Star Wars: Bounty Hunter Review – Jango Fett Returns

If you’re familiar with Aspyr’s recent output of remasters, then you won’t be surprised to learn that the Star Wars: Bounty Hunter remaster doesn’t do much to go above and beyond those previous efforts. This is a light touch-up that polishes the visuals and tidies up the camera controls a bit, leaving all of the other 2002 jank intact. Thankfully, they didn’t screw up as much here as they did with Battlefront Classic Collection’s multiplayer servers; as there is no multiplayer to be found in Star Wars: Bounty Hunter. This is a purely single-player affair, starring Jango Fett and his adventures leading up to the events of Attack of the Clones. The gameplay consists of third-person shooting as you jetpack your way through different locations throughout the Star Wars galaxy. We’ll talk all about collecting bounties and Jango’s arsenal of tools after going over all the additions that Aspyr has made to pretty up this 22-year-old game.

Visually, Bounty Hunter looks much better in this remaster than it ever has before. As expected, Aspyr has touched up the resolution to match modern monitors with sharp textures and crisp resolution. Because this is not emulated, but rather a native port using Gamecube source code, cutscenes only get a partial graphical improvement compared to the more consistent high-res textures found in the gameplay sections. Lighting was a problem with the original game, and thankfully this remaster adds a new flashlight to Jango’s repertoire. You won’t be using the flashlight too often, though, considering the new lighting system they’ve implemented illuminates the many nooks and crannies well enough on its own. Another neat upgrade is a slow-down during scanning. Scanning used to be downright hectic in the original version, as you’d often be in the middle of a tense firefight while picking out your bounty, so it’s good this remaster remedies that a bit by slowing everything down a notch as soon as you scan. On the sound front, Jeremy Soule’s original score hasn’t been touched up whatsoever and the voices are exactly the same as they’ve always been.

"This remaster includes both the Legacy and the Modern control scheme, the latter making use of the PS5’s DuelSense rumble capabilities."

This remaster highly favors the PS5 and PC platforms over Xbox and Switch thanks to its integration with DuelSense and keyboard/mouse functionality. If you’re playing on PS5, you can now feel the resistance and rumble of your weapons through the adaptive triggers. Different weapons feature varying degrees of rumble as well, with the heavy repeaters and rockets causing your controller to vibrate like crazy. As expected, this new emphasis on the shoulder triggers necessitates a new control scheme. This remaster includes the ‘modern’ control scheme for all platforms, following typical third-person-shooter controls from the last decade. PC players finally get dedicated mouse and keyboard optimization for the first time with this remaster, so at least aiming will be somewhat improved on PC.

Oh, and the new trophies and achievements added for this particular remaster get unlocked at a very nice pace. Every chapter grants you a silver trophy/achievement and basic milestones doll out trophies at a nice pace as well. As such, Star Wars: Bounty Hunter remastered makes for an ideal game to ‘platinum’ and get every last achievement for. Oh, and no, you can’t earn trophies/achievements by just inputting the level skip cheat codes. But thankfully, all the codes from the PS4/Xbox One Bounty Hunter port remain here intact. So, if you ever get stuck on a particularly annoying level or want to check out all of the concept art and secrets, you can still use those codes to do so.

Overall, these remaster touch-ups aren’t game-changing. The 22-year-old game sure needed the graphical cleanup, yes, but the DuelSense bells and whistles and modern control scheme fulfill more of an ornamental improvement than a substantial one. What Star Wars: Bounty Hunter deserves is a full-on remake. Jango’s origin story is filled with fun characters and rich locales, and the premise of playing as a bounty hunter within the Star Wars universe remains ripe with potential to this day. But alas, this game’s underlying design is plagued by early 3D environmental issues and enemy encounter woes, something a full-on remake could have addressed more thoroughly.

Everything from here on in the review addresses the mechanics and design inherent in the original 2002 Star Wars: Bounty Hunter. Considering that this is an older game, I’ll be as fair as I can; there’s only so much a light remaster can improve.

"Locking onto targets is preferred, though it can get janky as you jump around a sea of enemies."

As you drop into the opening chapter’s arena battle, you’ll quickly notice the very basic shooting controls. Locking on is often your best bet in most combat situations, considering the chaotic camera and sheer number of enemies on screen. While the lock-on targets foes accurately, moving on to the nearest enemy can sometimes lead to some very janky moments. I’ve had several instances of the lock-on searching maniacally for the next target, resulting in the screen spinning and cutting away abruptly. Similarly, locking onto enemies while rolling and using the jetpack can cause the camera to cut violently, often leading to a death. Thankfully, this remaster adds camera sensitivity, but the binary sensitivity meter can only do so much when the camera itself isn’t built for precision.

Jango’s equipment comprises a pretty good variety of tools useful for any bounty hunter. His iconic duel blasters make up the majority of gameplay thanks to the superb rate of fire and infinite ammo. Coupled with his duel blasters, Jango’s jetpack is the other star of the show here. It’s a lot of fun just flying around the environments and shooting at foes from above. Sure, the jetpack has a cooldown and you can’t simultaneously fly vertically and horizontally, but it’s good old janky fun. The rest of Jango’s combative repertoire comprises close-range fists, single-hit toxic darts with limited ammo, an unwieldy flamethrower, a whipcord for capturing bounties, and a set of grenades with a very short throwing arc. You also pick up limited-time weapons like blaster rifles and heavy guns, though these are few and far between throughout the levels.

"Switching between weapons can be a chore due to the same weapons wheel from 2002. The remaster sadly doesn’t add the ability to hotkey weapon combinations."

I’ve always liked the range of weapons in Bounty Hunter, though the remaster still hasn’t found a way to make switching between the varied arsenal easier. The only way to quickly switch specific weapons is with the last weapon used button. To set up this last-weapon-used ‘hotkey’, you must navigate the cumbersome weapon select screen, requiring a separate pause and scroll process. Bounty Hunter very seriously needs dedicated hotkeys between weapons. At the very least, the remaster could have implemented custom loadouts to make switching between weapons mid-fight smoother and faster, but it remains unchanged from the original.

Star Wars: Bounty Hunter is a very fast-paced game, so I wouldn’t blame anyone for just sticking to the basic duel blaster weapon through most of it. After all, large enemy waves function as one of the primary progression gates in the game. These enemy waves aren’t all that interesting either. Pretty much all enemies in the game just shoot at Jango or engage in close-range pummeling, forcing the player to just spam the shoot button to mow them down. This wave-based progression gets repetitive fast, with very little variety in combat tactics. Yes, it’s often encouraged to use the flamethrower to quickly dispatch close-range mobs or to lob grenades at mobs below you, but due to the lack of hotkeys and the limited enemy types, the fastest way through any fight usually consists of spamming your duel blaster at foes. Enemies spawn at a fast rate, making the game artificially difficult and laborious to get through. You can return to an area 30 seconds after leaving it to find it swarming with a fresh mob of the same enemies. Half of Bounty Hunter’s gameplay can be identified as a button-mash shooter, so let’s talk about its other half, shall we?

"You’ll often have to use your torch to cut open vents leading to where you need to go."

The other way to progress through levels in Bounty Hunter is good old exploration. Jango has a cutting torch that opens up access to small vents and sewers, which often lead to the next area you need to go. To the game’s credit, levels feel very organic in the way they’re laid out. The way forward is often an obscure edge you have to shimmy across or an unmarked platform a layer below your current position. Unfortunately, this unmarked organic level layout often leads to incredible confusion about where to go next. There’s very little indication of where to go, with nondescript blast doors among a hallway of unmarked doors often being the only way forward. You can interact with elevator lifts and console buttons that open doors throughout the game, but again, these interactive elements have no indicators cluing the player they can be interacted with in the first place. All of this is made worse by the fact that there’s still no minimap in this game. I love me some good organic level design, but the sheer prevalence of similar-looking doors and the lack of highlighted objects causes confusion and irritation.

Thankfully, if you do lose your way and get lost, mid-mission checkpoints exist throughout the levels. There’s typically two or three checkpoints per level, but some are placed a bit too far from one another, as is the case with the asteroid prison break level. Levels like this require you to go through several large rooms filled to the brim with cells flowing with inmate/police mobs. If you take too long figuring out where to go in the room, new mobs start spawning and you’ll have to kill them again and again. The absurd spawn rate in some areas in addition to poor level guidance and spread-out checkpoints just makes the game a drag to go through. Other levels like the Coruscant chapter have a more measured spread of enemies, allowing you to explore the environment and scan civilians for bounties without much irritant. Overall, the level design misses more than it hits.

"The story is surprisingly good here, with top-notch voice acting and brilliantly directed cutscenes."

Unlike the gameplay, I can only say positive things about the story of Bounty Hunter. The voice acting is superb, barring a few awkward line deliveries here and there. Temuera Morrison reprises his role as Jango Fett from Attack of the Clones and performs it flawlessly. Likewise, all the supporting cast and villains are excellently portrayed. Jango’s characterization, in particular, is well realized here, thanks in large part to his banter with his Toydarian informant Rozatta.  The plot moves at a consistent pace with cutscenes occurring in between every level in the game, and they’re all wonderfully shot, providing a satisfying reward after an annoying level. And although, this story isn’t technically ‘canon’ anymore, the backstory on how Jango acquired his Slave I ship and became the prototype for the clone army is well told and intriguing throughout.

This 2024 remaster of Star Wars: Bounty Hunter is the definitive way to play the 2002 classic, though Aspyr could’ve done more to highlight the game’s strengths. Regardless of its shortcomings, Bounty Hunter still provides classic early 2000s fun and plenty of Star Wars atmosphere to satisfy any fan.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.