PlayStation 5 Critic Reviews

Bounty Star offers a satisfactory narrative with a charismatic protagonist, iconic characters, customization, engaging mecha gameplay, and intuitive base management. However, the game suffers from repetitive scenarios, soundtrack, and mission structure.

Bounty Star is one of the most impressive games of the year with its unique and entertaining mech combat as well as its more personal touches that'll make you feel a strong sense of personal growth as you complete bounty after bounty.

Hemingway once wrote “the world breaks everyone, and afterwards many are strong in the broken places.” There is strength in living through something that shatters you and trying to find meaning in the ruins. That road isn’t straight. It twists and curves and circles back, and you may find yourself going in reverse when you least expect it. Bounty Star understands that. Clem’s path isn’t an easy one; it is a road that winds through both the highs of blasting apart mechs as you collect bounties from the cockpit of a Raptor and the more tranquil moments spent tending to chickens on a farm. It’s one she cannot navigate alone, that is built on the grace and support of the charming people she meets along the way. But it is worth traveling. Sometimes, the only way out is through. Sometimes, you have to go back to the thing that brought you to ruin because it’s part of who you are. Sometimes, you have to get back in the f***ing robot and hope there’s a life on the other side.

Bounty Star from developer DINOGOD and publisher Annapurna Interactive is a lot of different things. It’s a narrative-driven game that features a heavy amount of customization and crafting. All of which goes through mech fighting, which might be the weakest part of the entire package.

Bounty Star: The Morose Tale of Graveyard Clem is a fun game that never manages to make all of its mechanics blend together well. There are a lot of strong ideas that I really like independent of each other, but it never feels like a cohesive whole. There's still a lot of fun to be had in blasting bandits and helping Clem go from the graveyard to the farmyard, but it's very much a game with big ideas that it doesn't always live up to. If the concept sounds interesting, it's probably well worth a shot. Just be prepared for an experience that doesn't always hit the mark.

Bounty Star is a fun time-killer if you want something straightforward and entertaining with an emotional core that doesn't ask all that much of you.

Overall, Bounty Star provides players with an arcade-like experience involving customizable mechs, which is surprisingly not an oversaturated niche yet. The solid combat and customization options highlight an overall polished product that is accompanied by an overall insightful narrative and smooth gameplay on console. For any mech fans, Bounty Star is worth checking out and is also currently a part of Xbox Game Pass at the time of this review.

Bounty Star is a title of interesting ideas that never fully realizes any of them. The narrative foundation is strong, the setting is unique, and the ambition to blend mech warfare with homestead management deserves praise. But the execution fumbles with its overly repetitive design and shallow systems.

I feel torn about Bounty Star. It attempts to amalgamate two genres that, on paper, feel like they shouldn’t work, but it strangely does. The problem is that the execution is disappointing as it fails to make the farming elements integral to the experience. I would still recommend Bounty Star to mech-heads as the combat and controls are superb, but it’s hard to ignore what could have been.

Bounty Star sounds more like a pile of ideas that don't mesh well, resulting in an uneven execution. The game doesn't stand out much, even though it has some interesting qualities.