Bounty of One Review: Not Worth the Time

Releasing quietly earlier this month was Bounty of One, a new bullet-hell inspired by the success of Vampire Survivors. Bounty of One has a few tricks up its sleeves and a fun, western flair. Unfortunately, the game quickly becomes tedious due to poor pacing, a bizarre movement and attacking mechanic, and a dull gameplay loop.

Bounty of One is available on Steam for $6.99.

Story: Not Much to Speak Of

To be honest, there’s not much of a story in Bounty of One. According to the Steam description, the player was once a legend in the Western Kingdoms, but now they are outlaws with an enormous bounty. Bounties mean bounty hunters, and of course there are hordes of them coming to collect the money on your head. It’s up to you to defeat the the hordes of bounty hunters, their leaders, and ultimately defeat the dreaded Undertaker.

The setting simply serves as the backdrop for the gameplay. Unfortunately, the entire adventure takes place in a barren desert. It’s an empty, sand colored abyss that goes on for infinity. As a consequence, the level and everything in it is void of meaningful interaction beyond killing your enemies. It’s just you and a never ending wave of enemies coming at you from every direction, for better or worse.

Gameplay: A Barren Wasteland

The gameplay in Bounty of One is similar to other reverse bullet-hell titles, with a few twists of its own. After you select your player, you’re tossed into an arena with enemies blitzing toward you. By eliminating the enemies and collecting experience, you’ll level up and gain a new passive trait, such as increased damage or attack speed. Bounty of One takes a slightly more skill-based approach as you’re able to dash to avoid enemies.

The most shocking difference is the fact that you can’t attack while moving – meaning you have to be stationary for your default attack to fire. Not being able to attack and move at the same time takes some adjustment, especially if you’ve played other bullet hell games. At times I found it rather limiting. Coupled with your attacks targeting the nearest enemy, I felt like I wasn’t in complete control of my character. Overall, it really makes the moment-to-moment action feel restrictive. In a game about avoiding giant hordes of enemies, it’s counter-intuitive to the gameplay. 

In Bounty of One, you can only shoot while standing still.

Enemies & Bosses

There are a handful of different enemy types in Bounty of One. There are the basic enemies that will make a beeline towards you, chargers that will leap at you and cause damage in a small area, and enemies that shoot projectiles. While the enemies may look different, their AI is functionally the same and all enemies fall into these archetypes.

Each run takes about 10 minutes or so, and you’ll go through several waves of enemies until you fight a randomly selected boss. Fortunately, the bosses always felt like a much needed break and a chance to recoup. Each one has an unique mechanic. There’s a mole boss that throws dynamite and then burrows underground. It’s not hard by any means, but overall I enjoyed fighting the bosses.

Crazy Denzel, the gopher boss, does a good job at breaking up the pace of a standard run.

Unlocking New Options

Occasionally there will be stronger enemies that show up, fittingly named Deputies. Deputies are the same as regular enemies, but their attack patterns might be slightly different or larger. When deputies die, they drop a relic that usually increases your damage or helps your survivability in some way. For example, one relic will heal you every time you dash. They’re not all positive though – some will have a negative effect that could end up tanking your build. For example, one relic triples your attack speed but reduces your damage by over half. For certain characters, this can be a death knell. 

Speaking of the extra characters, they each start with a unique trait that can eventually be unlocked for other characters. My favorite character is Nigel, he’s a cowboy equipped with throwing stars. It’s weird, but hey, I can totally dig it. The throwing stars will come back to the player after a second, so they have the potential to hit enemies twice. Another neat character is Natoko, whose attack speed will increase as enemies get closer. 

The relics you get from killing deputies are usually very strong.

Infamy Levels

As you play more, you’ll unlock more difficulty options called Infamy. At Infamy level 1, there are slightly more enemies that appear. However, at infamy level 10, things become a little bit more challenging. You’ll start taking more damage, and there are a significant amount of new enemies appearing. At this point, more problems start to become apparent.

Since you can’t attack while moving and there are hundreds of enemies on screen at once, I found myself sort of skipping along the screen with strategic stops to get in extra damage. This works, but it’s just not very fun. There’s no on-screen indicators of relics and there are no temporary power-ups to speak of, so I was left attempting to remember where the deputies dropped their relics. Since the levels have no visually interesting textures or landmarks, it’s easy to lose track of where you are.

I’ve never seen a cowboy with a shuriken, but I’m not opposed to the idea!

It’s a Slog

Unfortunately, progression in Bounty of One is like walking through mud. Unlocking characters is easy enough, but there are not a lot of meaningful items to unlock. Early on, you can buy permanent upgrades from a Black Market shop. At the beginning, there’s not much here but it does get expanded later on. However, by the time I put 4 hours into Bounty of One, I felt like I had seen almost everything. I had all but one character unlocked, almost all of the items, and nearly 75% of the available achievements in the game. I’ve played a few more hours since then, and it feels like I’m stuck spinning my wheels – there’s nothing interesting left to do or unlock!

Bounty of One feels so stale because each run is so similar. The enemies and area are always the same, and there’s no surprises. Defeating the bosses require the exact same strategy. If there were more environments, enemies, and relics that were more evenly paced, I might have more motivation to play. There is a multiplayer mode as well allowing for local cooperative play, but I wasn’t able to test this. Online play is possible through Steam’s Remote Play, but you’ll likely need a great internet connection to overcome the latency.

The strategy for bosses don’t change at early levels making it very repetitive.

Graphics/Audio: Technical Problems

Bounty of One has an interesting and unique look, along with a decent soundtrack. Characters, enemies, and bosses have lots of cartoonish detail, and you can tell the artists put a lot of effort into their sprites. I also enjoyed the music – it managed to be catchy, but not annoying. 

Unfortunately, I had a significant amount of technical problems with Bounty of One. From the second I launched the game, the game would hang at random moments and eventually crash. I can’t say how widespread the crashes are, but I can say that any dopamine from Bounty of One evaporates when the game crashes in the final seconds of a run. The developer seems to be responsive on the Steam discussion boards, so here’s hoping that the issues are taken care of.

Does It Run on Steam Deck?

Bounty of One is Verified for the Steam Deck, and plays great on Valve’s handheld. Since I was having crashes on my PC, I spend a majority of my time with Bounty of One on the Steam Deck. The visuals look great on the display, and the controls work as intended. 

Bounty of One was reviewed on PC via Steam with a key provided by OptizOnion Games.