Written by Patrick Orquia
Title: Boot Hill Bounties
Developer: Experimental Gamer
Publisher: Experimental Gamer
Genre: action adventure, RPG
Number of Players: 1
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Release Date: 07 April 2020
Price: $12.99
Boot Hill Bounties is an RPG ported on the Nintendo Switch. It was originally released a few years ago on Steam, and is inspired by RPGs such as EarthBound and Chrono Trigger. But unlike EarthBound, which is set in the modern times, this game is set in the wild, wild west era. You know, cowboys vs. Indians kind of stuff, with less of literal cowboys going on a shooting match against Indians (or Native Americans, to be more politically correct) but more on the old western gangs stirring trouble to cause a civil war between the colonizers and the indiginous tribes. By the way, this game is a sequel, the first one being Boot Hill Heroes. If you also never heard of that game, you're not alone, but probably that game is good, as its sequel is.
In this game, you get to control a group of individuals: Kid, Doc, Rosy, and Moon. I will not go through long sentences describing each of them, but rest assured that they are all likeable, each with their own set of skills and traits that a party would need. You can set any of them as the head of the group if you play solo, or up to 4 players can control any of them individually in couch multiplayer mode. They aim to stop a gang known as the Saints-Little Gang from starting a civil war between te colonizers and the Native American Chepakwik tribe. You get to visit town to town where you can meet NPCs that will help you in your quest, with some giving you additional side quests given which in one way or another relevant to your main one. They will provide you clues on where to go or who to talk to next. Some will doubt your intention and, depending on how you will answer to their questions, will fight you to put you in your proper place, or so they think. The game is non-linear in a way that you can go to any town that you want after the opening hour, so it is up to you which problem or gang or whathaveyou that you want to tackle first. The narrative for this game is quite good, with lots of intrigues and storylines intertwining that will really make you think on what to do next.
Speaking of battles, this is where this game really shines. Battles are real time-based, wherein an ATB (Active Time Battle)-like power bar is in place for each attack or buff/debuff move that your characters can perform, very similar to the aforementioned Earthbound and Chrono Trigger. You can perform such attack or move once the power bar for it is already full. The time for these power bars to fill up differs from one another, as some move or attack is more powerful than the others. And while you are perparing for your next move, your enemies do the same, and with their power bars also available for you to see, you can gauge how powerful their next attack will be. You can then aim to attack or debuff them first before their perform their attack, or defend yourself accordingly. Some enemy attacks can knock one or all of your characters out in one hit, so you have to be ready.
The attacks and buff/debuff moves are referred in-game as vantages. The vantages that you get to use depend on the hat that you wear. Yes, hats, and your party members will get to wear a lot of them. Hats have at least 4 equipped vantages with them, and as you win battles, you gain XP for your character as well as for your hats. As the hats level up, you either gain upgrades for your equipped vantages or gain new ones. You even get to carry over some of the vantages to be used on your other hats, so you can mix and match hats depending on your need or fighting style. Aside from hats, you also get to acquire weapons and pieces of clothing that give you additional attack power or defense.
Aside from attacks and buff/debuff moves, you also get to activate stances during battles. These stances could either give you additional firewpower or let you dodge enemy attacks or gain you extra defense, etc. You can activate a stance to aid you in attacking or preparing for incoming ones from enemies, so that your characters won't get knockout. When a character gets knockout, they get deactivated a some time until they recover. If the entire party gets knocked, it's game over, and you get to respawn from the last time you save. The game autosaves, by the way, so if you encounter a game over, you don't lose much progress, but of course, it's good to save as often as possible. To manually save, you have to talk to your companion dog, Rusty. Rusty, aside from saving game, also gives you extra challenges in a form of game tutorials, such as how to do certain stuff in the game, what different statuses means, etc. He then gives you treats for doing the challenges. These treats could be materials used for upgrading weapons, ingredients for cooking food, etc.
Yes, this game has a lot to manage and take considerations of, which could be a bit tedious at times. The game has no voice acting, so all the dialogues and tutorials and whatnot are presented in walls of text that are most of the time not too excting to read. Also, the font and text style and overall layout used in the game interface are not that good to look at. Yes, the game developers try to present the game in a 16-bit aesthetic but the execution leaves much to be desired, at least for me. Fortunately, the game sounds amazing. The soundtrack has lots of catchy tunes that really evoke the atmosphere of the wild west.
Overall, Boot Hill Bounties is one good game that can be easily recommended to anyone. Its mixture of classing RPG mechanics with good narrative and and even better soundtrack makes it truly stand on its own among the good RPG games that are currently on Switch. It may not be a new one, but it has found a new home on Nintendo's hybrid console. So go ahead, make you day, and play this game anywhere. Yee-haw!
REPLAY VALUE: High
PROS
- Excellent narrative that keeps you on your toes
- Top notch soundtrack with lots of catchy tunes that evoke the atmosphere of the wild west
- Very good gameplay mechanics inspired with games such as EarthBound and Chrono Trigger
- High degree of customization options
- No random encounters
- Lots of collectibles
- Very good use of HD Rumble
- Ideal for handheld gaming
CONS
- The illustrations and character animation don't look very good; the game may be inspired by old games but the old games inspiring this game don't look this bad
- The font used on the interface could be hard to read at times
- The user interface look a bit crowded
- Lack of enemy variety
- The health inflictions, such as being poisoned or wounded, are persistent outside of battles and cannot be easily remedied on your own, which could be quite annoying at times
- Walls and walls of text that can be very tedious to read
RATING: 4/5 Boot hill posse yee-haws
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