My little princess is 8 years old and she loved it. Worked well and she can load and operate it without a problem. My only concern is that it is a bit too powerful. It seems to shoot harder and farther than my other older nerf guns and as a result I am worried that someone will get hurt by accident. Because there is no barrel it is not very accurate. I told her not to aim at the face but hitting someone there is a possibility when you cannot aim accurately.
Got this fornanNerf war bday party and it was great. Powerful gun, good accuracy. Some smaller kids found it a bit hard to pull the slide back. Didn't use the message stuff.