression before farming is accessible. Even then, you don’t get full free time until you complete a few more tasks. There’s also no method to check your objectives, forcing you to do whatever comes up until you progress.

This slows gameplay considerably because you go through the motions until things fall into place. Without a clear path to progress or a method to confirm, it drags out gameplay. Even when you unlock the farm, it doesn’t feel like you own the property as you just put down planters. If there were clearer methods of tracking progress or fast-tracking the simulation aspects, that would work to the game’s advantage.

Side objectives don’t always feel useful or worth accomplishing.

Audio & Visual – Wild West World

Bounty Star takes place in a post-apocalyptic world that’s been ravaged by war. Ruins are everywhere, there’s not much nature, and what nature is left has been mutated. Humans managed to get some robots running and your enemies are a mix of humans and robots. The weapons are traditional firearms with melee weapons looking improvised. It’s also clear to see the weather and lighting, crucial aspects that tell you the area’s temperature.

The audio captures the fighting and clashing of mech combat well. Voice acting is also done well though Clem takes time to fully express her emotional range. Listening to the sounds makes you feel like you are in an old-time western movie with modern touches. You are taking care of crops but also creating hydrogen fuel and developing new weapons. But there are still old touches of the past that sound exactly what you would expect.

Bounty Star was reviewed on Steam with a code provided by Tara Bruno PR.