Not to simply disagree or anything, but I've always thought of Hunters as the low point. Why? Well, let's see...
- A completely and absolutely random storyline that sounds like it was scrapped together in an hour or so. You've got a whole backstory that functions excellently, so why just throw it away and put something in that's explained in one-line scans of no detail?
- Oh yeah, the one-line scans didn't help the game much.
- The control scheme. It cramps your hands up. Very badly.
- Every single boss is a carbon copy of another one with maybe one thing thrown onto it. See one boss, use one strategy. See the other, use the other one.
- The other hunters. With the exception of Sylux, who's of interest as of the secret ending of MP3, the rest of them phased in, had barely any backstory, and phased back out. Not only that, but you're constantly thrown into mindless battle against them who, for some obscure reason, only attack you and not their other rivals.
- There are, literally, six non-expansion upgrades. SIX. All weapons. What happened to the formula of where-can-I-go-now-that-I-couldn't-before?
- Even though the areas are significantly smaller then the other games, they still take time to traverse, especially with the annoying ambushes from hunters, and there's no save points in the entire game other than your ship. So much for pick up and put down gameplay on the go.
- Completely unexplained countdowns. You beat a boss, you get the classic get-out-of-there-NOW rush, if you run out of time you die. But there's no explanation. No explosions or anything. As a matter of fact, you can land right back on where you escaped from directly afterwards and everything's the same as last time.
- Almost all of the enemies are clones of another one with a different color scheme or some other minor difference that doesn't effect combat-don't be expecting a different mix on the next planet.
- I don't usually like to factor graphics into game reviews, but it's just the icing on the cake here. Nintendo can do good stuff with grahpics on the DS when they put their heart into it. Hunters was a bit of an anomaly...
- OH YEAH THE MUSIC THAT WAS TERRI-wait, that partially can't be blamed here. The main world themes were pretty good as a whole, but the same old stale theme for every boss got old, fast.
- One of the most annoying things of all was the revive system. Low on energy? Accidently die against that annoying dude? No problem, you just get revived back at the room start-WITH THE SAME AMOUNT OF ENERGY. Oh, what's that? The door's locked? Well, just gonna have to beat him-woops, didn't see that one coming, did you? No problem, I'll just put you back-WITH THE SAME AMOUNT OF ENERGY.
To be updated if I sadly find anything else that hindered the experience...