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Hot take: Nintendo Switch Joycons. They're a nice and clever concept but in reality they're bad.
Too small even for casual games. The Wiimote was much better at it.
Very expensive at 80 € per set. Yes, you get two of them but in most games outside of Mario Kart you also need both. And even then they're fine at best.
4 out of 4 of my controllers got stick drift. Nintendo had to be sued into repairing them.
On the other hand, you can play with your hands in completely different locations which is nice for being lazy on a couch.
My reasonably sized, more ergonomic, multi-system wireless controller with hall effect sticks does that for a little more than half the price.
Which one? I'd love a controller that works for PC that I can split apart like joycons
I think they are actually really good at very specific things, the clicky buttons are great for ace attorney and tetris
Single joycon is barely usable, but the Wiimote was terrible for sideways holding.
Its shape was clearly never intended for it, and the d-pad was absolutely awful, one of the worst I've used.
The d-pad worked as buttons (which was how most games used it, in vertical mode), but for movement it was very stiff and almost impossible to get diagonals. For a console that featured virtual console heavily and needed a lot of classic controls, that was very bad design.
I hate the Joycons so much. The clicky buttons are terrible, the split dpad sucks for games that use it for movement, the sticks aren't great either for precision (ignoring the drift issues), and I find them painful to hold.
Probably that first NES controller.. Those corners were hell on the palms.
Those were terrible!
Nowadays for me it's anything that doesnt have "horns" to grip or not enough space between them.
I stil main 360 controllers though i find them a tad too small/cramped
This drives me nuts on the Switch on handheld. The Joycons have no natural "grip", so it's hand cramp city unless you invest in a grip case. Was it so hard to give the Joycons an ergonomic shape?
Yes, yes it was so hard. How else would they sell their dumb grips
Ouch
The original Xbox controller for the North American release. I swear it was made for Paul Bunyan it was fucking massive.
I agree. That thing was HUGE. I have tiny hands too, and always struggled with it.
I also didn't really like the N64 controller, it was kind of a weird size too, and it just had a weird layout.
N64, and this is the one I actually grew up with. They took a chance, they fucked up by making an alien spaceship three-pronged dildoesque monstrosity, that wore out at mach speed - especially by normal gameplay in certain (coughMarioParty1cough) games. While I have tons of love and nostalgia for N64 and several games on it, it can't excuse the controller itself.
Yea, the Trident is stupid
Those roll-up dance mats from the old ps2 dance dance revolution style games. They were unreliable as all hell.
Joycons. I actually enjoy using them but the fact that their failure rate is basically guaranteed makes them little more than paper weights. I have 4 sets all with drift. I have a friend who's really into Nintendo and he has a huge collection of joycons because they keep developing drift. At $100 a pop in Canada, I know my friend has spent over $1000 on these things. Myself, I would never buy another pair of joycons from Nintendo.
My experience with joycons has actually made me much more discerning when it comes to buying new controllers, for example why would I buy the xbox elite controller when everyone reports they develop drift? Before joycons I probably would have just bought the xbox elite controller and ended up with a disappointing product.
Agree, joyshits suck
Any controller that has asymmetrical joysticks. I get they’re all copying Xbox, Xbox was wrong.
If you’re using one to look around and one to move, having them require your hands be in two different positions is dumb.
Switch controller hands down— the drift is annoying, but the worst is when half your controller just disconnects
N64
I got no beef with the three prongs like you see so many fuss about but those analog sticks were extremely fragile and would inevitably go completely limp over time and wind up 99% deadzone.
Super Mario 64 - a launch title, iirc? - murdered my control stick. Spinning that around to swing Bowser was a great game design idea, but yeah they didn’t build those controllers to withstand it for long.
1080 Snowboarding forced me to get an Interact Superpad 64. It had a metal joystick.
The very worst controller I've ever used was this no-name joystick in the 90s. You had to grip like a claw, which looked kind of cool and futuristic but was awful in use. The base was tiny and it had these suction cups that didn't work at all.
But the very very worst thing about it, was that the input was binary! It was either on or off, no gradual movements or anything. Basically it was an oversized d-pad.
I borrowed it from a friend so I could try Rebel Assault, which looked so awesome what with CD-ROMs being a new thing. But that joystick ruined the experience so much! Try flying a ship through a canyon when all you can do is hard turns in 8 different directions. I constantly crashed within the first 10 seconds of the game and kept thinking it was my fault for being a crap player.
I still hate that monstrosity with every fiber of my being.
Flashbacks! This reminds me of my first Gravis Gamepad (IIRC). Was a disappointing joystick, even compared to old Intellivision controllers.
It was okay with fighting games, and I do recall a nineties PC giant robot fighting game (One Must Fall maybe?)
Still, my first joystick that I actually loved and made a game much better was an old CH Products flightstick. Early flightstick, so it only added a throttle to the base, so no rudder control.
I remember playing Comanche Maximum Overkill with that stick and just popping in and out of canyons. Also Earthsiege and Strike Force Centauri. I ended up with a Saitek Flightstick, and it was even better (Independence War is a fond memory) but the difference was not as revolutionary as going from a regular joystick to that first CH Products flightstick.
Xbox Series X/S.
It isn't even particularly bad by itself, but compared to its predesessors (Xbox One and Xbox 360) the Xbox Series X/S gamepad is a clear step back when it comest to build quality (just try pressing the D-Pad buttons without thinking "this is cheaply made"), and that comparison is what makes me hate it.
And what adds insult to injury is that the quite expensive Elite version of the controller is just as cheaply built as the regular model...
Oh lol. For the price of an elite you could get several 8bitdos or a used switch lol. 179 for a non custom controller is insane
If we factor in failure rates, definitely the Valve Index Controllers.
I fucking love them when they work, but this is the second or third time that I had to get one replaced by Valve in the 7 months of having them. Please, Valve, Index users are already paying premium money. We'd like controllers that don't just stop working properly despite NOT having hit them against walls repeatedly or anything of that sort. It also can't be super lucrative for you if for every sold pair you create and ship out 5 replacements.
Yeah, I'm also on my third controller RMA. First the stick on the left controller started drifting, then the right controller's plastic started peeling off and finally the right controller stopped working altogether.
At least they did the third RMA for free way out of warranty.
Had to buy a new headset cable on my own though when the display started flickering after 2 years. They also sent me a new plastic clip for the cable on the back when the old one broke and a new left speaker when it started crackling instead of requiring me to send in the full headset so that's pretty cool.
The 'Steam Controller' I think it was called? That thing was so awful I only used it like twice.
My favorite controller hahhaha
Man this thread is making me mad so I'mma head out