I beat Metroid Prime Hunters yesterday. While I can't say it was my favorite game ever, it was enjoyable, and the multiplayer feature never ceases to entertain me.

The controls were a little awkward, as you had to turn by sliding the stylus over the touch screen in the direction you wanted to turn. "Double clicking" the touch screen allowed you to jump. To switch weapons you would have to touch a picture of the weapon on the touch screen. To switch to your scan visor you tapped something on the touch screen. To transform into morphball form... do I even have to say it? It's something on the touch screen. If you lost your stylus, the game would become unplayable. In fact, all you could do would be shooting, which is done with L. Technically, A, B, X, and Y cause you to jump, but if you're right handed, your right hand is holding the stylus and it's impossible to jump and say, turn, and the same time unless you use the touch screen. If you were left-handed, I'm not sure what you would do.

The music was okay--it was mostly strange and unfitting, but the battle music, while horribly overused, was nice to listen to. The final boss actually used various songs heard before in the game, something that I am fully against (my strong belief is that a final boss should have its own music that should not be heard until the final boss, nor should it ever be used again). Of course, there was a secret second phase with its own music, but that's another story. Sound effects were typical, but at least they sounded good.

In general, the game was pretty easy. The puzzles could be tricky, but as far as actually battling goes, the game could've been harder. You encounter several bounty hunters and "Guardians" multiple times throughout the game, fights which become increasingly easy as you get more and more power-ups. Also at the end of every level you fight either a "Cretaphid", a giant pillar of death, or a "Slench", a giant eyeball of death. Then comes the final boss, Gorea, who has two phases, one of which is optional to unlock a better ending sequence. Other than to Gorea while trying to unlock the second phase, I only died once to Cretaphid v4, a.k.a. mobile giant totem pole with superweapons. Other than that, my 60 deaths in the game were comprised of falling into bottomless pits (and/or lava), getting crushed in morphball form, or dying to random enemies who caught me with low health.

Not only was the game easy, it was short. There were four relatively short worlds, each of which had to be done twice. By the time I was doing the last world for the second time, I got the idea the game designers had gotten bored and were trying to get through with their job as quickly as possible so they could get to the final boss battle. Every level had a countdown to escape the world before a "security system" activated, which got quite repetitive and was fairly easy. But I must say it was fun, especially the few times a bounty hunter attacked you on your way out, wasting a few minutes before you could get them out of the way.

Now, so far this review has made the game sound horrible. But that's only single-player mode. The game truly shines in its multiplayer mode, either wi-fi or local. You can play as any one of the seven bounty hunters in the game (Samus, Kanden, Spire, Weavel, Sylux, Noxus or Trace) and fight in around 25 various areas from the game. There are several types of battle, including Prime Hunter, where you kill someone and see how long you can stay alive while having your health gauge constantly lowered till you kill another person, seeing how many seconds of "prime time" you can get before the game ends. I haven't even tried all of them yet. Wi-fi is wildly fun as well, though right now I'm practicing against computers before I do any wi-fi matches.

Replay value is fair enough, but to get 100% it seems that you'll need to be in your Scan Visor, nosing around, more than actually battling and exploring for pickups. Multiplayer mode is the game's strongest point. I would suggest getting the game used and spending most of your time on the multiplayer mode. But be sure to try the single player mode as well. While it's not the best game you'll ever play, it's fun, especially for people who like the Metroid Prime series.