You’d have to travel all the way back to 1977 to when the first side-scroller Canyon Bomber was released by SEGA. Playable at arcades you took control of a plane, dropping bombs in a canyon to destroy targets. Fairly simple gameplay as one would expect from a game released nearly fifty years ago, despite that though it still brought a lot of excitement and joy to kids back then even if compared to today’s standards of games most would find it boring.
I find a lot of beauty in modern games which use core mechanics similar to retro titles and choose to stray away from the usual 3D flashy games we see plastered all over the internet. Not because they only give us nostalgia, but for those who grew up in the early 2000’s such as myself, it gives us a chance to at least experience and feel what the past generation felt when they booted up their Atari or Sega Mega Drive to play a 2D title. Whilst they can’t perfectly capture the 70-90’s like experience because, well, it’s quite literally impossible, it still gives us glimmers of what they were like.
There’s a reason why even in 2026 games like those are still being made, they’re enjoyable, popular, and well-loved, especially for those who can appreciate the detailed and meticulous design which goes into them.
Bail Force Cyberpunk Bounty Hunters is the latest of the retro-inspired titles to be released, set in a dystopian society where you choose to play as one of two bounty hunters Angel and Lea, each have their own different motives though their paths fatefully cross as they battle cybernetic enforcers and elite criminals who inflict chaos upon the world.
Whilst it wasn’t one of the best and most engaging retro-inspired titles I’ve played, I still had my fair share of fun fighting my way through the linear designed levels.
Simplicity was ultimately its downfall
Now there’s absolutely nothing wrong with simple games, ones that don’t have you confused, frustrated or wanting to return to the title screen as quickly as possible. They may be straightforward, but you can sink your teeth right into them and just experience them without having to forcefully endure a cut scene or a tutorial.
Bail Force: Cyberpunk Bounty Hunters exactly fits that description, it was a fairly basic and short game only taking me around six hours to beat. The story was just okay and lacked any real depth, along with pretty much everything else but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, after all, sometimes simple games can turn out to be great ones.
Whilst it certainly wasn’t that it was still quite a fun game, with all of the enjoyment coming from the combat which isn’t surprising really since it was what the whole game was built around anyway. Despite that though there actually wasn’t much variety in terms of characters and weapons which did make the combat quite repetitive, they were only two playable characters to choose from and not a wide range of weapons either, which as you can imagine got boring rather quickly.
When games face this issue, they more times than not make up for it by ensuring it’s engaging in a way which keeps players coming back, but in Bail Force: Cyberpunk Bounty Hunter’s case it ultimately missed that spark to make it good enough for me to remember after a week.
Beware of the fully aware enemy AI who are actually competent
For a lot of things this game didn’t achieve, there was something I have to praise it for which was their efficient use of the Enemy AI. They adapted to your playstyle over time which I found rather interesting and refreshing.
They analyze your preferred fighting style and then adapt. I played as Lea for the most part and guns were her main weapon, so obviously I attacked from long-range and kept my distance whenever possible which quite frankly made killing enemies a lot easier which in turn did make it a bit boring. However the enemies noticed my strategy and proceeded to close the distance and try to overwhelm me, most times I would just dash through them and not take any damage since it made you invincible, then make distance and return to my preferred fighting style.
I was still able to defeat most of them without losing a lot of health, but there were also some times where I found myself overwhelmed or even dying due to this. The bosses were a completely different story though, they repeated the same attacks regardless of your playstyle and didn’t really need to adapt.
Needless to say it was a refreshing mechanic and made the combat a bit more challenging which I think was something that was much needed.
It’s worth noting that I played this on early access so I came across a few bugs/glitches, I came across a specific one which made me fall out of the map a few times and not able to return to the surface, which resulted in me having to close the game and start over from my last checkpoint. Luckily though it only happened a few times and didn’t really affect my experience and overall thoughts on it.
