The Grumpy Old Gamers

Objects in mirror are smaller then they appear

One of my favorite peripheral companies released a Bluetooth controller to coincide with the release of the Nintendo Switch lite.  Now when I first saw pictures of this I was really unsure what to think with its candy bar shape and lack of analog sticks.  But I found a good deal on one during Black Friday so I took a chance.  The controller was initially offered in the matching colors to the Switch Lite’s yellow and turquoise, with a special edition Red one available in China.  When it first arrived I was really shocked with small it actually was.

But as usual with 8Bitdo products, it had a decent weight and didn’t feel cheap at all.  It paired very easily to my Nintendo Switch and away I went.  I decided to try out a couple games to gauge how it feels.

First up I gave Asphalt 9: Legends a try.  This is where I first kinda realized the odd placement of the shoulder and trigger buttons.

In Asphalt 9 : Legends you essentially use the ZL and ZR trigger buttons for gas and break and then the shoulder button to boost, it made for some awkward holding and finger placement to play but eventually I got in the groove and it was fine.  Also with the games arcade approach to racing using the D-Pad instead of a analog stick really wasn’t an issue.

Next I moved on to Legend of Zelda : Breath of the Wild because I wanted to try a game that utilizes all of the buttons on the controller.  This did not go so well lol. The general movement was fine but trying to control the camera with a D-Pad is near impossible.  Trying to aim and kill things without the precision of an analog stick was near impossible. Some other actions require holding the Z button and using the shoulder button at the same time, this was also near impossible.  One cool thing about the controller that is that the D-Pads centers are set up to be your L3 and R3, so pushing the D-Pad’s in the their centers does trigger this and it works great.

I didn’t put much time into BOTW before moving onto the next game, Tetris 99.  Now here is a game where this little controller shines.  I could basically mimic the controls of playing the Switch in portable mode, where you use the D-Pad buttons on the left to move and the lettered buttons on the right for your spins.  This is a good point to mention the full D-Pad controllers are the clicky kind of D-Pads and not the squishy kind (like the D-Pad on the Pro Controller or the original NES and SNES controllers) which isn’t a huge deal to me… but given the choice I would go with squishy style all the time.  So this controller is a perfect substitute for me using the Joy Cons with the grip to play Tetris 99 and I will definitely be using it for this.

Lastly I ventured over to the SNES online app and loaded me up some Super Metroid.  I ended up playing for quite a while and really enjoyed using this controller for this, it felt the most like an old School SNES controller but still had the ability to use all the modern advances that Metroid has on the Switch (Z buttons for rewind and the restore point menu, media button, and the home button for instant suspend).  I had tried my SN30 paired with my Switch for the near authentic SNES experience but the lack of these extra buttons made getting out of playing the games a real pain.

There is switch on the front that puts it in S (Switch)or X (Windows, Steam or Raspberry Pi) modes.  In the X mode if you hold one of the lettered buttons and push the Media (star) button it will turn on turbo for that button, same action to turn it off.

In conclusion I had really hoped for a travel controller so I wouldn’t be worried about messing up the analog sticks on my pro controller when packed away in a bag.  This controller isn’t a good choice for complex games that use most of the buttons, but the simpler games are a perfect fit for it.  Its small enough I will probably pack both.  So not a home run from 8BitDo this time, but a solid triple I would say.