Bounty of One Review

Welcome to the Old West, a land full of cacti, sand and tumbleweeds. Twang guitar and fiddle music fills the air. There is a bounty on Serra's head, and you will have to take down the hordes of bounty hunters who are vying to make some money from your death. Your character is equipped with a crossbow that will automatically fire at the nearest enemy; all you need to do is get out of the way of the hunters and the projectiles they blast at you. This roguelite bullet hell game will feel very familiar to you if you have played games like Vampire Survivors in the past.

Bounty of One has three different modes to play, but at the beginning, only the Bounty Hunted mode is available to try out. The others will be unlocked once you complete the required tasks, like beating the game. Though this task might be more challenging than you think: to shoot, you will have to stop moving, so you will have to get far enough away from the bounty hunters to be able to shoot without taking damage yourself. You will also have a couple of dashes that you can use if you need to rapidly get away, but these are limited and run out fast. I was expecting an easier start, akin to the start of a Vampire Survivors run, but I quickly discovered that this was not going to be as easy as I expected.

To raise your character's level, you have to collect the silver coins that are dropped by defeated enemies. Once the bar is full, you will get to select from three different upgrades to power up your character, ranging from increasing the amount of damage that you inflict, how fast you move, along with the speed of your shots. Sometimes, you will get the option to gain extra hearts to add to your health gauge, allowing you to take more damage before dying. This isn't the only way to get more chests for upgrades: if you kill a Deputy — one of the larger enemies who move faster, with a health bar — you will be rewarded with a treasure chest. These boxes contain special upgrades for your attacks, like the Far Sight, which increases the amount of damage you do by 30% but will slow your overall speed by 20% and will improve your projectile speed by 20%. There is a lot of trial and error to figure out which of the items you find most helpful, personally, my focus was on damage and my movement speed. If I can't get away from the horde of enemies, having extra attacks won't help me.

After a few minutes, a banner pops up telling you that the Sheriff is coming. All the bounty hunters run away, and it's just you vs. the law. The Sheriffs have a lot of health and deal a lot of damage, so make sure to dodge and use your dashes if you have them. If you successfully defeat the Sheriff, you will get a purple chest with special items like the 180-degree No Scope that allows you to shoot both in front and behind you. This was my favourite power-up that I got! 

If you fall in battle against the boss, or at any other time, you have the option to continue and try again or go back to the main menu. If you feel like you had a good run, you can choose to submit your score to the Leaderboard to compete against other players. A summary screen will appear showing you the total bounty on your head — higher is better because that means you killed more people and what your infamy level is at. Before your run, you can set your infamy level higher, but for every point it goes up, 15% more foes will come after you. I will stay at level one until I get better at beating the game!

My favourite feature of Bounty of One that makes it stand out compared to the others is the ability to play local multiplayer. You can have four different outlaws trying to take down the enemy swarms at once and more help in the boss battles, too. All the characters playing will share one level-up bar, so everyone will be contributing with their coins. Once you have enough, the players will each select one of the items in the box. You can't each choose the same one, so I'm sure there will be some battles over who gets what, but that just adds to the fun! Since there is only one character, Serra, available in the beginning, all the players will just be different colours of her. But, as you unlock stuff in the game, new characters like Jody and Madlyn will become available to play as. Each outlaw that you unlock has their own type of weapon that they use: Jody has Dancing Daggers and throws two at a time, and Madlyn is armed with a Scrap Gun that lets you load two projectiles every time you move two metres. I am surprised to see that neither uses a shotgun or revolver.

Once I defeated the three Sheriffs and completed the Bounty Hunted mode, I tried out Nightmare Escape. In this mode, the Undertaker's minions have taken over the valley, and instead of trying to stop the hordes and increase the amount of bounty on your wanted poster, you now start with a really high bounty that will decrease over time. You want to level up as much as possible to claim the highest reward that you can. This round, like the Bounty Hunted mode, can also be played with other local players. There is one other mode that I have yet to unlock called Daily Struggle; to access it, you need to win a game when your infamy level is at five. I definitely need more practice before I'll be good enough for this!

After playing, I do wish there was an indicator that would point to chests that you have missed picking up, and a little map or some kind of magnet would be super useful if you have killed a horde of enemies and wandered off super far away and missed picking up a lot of silver. However, if you manage to unlock a clone, he will fight enemies and collect any of the treasure that you miss grabbing so that is incredibly helpful!

If you love roguelite bullet-hell games, Bounty of One is a must-play title that is very addictive and works great on the Steam Deck. It is very unique compared to other games that I have played like this, and the local multiplayer is an amazing addition. It is so fun to sit down and play with your friends, working together to take down huge amounts of enemies. Plus, I love competing to see who can be the greatest gunslinger of the West and have the largest bounty on their head! Now, if you want to play online multiplayer, you will have to use the Steam Play Together option, as there is currently nothing in the game itself.