Amazon’s Luna Controller Elevated My Mobile Gaming Experience
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There are a lot of cool things out there that make us wonder — do they really work? In our I Tried It series, we set out to use them in the real world and have determined that, in fact, they really do.
The Product on Trial
The Amazon Luna Controller + Phone Clip
The Tester
Eunice Lucero-Lee, super-duper amateur gamer, Mega Man OST enthusiast
The Brief
Before anyone else beats me to it, let me be the first to say that I am not a serious gamer by any means; my skill levels hover comfortably around Sonic the Hedgehog, Ice Climber, and Mortal Kombat, but I’ve also finished and restarted Super Mario World 3 approximately 13 times in my entire life and know the credits by heart. Needless to say, retro games are my happy place, and I was glad to have had the NES Classic mini reissue during the height of the pandemic lockdown.
I’ve also been a Prime member since, well, forever, and when I was clued into their Luna cloud gaming platform, my curiosity was instantly piqued. “Play free with Prime on devices you already own,” they said. Perfect, I thought, since I wasn’t really in the market — nor had the space — for an entirely new console that I assumed would be way beyond my wheelhouse anyway. TL;DR: My game tech abilities peaked during the era of blowing into cartridges so they would run. Readers, do with that info what you must.
So when I got tapped to test out the Amazon Luna controller and after finding out that Luna had a special retro game channel on Prime, I was admittedly kind of stoked (Castlevania Anniversary Collection!? Come on.).
So, What Is It?
The Luna controller is Amazon’s dedicated game controller that connects via cloud technology to any Windows PC, Mac, Fire TV, Fire tablet, iPhone, iPad, Chromebook, or Android device — and via Bluetooth or USB cord to virtually anything else outside of those. If not connected via a USB cord, it runs on two AA batteries, which are included in the box. You also have the option of getting it together with a phone clip (around an extra $20), which was what we did for this review.
The Setup
Activating the controller was fairly simple: You first need to download the Amazon Luna Controller app for either Apple or Android, stick the batteries into your controller, and press the home button for 3 seconds to start the setup and pairing process.
You will also have to access the Amazon Luna page on your Safari browser and create a home button shortcut on your device (press the “Plus” button to “Add to Home Screen”) for more seamless access while using the controller.
You can either set up Cloud Direct on your device via the app, choose Bluetooth mode, or connect the controller via a USB-C port. I chose to do it via Cloud Direct, which I found was the simplest option — I just clicked on the popups that automatically appeared on my screen during the process, and the app and controller did the rest.
The controller is configured like your standard Xbox controller, complete with trigger and bumper buttons on the front, an XYBA button pad, a D-pad (aka the normal navi button with up-down-left-right arrows), a Home button, a Menu button, and two small, fully rotational joysticks. In addition, it has an Action and an Alexa button for voice commands (“Alexa, play Sonic Mania Plus”), as well as a port for audio and the aforementioned USB.
I affixed the phone clip onto the controller, adjusted the height, and slid in my phone. I have an iPhone 13 Pro with a leather Apple MagSafe case, which fits the phone clip with no issues. Once your phone is in place, and you’re logged into the Luna app, you’ll get an alert asking you to allow display in landscape mode.
Now we’re ready to roll!
Luna rotates the games that are available for free for Prime members (and I didn’t really like any of them), but for UX-testing purposes, I went with the most thrilling, nail-biting game that also was completely up my alley: Garfield Kart: Furious Racing. I also played the original Mega Man and rotated through the first stages of a bunch of the games in the Retro channel.
The Verdict
It's so much fun getting to play your old favorites right on your phone. Mega Man, Contra, Dragon’s Lair, and even Pong are all available via the Luna Retro game package. The downside? It isn’t free with Prime (it’s an extra $4.99/month), but if you’re an arcade or vintage game enthusiast, it might just be worth it. And for what it aims to be — a wireless gaming platform that you can quite literally take anywhere with you — it’s a pretty genius concept.
Right off the bat, though, I felt that there were slight UX issues and learning curve gaps. For one, the Home button also functions as the Power button and, with each use, needs to be pressed for 3 seconds before it connects to your device, which isn’t the most intuitive. The button commands also change and calibrate each time you start a game — I was actually panic-searching for the “Start” button, which the Luna controller doesn’t have; as it turns out, many of the games, especially in the Retro package, are defaulted for a keyboard and you have to manually set the commands yourself to match your controller buttons.
In fact, connectivity issues may be the biggest sticky point of the Amazon Luna controller: There’s a tiny bit of a lag as it calibrates for each new game, and depending on your idle time, the commands revert to default keyboard settings when you’re paused or logged out. This is something that can probably get annoying especially if you’re playing on your mobile device, where answering notifications is inevitable.
Another thing is subscribing to different game channels can add up. The cheapest channel is $4.99 a month and the most expensive is $17.99 a month. On the flip side, the fact that all games live in the cloud means you don’t have to deal with any installations or updates, or, like me, bulky consoles that you don’t really use on the regular.
The Couch Play feature also allows you to play with a group (subscribe to the Jackbox Games channel and find more fun group games you can do at parties), or, for the serious gamers out there, you can also connect and broadcast your gameplay to Twitch. On the other hand, minimalists can forego having an external controller altogether and just play via the app on their phone or tablet.
As a mobile gaming solution, the Amazon Luna controller is fun, convenient, and very accessible. Those used to the specific functionalities of dedicated game consoles might find the onboarding into each game a bit tedious, but once you’ve got your settings all saved, the wireless convenience is ridiculously fun. I can totally see many people in the same household fighting over who gets to hog this thing next. The answer? Get more than one console — and at $49.99, unlike other gaming experiences on the market, it’s refreshingly not going to cost you an arm and a leg.
Shop the Amazon Luna Controller
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