desertcart.com: 8BitDo All-Button Arcade Controller for Switch &
Windows – 3 Connection Modes, Low-profile Linear Switches, 4
Programmable Buttons, Hot-swappable PCB - Transparent Purple
Signature Edition : Video Games
Review: Great Intro To Leverless Fight Sticks - Growing up I
loved Street Fighter II Turbo on the SNES. It was probably one of
my most played games as a kid. There wasn’t much in the way of
arcade style controls but I was more than content to mash buttons
on my gamepad. My love of fighting games would continue on up
through the PS1/Saturn to the PS2/Dreamcast era but eventually
fell off for unexplained reasons. With the release of the Switch
my interest reignited a bit but other than Smash I wasn’t really
grabbing anything else. Watching YouTube for various reviews and
recommendations on games and accessories I saw creators like Wulf
Denn and Nihongo Gamer talking about leverless fight sticks for
both fighting games and retro games and while I thought they were
neat I didn’t think I had much use for them at first. But then I
finally treated myself to a Switch 2 and while looking at games
to pick up I saw glowing reviews of how well SF6 ran on the new
console my algorithm began to teem with members of the fighting
game community and I was seeing a lot of leverless controllers. I
own quite a lot of various third party controllers but hadn’t
bought an arcade stick since Tekken 4 on the PS2. Suddenly my
thoughts were of checking out whether or not this might be for me
and honestly there were a lot of options out there of all sorts
of levels or pricing, customization options, and turnkey based
options. Quite daunting but 8bitDo, whom I knew made an Arcade
Stick, had an offering. I’m very familiar with 8bitDo, owning
multiple controllers (a well loved Pro2, several Ultimates, an
Ultimate 2C, and an SN30 Pro). I’ve bought so many for a few
reasons. Build quality and feel we’re always excellent for one. A
big, big kicker is they are one of the only (if not the only)
whose customization software is available on both MacOs and iOS
apart from Windows and Android, something that discouraged me
from trying other 3rd party controllers because I didn’t have a
PC to run them and most don’t offer manual mapping either unless
I wanted to spend the money on something like the FlyDigi Apex4
(which…I did lol). Reviews all praised the construction and size
and for the price ($79 on sale for the NES colorway) it seemed
like a good entry into a hobby that could get very expensive very
fast. I was excited when the controller arrived alongside my copy
of SF6 and I hurried to unbox it and get the firmware updated so
it would be Switch 2 compatible. Here’s where my review nearly
dropped 2 stars. Initially I booted up the Ultimate V2 iOS app
(all new controllers being on that, the previous one basically
sunset) and the controller did not appear as an option. I did
discover I could select the Pro3 and test inputs that way but no
access to firmware or profile customization. No biggie, a quick
trip to google said I needed to do it with the MacOs version.
Fired up my MacBook and downloaded the latest version of Ultimate
2 from the product page (as there apparently 2 versions of
Ultimate 2 available). Plugged it into, powered it on, clicked
update…and nothing. I tried swapping cables, dongles, switch mode
and x input and the controller flat out refused to update. I
unplugged it and tried connecting to my Switch OLED just to make
sure it wasn’t bricked and it connected just fine. Worse comes to
worse I’d keep it just for the OG Switch and SteamDeck but that
wasn’t 100% ideal for a peripheral where 2 of the selling points
were MacOs software and Switch 2 compatibility. Google and Reddit
searches made things seem dire: that 8bitDo’s Mac apps were
broken and they didn’t care. But I reached out to customer
support and 24 hours later I had an email chain going and within
a 2 hours I had the firmware updated and I was playing SF6’s
tutorials to test things out. So..why 5 stars? Again build
quality is solid with the basic plastic, the matte glass face,
and the rubberized bottom with keyboard style magnetic
kickstands. The controller itself has some decent heft. The
buttons are nice and clacky though this is a take it or leave it
preference. I love mechanical keyboards so that’s an absolute win
but that’s me. I have small/medium hands to the overall
controller profile feels good as far as button size and
placement. It has extra customizable buttons (included are caps
to replace those to prevent misclicks) that don’t require their
software to remap and placement to make a familiar WASD
configuration for keyboard players. Buttons have good travel and
I found it easy to pull off hadoukens and dragon punches within a
few minutes of practice. Tactile switches for Switch/Off/Xinput
(an included 2.4ghz dongle sits magnetized on the bottom) and
SOCD lock are a nice touch. The former of that is important as
one of the other selling points this has over similar controllers
it that it can be used wirelessly which while not as good for
latency in fighting games is a great option for travel and casual
play. Out of the box it works on both Switch and PC and of course
with the latest firmware it’s Switch 2 compatible (though no wake
from sleep like their other controllers). As a newbie to
leverless all these features make this a great turnkey
introduction to this realm of the gaming sphere. It’s priced
competitively against the competition namely Haute42 (and yeah I
bought a C16 to try out as well) though it lacks the same level
of customization regarding software/firmware, key cap, switches
(especially if you want to reduce the noise), and artwork.
However it works as intended and after that it’s up to me to work
out the learning curve and my delusions of becoming a SF master.
TL:DR a great entry to leverless controllers in a turnkey package
for use with Switch and PC/Handhelds (also comes in an Xbox
licensed version as well) for under $100.
Review: Great for FGC, platformers! Stick/analog binding added
recently in update! - UPDATE: My primary issue with this was not
clearly advertising that stick remapping was not supported. I
figured that would be changed at some point and I'd update the
review to 3 stars, but what I was not expecting was full left and
right stick support in mapping! This is now a much, MUCH more
interesting alternative to other leverless controllers and while
it does not support the complex stick mapping of some
smash-dedicated options, this is now viable to try out for
platform fighters and offers significantly more compatibility
with games that require the stick use, and it completely resolves
all my complaints with this controller. VERY excited to dive back
in! Original review below, for posterity. ___________________ I
own 30 or so 8bitdo controllers. I've purchased most of their
offerings and their kits to convert classic controllers to
2.4ghz, I use a pro2 as my main controller for thousands of hours
in mariomaker2 and use a pro C2 as my primary PC controller and
stick-focused gaming controller on switch. I play a ton of dpad
platformers, and a ton of smash as well. Smash is the only game I
still use a first party controller for, and I was really hoping
to try out a leverless for smash. If the description clearly
covered the fact that this controller is absolutely incapable of
inputting any stick inputs, I might not be unhappy with it, or
giving it 0 stars. I wasn't expecting a hitbox or similar style
controller mapping that gives me really complicated angles. I
wasn't even expecting a sliding scale of how much left or right
from 0-255 or even a 128 or 255 option for directionality. I was
simply expecting I could map full tilt cardinal stick directions
to buttons and combine them to get angles. This would be
imperfect for smash, but excellent for platformers that use the
stick which isn't that uncommon anymore, even in 2d platformers!
And it'd be fun to try for smash. I think, personally, that could
work in some cases, feathering could give you control in a lot of
cases and if you really need a specific angle, well, this isn't
the controller for you. But unfortunately, this switch and PC
controller is entirely missing an often required input from being
supported in any way, which I personally feel makes it useless in
all but very, very limited circumstances. I feel that it has not
been marketed appropriately and that the dishonest description of
the product will hold it back. If you are into FGC and you play a
game that is compatible with a pad and does not require any stick
input, this could be a good buy for you. There are cheaper
leverless controllers on desertcart, but this has a nice, premium
feel, it's weighty, it's wired or wireless with good latency and
it can even connect to your NES or SNES with an adapter, which is
neat! There is a lot of really cool 8bitdo goodness here, and
even besides that it's an excellent feeling pad overall, the best
leverless I've touched with some really neat little bean buttons
you can also block off if you don't want remappable buttons or
buttons in any specific spot. There is a lot to like here, if it
fits your very specific needs and you will never, ever want stick
inputs. For me though, this isn't clear in any advertising
material or the listing here. For me, I want a modern nearly 100$
controller to offer a full, modern control suite. I know it's
buttons, and we can't really do analog inputs, but they could
have done something to make this work. When I asked 8bitdo
support about this, they gave me a handwaivey answer and implied
it was not likely to be a feature in the future. If I hear they
do end up rolling it out, I might pick another one up! But this
one is going to be returned because it's has extremely limited
compatibility with only specific games.
