About This Game Bronco County is on the brink of war. A conspiracy to provoke a conflict between the western settlers and the Chepakwik threatens to destroy both sides. Only Kid, Doc, Moon and Rosy know the truth. But to save their homes, they’ll have to hunt down five legendary outlaws whose very names strike fear into the hearts of men.Boot Hill Bounties continues the saga of Kid and his companions as they journey deeper into the darkest corners of the Wild West and come face to face with the evil Creed Little, Stampede Sally, Tuco Delgado, Scorpion Saint and Burning Crow.Boot Hill Bounties continues the story of Boot Hill Heroes, but Boot Hill Bounties was designed for new players to comfortably jump in without having played the first game. Six years in development, Boot Hill Bounties is a 2D retro RPG set in the Wild West that supports single player or UP TO FOUR PLAYER LOCAL CO-OP. . Wild West Epic: Boot Hill Bounties is the second episode in a game series that fuses elements of spaghetti western film - gunslinging outlaws, brave lawmen, and the untamed wilderness - with classic RPG storyline and gameplay. 90s console RPGs like Final Fantasy, Earthbound and Chrono Trigger created lasting memories and impacted us as gamers. Now, Boot Hill Bounties brings back those experiences while revitalizing the genre with a Wild West spin and innovative new gameplay elements.Retro Fresh: It's an experimental combination of old and new ideas intended to bring a new and unique experience to modern gamers and old-school fans alike. It's an epic Wild West adventure packed with excitement, intrigue, terror and the occasional dose of humor.Active Combat: Typical turn-based combat is replaced with fast and frenetic real-time system where all players remain engaged in battle and no one is waiting for a turn!4 Player Co-op: Play single player or up to four player local co-op. Friends can seamlessly drop-in and take control of a character! You simply assign each of the four characters to various input devices. So a single player can control all four characters, or you can play with friends and divide the four characters among your friends.Music: Full soundtrack by Jake ‘virt’ Kaufman (“Shovel Knight”, “Shantae”, “DuckTales Remastered”)!Encounters: No random battles! See them on the map before engaging! Defeated enemies remember you and flee.Pixel Art: Charming, detailed sprites with hundreds of unique NPCs!Wild West Setting: Sprawling towns and locales to explore, including forests, caves, deserts and a traveling circus!250 Enemies: Fight outlaws and animals! Can you stop a barroom brawl? Can you defeat a gang of raccoons hoarding precious garbage?Job Hats: 34 Different Job Hats - from the casual Stetson to the mysterious Careta - that teach nearly 200 battle abilitiesCustomize Weapons: Customize your weaponry with status inflicting effects! Create a gun that fires multiple times, or a lasso that sets enemies on fire!20-30 Hours of RPG goodness packed with content. You will almost never fight the same battle twice.Farming: Start your own farm to obtain livestock and grow crops which you can harvest for ingredients.Newspaper: Read the newspaper to learn what’s going on in Bronco County, find jobs, learn new recipes and solve puzzles.Steam Achievements: A whopping 52 Achievements! Can you collect every card in the deck? Character Profiles: Hand-drawn profiles for 20 major characters, and 34 for each of the hats.Side Quests: New side quests pop up each chapter that you can read about and track in the newspaper.Eat Food: Visit restaurants and sample over 50 types of good to gain perks that benefit you in battle.Stealth Attacks: Sneak up on enemies to gain a starting initiative in battle.350 Characters: Get to know the many different residents of Bronco County. Each with their own unique sprite and name.Questions Boxes: Solve riddles found in the newspaper to unlock secret combination lockboxesImport Data: Import your save data from Boot Hill Heroes and start on your last levels with all your equipment and skills.Camping: under the stars and chat with your party next to the fire or participate in several game systems.Chuckwagon Chief: Compete in a cooking competition by cooking the best food for judges using a themed ingredient.Treasure: Find and discover different treasures dropped by enemies rather than money, that you can then sell for money.Battle Grades: Earn higher grades for better combat performance for more XP.Nonlinear Chapters: Play the story chapters in any order as you decide which paths to follow first.Cooking: Cook food at camp using various ingredients to give you party battle perks.Battle Bonuses: Earn various battle bonus titles based on how you fight each battle, such as Perfect Dodge and Status MasterTutorial Challenges: Complete tutorial challenges for extra items and goodies.Wounds: Suffer from persistent frontier wounds like gunshots, fractured limbs and dysenteryResponses: Choose how Kid will respond in scenes from multiple choices.Coupons: Find coupons in the newspaper and from tips around town to get deals on items in shopsWild West Vernacular: Tons of Wild West dialect, terminology and colloquialisms Doctoring: Treat wounds by learning various Wild West cures that you can apply at campRiddles: Solve dozens of riddles delivered by school kids.Trappings: Augment your characters with trinkets that add more depth to the gameplayPuzzle Bosses: Use your mind, rather than strength, to determine how to beat puzzle bosses.Mysteries: Secrets, easter eggs and mysteries keep you thinking and speculating about hidden elements in the storyBattle Introductions: Unique character text and messages give every battle a unique reason for existing. 6d5b4406ea Title: Boot Hill BountiesGenre: Indie, RPGDeveloper:Experimental Gamer StudiosPublisher:Experimental Gamer StudiosRelease Date: 14 Dec, 2017 Boot Hill Bounties Reset Key More of the original, which was amazing. Recommended 100%.. At the time of me writing this review, I would not suggest this game. I'm a bit over 4 hours into the game, only to have deal with multiple bugs that have soft locked me.Now, I got this game right when it came out due to being excited for the sequel to Boot Hill Heroes, and after sinking dozens of hours into that game, I was really happy to dive into Bounties. While I ended up getting soft locked in the first 30-ish minutes of the game, with another 30+ minutes to figure out something screwed up in the files and I had to verify them, I reported it on the forums but couldn't reproduce the bug.My second time? I've gotten further in the game to the Mines, and shortly after fighting the first boss enemy there and picking up what I can only assume was a key item, the game soft locked when I moved over towards the elevator by the camp at the mines. I had to alt + tab out of the game to manually close it due to the game becoming softlocked.Keep in mind that steam says I have 4.3 hours into the game. But easily an hour, or even longer of it, is due to me trying to deal with bugs that happened. I know that players are supposed to report bugs they come across, which I have, but when you keep getting ones that soft lock the game and prevent you from moving forward, it's hard to want to continue to play the game.In the current state I would not recommend playing Boot Hill Bounties, due to it feeling like more testing was needed before going public for the game. I paid for the game the moment it came out, partally due to it being on sale the moment it came out due to being a new release, but I am second guessing myself at this point.Maybe after this game has recieved numerous updates after others have played further into it and helped report bugs and the like I'll give it another chance, but at its current state I can not play a game that keeps giving me this many issues.. Honestly it hurts me to write a review for this game and giving it the 'Not Recommended' tag. I loved the first game after I had been introduced to it by my boyfriend, it had that old school RPG charm and when we were made aware of this game I was excited to see what was coming next.Right now in the game's current state? A buggy mess is what we have so far or at least thats what it seems like to me. Not even two hours into the game and we both had ended up running into multiple issues (Him not being able to end a battle at all until he re-verfied the files and myself somehow breaking a sequence just from not talking to an NPC).Today we decided to give it another go and sure enough we began noticing graphical glitches and hell he even softlocked at one point. The game at its core is much like the first in the Boot Hill series but right now I just can not recommend anyone actually purchase this game until some of this stuff is fixed further. Glitching out in the opening scenes and areas is a little much in my opinion.In terms of the games actual game play, if you have played Boot Hill Heroes you will be able to jump into this one right away. The battles feel very similar with a slightly upgraded way to how vantages and hats work and the music is still very well done. I do have to get more into the games story to let you know how well it was handled on that aspect but at this time I don't think I'll be going back to it until some of the mentioned issues have been touched upon and fixed.Please take this as a warning for right now; buy it at your own risk. The developer is still working on it which is good but it feels like they still have a lot of work they need to do on this game to make it as good as the first one.I will add, once things have been fixed more who knows maybe I will change my mind, but right now as it stands, I can't tell people they should play this.. TLDRA Wild West themed RPG with strong writing and mechanics deep enough to keep you interested without drowning you. While it lacks polish in specific areas, it\u2019s definitely worth the price and time if you like to grapple with RPG mechanics.Good Stuff Even if you don\u2019t care for the Wild West genre, this game tells a compelling story with twists and intelligent characters, both protagonists and antagonists. The combat system is satisfyingly deep, built around power gauges and skills that require varying amounts of power. A party member\u2019s hat determines the skills they have available, and by levelling up a hat you gain more skill slots and make skills available for use with other hats. By understanding how skills work together, you can create powerful combinations among your party. The story lets you choose the order in which you tackle the main quests. That means your choices inform how early you\u2019ll get access to specific hats and other advantages, which in turn influences how your party develops. Dialog options also make you feel involved in the story, putting the player in a position where they feel like they have to make the best decisions to thwart the bad guys. The gameplay loop of completing main quests and then dealing with sidequests\/collecting ingredients and materials\/upgrading equipment before the next main quest is satisfying. The length is just about perfect. Took me around 30 hours to accomplish 75% completion, and the game doesn\u2019t feel like it\u2019s overstayed its welcome.Bad Stuff There are bugs on occasion, albeit minor ones. A single crash during my playthrough, a couple cases of easily solved getting-stuck-on-NPCs, a sidequest that seemed to be missing. Depending on the order you tackle main quests, it feels easy to be stuck with sub-par party options that just aren\u2019t up to scratch to the enemies you face. One character will have half a dozen hats to choose from (and plenty of skill options), while another may have to make do with just one or two for a while. The art is passable at best, and sometimes just plain bad, particularly battle sprites. That never detracted from my enjoyment, though.Other Stuff While the music isn\u2019t spectacular, it definitely grew on me over the course of the game. Seems like there isn\u2019t a way to un-imbue a weapon if you change your mind. I could be wrong though. Exposition and tutorials are a bit long winded at the start of the game, but it doesn\u2019t last long. This is the second game in the series, something I somehow didn\u2019t realise so I haven\u2019t played the first. I still understood the plot, but feel like playing the first would have helped me enjoy it even more. The ending is a bit abrupt. Mild, vague spoilers ahead. I was expecting one last quest after the handful given to you at the start are finished to wrap everything up, but no. While the story concludes reasonably well, it can feel a bit anticlimactic in terms of gameplay, although that may vary depending on which quest you choose to tackle last.. Don't be fooled by appearances, this game is truly interresting! Quite a step up from the previous installment with a lot more to do and story to unfold! Many people might be skeptical about the game since it does have its share of bugs here and there...But thrust me, the experience is worth those small cringes!A diamond in the rough, just waiting to be even better!. In short, Boot Hill Bounties is a Western (as in "Wild West")-themed JRPG with a unique combat system that makes it ideal for local co-op, 20+ hours of playtime, and amazing music. It's a direct sequel to Boot Hill Heroes by the same developer, so I'd strongly recommend playing that first.The Good:* The music. Simply amazing (and guaranteed to get stuck in your head, but not to an ear worm extent)* The combat system is a unique style, with each character slowly gaining energy over time, which they can spend on abilities (called "Vantages") once they have enough. It also includes a system of "Stances" which are persistent effects on the characters, for instance allowing them to dodge attacks, plus abilities which are designed to counter stances, giving battle a certain rock-paper-scissors strategy to it. Also, since each character gains and spends energy independently, it's easy to split up the duties in local co-op.* Aside from following the story, there's plenty to do in the game - you can develop your own farm, participate in cooking contests, solve problems that citizens post in the newspaper, solve riddles made by clever schoolkids or the local master, or just talk to everyone and take in the local flavour. None of it is required to beat the game, so if you don't care for part of it you can skip it (though you might have to decrease the battle difficulty if you skip too much).* There's plenty of playtime for the pricepoint, making it a great value for your money* The story opens up shortly into the game, allowing you to pick which path you want to pursue next (and it appears the developer has done some sleight-of-hand behind the scenes to keep the difficulty appropriate whichever path you take, but I can't say for sure)The Bad:* There were a few moments in the game where it's a bit obtuse about what you need to do next, requiring a bit of "try everything possible in town" to get through* The story ends right after you complete the final of the four paths in the game, which means it might not end on the most satisfying storybeat. My recommendation: Go to the Chepahkwik village last for the best ending.* Although the story reaches a good ending point, it doesn't fully resolve everything. Hopefully a final part to the trilogy will be released, though that depends on how much interest there is. But every person that buys this increases the chance of that happening *nudgenudge*The Ugly:* Even after a couple bugfix patches, the game still has some lingering bugs in it. Most of these are minor annoyances (symbols improperly positioned within text boxes at a couple points, some objects your character will walk over instead of behind, etc.), but a few do impact gameplay (enemies that are asleep and have a stance active are immune to all vantages, the general store doesn't seem to restock properly every two days like it says it will, etc.)* In my ~30 hours of gameplay, I ran into four crashes. One of these types of crashes might have been fixed with the most recent patch, but the other is apparently proving much more difficult for the developer to track down. At least with the autosave system, you won't lose much progress to a crash.In summary: Even despite the occasional bugs and crashes, this is well worth playing. I do recommend playing the original Boot Hill Heroes first though, but this does provide a recap of the plot from that if you want to skip it.
top of page
bottom of page
Comments