The Bouncer - Reception

Reception

In Japan, The Bouncer sold over 219,000 copies the year of its release, making it the 9th best selling PlayStation 2 game of 2000. It sold an additional 132,000 units in 2001, making it the 86th best selling game of that year.

With the consideration of its development team, as well as the fact that it was a front-runner in PlayStation 2 game releases, The Bouncer was highly anticipated in the months before its release. However, the game was not received as well as many had hoped, and was largely perceived as mediocre. Numerous aspects from its original E3 trailer, such as destructible scenery, were removed in the final game, likely in order to get the game out in time to be among the first batch of PlayStation 2 titles. Much of the criticism it garnered fell on its gameplay. IGN found the controls to be average and that the camera becomes a major issue in the later portions of the game, where the player is confined to tight spaces. The game was also seen as having an excessive amount of cutscenes and load screens. GameCritics, for example, argued that the actual gameplay constitutes less than one third of the game's length, the rest is made up of cutscenes.

Nevertheless, the game's graphics and sound were common points of praise. GameSpot noted "Everything, from the characters to the backgrounds, looks absolutely incredible." PSXExtreme found perfection in the game's voice acting, while AllRPG said the score "set the mood of the scene and introduced the person in song, much like Star Wars."