Star Wars: Hunters Review || Is This the Overwatch Clone You’ve Been Looking For?
I think I’ve played enough of this to throw down a review. I don’t have every Hunter unlocked and technically I haven’t played every mode…
I think I’ve played enough of this to throw down a review. I don’t have every Hunter unlocked and technically I haven’t played every mode, but I don’t think the game could present anything else that could change my opinion.
Here’s the answer to the question you’ve been asking if you’re partially interested: Yes. It’s a relatively fun bite-sized Overwatch clone coated with Star Wars paint. I’ve been playing on Switch and it’s actually been keeping my attention pretty well. It accomplishes this in a few ways.
Matches are SHORT. Over in five minutes or less, probably to target the mobile market. While it bothered me at first, I actually think there’s a part of me that enjoys it. Didn’t win the last match? No problem. I’ll just play through another round in a few minutes. Bad teammates? Eh, whatever, we’ll be scrambled soon. Didn’t get to play the Hunter I wanted or didn’t enjoy the game mode? No worries. Even when you play ranked mode, all the same applies (but with skill-based matchmaking). It’s refreshingly quick among the sea of games I play where to do something I need to block out 15–45 minutes to accomplish something.
Because of the short matches, I don’t quite understand the social element the game pushes you to have. I can see the vision perhaps through the smartphone lens, in a younger crowd. Maybe you’re a kid on a bus going to high school or something, sure, squad up. But on Switch, I am not calling my adult friends up to run 50 or so matches of Hunters over an hour and a half. I could for that sweet XP boost, but ultimately there are just better multiplayer games to play.
So how does it play? Well, moment-to-moment gameplay during these skirmishes is fun and each Hunter feels somewhat balanced in the chaos of it all. All of the Heroes have at least one fun thing in their kit to mess with in matches. I don’t have any bad notes on the gameplay which is great for a third-person shooter. Controls felt nicely dialed in and simple to master. Tangentially related, however, some animations are pretty stiff and do not flow very well into each other. Regarding the game mode types, I like that there are several in each battle category to switch things up, and I especially like that one of those is the classic Battlefront control point ruleset.
I should spend a section saying that yes, the entire game and your progression within it are completely engineered to get you to buy the battle pass and spend money on stuff you don’t need. The free stuff is pretty generous though, as they do let you unlock all the characters for free, in whatever order you’d like, so I’ve already got a few this way.
By far my least favorite game mechanic is one that returns from the new Battlefront 2, and that is, players who spend more time playing a character, unlock upgrades that make that character stronger while playing them. While it’s exciting at an individual surface level, and while it may not have adverse effects now… I’m thinking of unbalanced mayhem a few months down the line, trying to play this game against the no-lifers that have fully upgraded their character through money or The Grind. It’ll be their territory then, and I wager it’ll be a complete slog for anyone not up to their level. But we’ll see.
I think the most egregious thing I could write, as I wind this review down, is the answer to my question going into this game. Would I personally play this if it wasn’t coated in Star Wars paint? No disrespect to the game, or the devs, but I probably wouldn’t. I’m not saying the game is bad by any means, let’s not get it twisted. But I believe the greatest novelty of Hunters isn’t the short matches, its clever roster of characters, the Hero shooter mechanics and feel, or the overused battle pass system… the novelty is that it’s Star Wars themed. For a lifelong fan of the series like me, that’s enough to push me over the fence to try it, and maybe even periodically play it after this review goes live. My worry about recommending the game is that if you don’t have a similar history with Star Wars, you’re not going to get nearly as much enjoyment out of it as I am.
Ultimately, Star Wars: Hunters is a relatively fun, casual, third-person Hero-based shooter that I have enjoyed playing because of its little quirks and Star Wars coat of paint. The stakes are low, and matches are quick, so I’d honestly recommend if you’re on the fence, to download it, give it a try for a match or two, and see if it works for you.
Originally published at https://backloggd.com.