Metroid Prime Hunters is the pinnacle of Nintendo DS games.
Immersive levels
Great multiplayer
Graphically pleasing
Cons:
Could lose track of objective
Aiming can be difficult at times
"Metroid Prime Hunters" for the Nintendo DS stars everyone's favorite Bounty Hunter, Samus Aran, as she embarks on a quest that takes her to the far reaches of space. Samus is called upon by the Galactic Federation to investigate a strange message from the Tetra Galaxy, which sends out a message about the "secret to an ultimate power" in the Alimbic Cluster. It's up to Samus to find this power and protect it from potential threats and from falling into the wrong hands.
In the Tetra Galaxy Samus Aran has four destinations to choose from; there are two outer space facilities and two planets, one fire based and the other ice based. This might seem like a small number of places for Samus to explore, but each area is fairly expansive in size, not to mention that there are a whole new set of areas in each destination that will be off limits to Samus on her first trip to each place.
Samus will encounter new enemies and bosses that she has never come across before, and in order to get a better understanding of what she's facing, Samus is able to scan her enemies with her scan visor. On top of that, the scan visor enables Samus to "speak" to the ghost of the lost Alimbic race; the Alimbics warn Samus of the impending doom, their history, and what led to their downfall.
For the gameplay, MPH is played from the first person view. Not only does MPH support right and left handed players, but MPH lets the player decide on how to play. This means that the game can be played using the stylus pin (aiming, selecting weapons, alt form) or the aiming duties can be assigned to the A,XB,Y buttons if using the stylus pin is uncomfortable. Note that weapon selection and the alt form must still be selected via the touch screen.
Aiming can become a bit wild and difficult, especially when the action gets fast paced, no matter if the stylus pin or buttons are being used. Trying to keep pace with fast moving enemies with no discernable movement pattern, it becomes difficult with the pin and nearly impossible with the buttons. To put it simply, the player will have to call forth on their inner sniper to make pin point accurate shots.
Graphic wise, MPH looks visually pleasing for a handheld game, everything is polygons, no pre-rendered backgrounds. Even the CG cutscenes looks impressive for the Nintendo DS, taking advantage of both screens. On the original DS, however, the game might look a bit "dark", as compared to being played on the DSi or 3DS with the brighter screens.
As the title of the game states, there are Bounty Hunters who come from all across space to claim the ultimate power in the Alimbic Cluster. Samus will be warned beforehand if there's a Hunter(s) on the planets or facilities awaiting her by the ship's HUD. In the first encounter of a Hunter, Samus will gain the ability of the fallen Hunter; this allows Samus to access other parts of a compound where the door will only open if a certain weapon is used on it. This is crucial during the second half of the game when Samus backtracks to the planets or facilities in order to open new areas.
The Hunters for the most part act as sub-bosses of sorts, as Samus will be facing actual bosses throughout the game. The boss fight themselves are fine; the difficulty of each boss is ramped up as the player makes their way through the game. Save for the final bosses the rest are more or less a slightly different variation of each other; MPH would have benefited from having more of a variety of bosses and boss fights, aside from the Hunters.
Throughout the adventure (mainly the second half) calls for some backtracking; this could get tricky as the player might get turned around and confused about the objective, especially since the objective won't be laid out for the player, but rather it's up the to the player to keep track of their place in the game. And because of the size of each level, finding the new areas might prove to be problematic. The game does employ a map system, so it will be instrumental when getting the correct bearings on where to proceed next.
The online multiplayer mode of MPH is an absolute blast. The game was released in 2006 so finding online games now might be fairly tough, but during the height of the game the multiplayer could be hailed as the selling point of MPH. There are several stages to choose from; some should become familiar as the player progress through the single player story. Game modes range from free-for-all to team play.
The player has the option of selecting from one of the six Hunters (and Samus) that they battle against in the single player mode. Each Hunter has their own alt form, so each one has to be experimented with in order to find out its strengths and weaknesses. An alt form is basically another form a Hunter can take to attack their opponents, whether it's Samus morphing into a ball and dropping explosives, or a Hunter splitting in half and forming a turret gun.
While there are a handful of times the single player play can prove tough, multiplayer play is a whole new level of difficult; it's going to take time adjusting to the real world opponents and taking advantage of each of the Hunters weapons and the on stage power ups. MPH also implements local multiplayer games; single card play, where one person has a copy of the game while the guests can join in via download play, or multi-card play where each player has a copy of the game. One drawback of the single card local multiplayer is that the guest can only choose Samus and not the other hunters.
Unless someone would find handheld FPS uninteresting, Metroid Prime Hunters should be a game that's in everybody's collection. Whether it's enjoyed on the original DS, a DSi, or even a 3DS, MPH is a game that can be enjoyed for the single player aspect or the multiplayer mode.