When Bounty Battle was announced, it was hard to believe that such a game existed. Characters from 20+ indie games fight each other in small arenas? Yes this is an indie version Super Smash Bros., Surely many independent developers would like to take part in such a project! The result was something strange — no one expected a masterpiece, but in reality Bounty Battle turned out to be a huge disappointment and the worst game of the year.
We’ve never seen anything like this before
I don’t even know where to start when describing this misunderstanding. First of all, there is no story mode. After the introductory video, in which familiar characters are sucked into portals, there will be no explanation for what is happening. Just accept that the characters are from Owlboy, Battle Chasers: Nightwar, Darkest Dungeon, Dead Cells and other indie releases have something to share and are ready to fight each other. It’s a shame that the developers didn’t bother to add at least a short story, having access to such a roster.
Secondly, this is a fighting game in which there is not a single online mode. It’s strange to write something like this in 2020, but this also happens — if you play against real people here, it’s only on one screen. They have been warning about this for a long time, but every time there is a release Bounty Battle was transferred (and this happened more than once), I hoped that this was done to add full-fledged multiplayer. However, he never appeared and is unlikely to appear.
I wonder if the developers of all these games will want to remove their heroes from the fighting game after such a failure?
What is there?? Well, there is a https://happy-tiger-casino.co.uk tutorial that explains some of the controls. The character can make regular and powerful attacks — the latter consume energy, the reserve of which is shown at the bottom of the screen. There is also a super move that can be activated by pressing two buttons, and sometimes target locking can be useful — for example, to throw an opponent off the edge of the map. Heroes can also become invulnerable for a while, jump, roll, bounce back — in general, a fairly standard (and rather boring) set of skills.
All fighters control the same, but each has different techniques, and the developers tried to recreate the abilities of the characters from the corresponding games. Hero Dead Cells uses cluster bombs and swings a nimble blade, Gally from Battle Chasers throwing rocks, Juan from Guacamelee! hits enemies with his head after a jerk… However, this is still not enough to fully feel that you are controlling a famous hero. Their animations are very poor, some are also drawn so-so, and the visual effects are too modest — the same bombs don’t even seem to explode.
The ability to call upon assistants in the midst of battle, who independently fight with opponents until you die, is also not impressive. It’s just someone flying, running or crawling and periodically injuring opponents — if long-term combos had any meaning, this would be useful, but otherwise you constantly forget about this function. You only have to remember about the penalties for abusing the same techniques — if you constantly use light blows, without alternating them with heavy ones or something else, the hero will stop for a second and become vulnerable.
Nothing to do
Although you should only worry about this in local multiplayer (if anyone agrees to play this with you at all), and in the few PvE modes everything is very easy in most cases — the artificial intelligence is ridiculously stupid and allows you to beat yourself to the bitter end. Only crooked hitboxes can get in the way, but even with them problems rarely arise. Enemies cannot jump up to you if you are on a high platform, and in challenges that involve throwing participants off a cliff, they sometimes fall into the abyss themselves.
There are only two single modes. In the "Tournament", each hero participates in a series of five challenges — either defeating one opponent, or destroying a certain number of enemies in matches with four participants. If you don’t die in battle, you get a new look for a specific hero as a gift — obviously, they didn’t bother with unique skins, so here the colors of the same costumes simply change. In the “Test” you have to choose a fighter and start fights one after another. The developers have already been hinted that the names of the modes are mixed up, but given everything else this is not even surprising.
Everything is also very bad with battlefields — even in an unsuccessful PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale, which also unsuccessfully copied fighting games Nintendo, there were several platforms on the maps. Here, God forbid, there is only one platform, and sometimes there isn’t even one — just a field, a fight on which does not evoke any emotions. It’s commendable that the locations were moved here from the same games from which the characters were taken, but it doesn’t make it any better.
After all this, only one question arises: how did the French team, consisting of two developers, manage to attract the attention of so many indie creators?? Didn’t anyone ask to show what this fighting game actually looks like?? According to one of the authors, he has been working on this project for about six years and at first he did not receive answers from his colleagues in the workshop — only after the creators Guacamelee! agreed to add Juan to the game, and everyone else joined in. But what exactly were six years spent on??
Idea Bounty Battle beautiful — in Super Smash Bros. heroes of indie games do not become fighters (even characters Cuphead And Shovel Knight there were only spirits there), so such an indie fighting game could certainly become successful. But in its current state, the game will definitely not be able to achieve success — we must try to create such a disgrace with such a large roster of famous heroes. Every element here is done carelessly, and the lack of a story mode and multiplayer seems especially strange. This is definitely the worst game of the year — beyond wretchedness Fast & Furious Crossroads And Warcraft III: Reforged at least you could laugh, but here… it’s just garbage.
Pros: three dozen characters whose creators somehow gave permission to use them in this misunderstanding.
Cons: lack of story mode; lack of online multiplayer; too little entertainment for one player; stupid artificial intelligence in single player modes; boring arenas; simple animations; faded visual style; poor interface; they ask for money for this.