Bounty Star feels like Armored Core in the Wild West, and while the combat's great it's the Monster Hunter and Stardew Valley vibes that really grabbed me

When I sat down to play Bounty Star during Summer Game Fest, I was sold the instant I realized this was a Wild West-themed mech game with big Cowboy Bebop energy all about a very sad old bounty hunter named Clem. I'm not sure I've ever seen a collection of vibes so laser-targeted toward me, specifically, and luckily the actual gameplay feels like a genre blend just as compelling.

The action in Bounty Star takes place across a series of missions with specific maps and enemy layouts. The stage I played was pretty open-ended, offering a variety of ways to approach your targets - important, since just sprinting straight in will quickly leave you surrounded by more bad guys than you can deal with, especially once you factor in the patrolling enemies that might wander in to give you a bad day.

Combat is nice and weighty, and while it might be a cliché to say it reminded me of Dark Souls, FromSoftware's own Armored Core makes a nice comparison point. You have to commit to your melee attacks, at least if you're using the default sword, but it's very satisfying once it lands. Your loadout seems to matter in a big way, too - I really struggled to complete the opening mission until I swapped out the sword for a much faster punching weapon and paired it with a big ol' grenade launcher that just melted enemy health bars.

But as much as I enjoyed the combat, it's the downtime between missions that really has me intrigued. You explore a hub that includes the garage where Clem works on her mech and a bit of outlying land where you can grow and pick ingredients, Stardew Valley-style. You can then put these ingredients into a meal that'll buff you for the mission ahead, just like cooking something up in Monster Hunter. The game's Steam page also notes that there are "base building" mechanics, so it seems there's plenty more depth to be found here.

I only got to play about 30 minutes of Bounty Star, but impeccable vibes spread over great combat and an intriguing meta-progression system instantly had me hooked. It's rocketed up my wishlist, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing how the final game comes together when it launches across Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, and PC later this year.

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