SmashRadar: All four control schemes reviewed and rated

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If you take your Smash seriously, you'll need the right controller. Let us tell you which one that is.

The Classic Controller

With a few minutes play, the CC becomes very, very good indeed. While at first they might feel a little low down on the pad, those analogues are brilliant.They’re taller and more pronounced than the GC controller’s sticks but they’re very fast and responsive, making them fantastically satisfying to flick around with the sides of your thumbs. You can attack them as quickly and aggressively as you want and they’ll never put up any resistance or lose accuracy.

As face button layout goes, no-one has ever beaten Nintendo’s SNES set-up, and on the CC it’s as good as it ever was. It feels compact but accessible, and the placing of ABXY matrix and right stick makes thumb movement between the two fast and natural, with barely any division ever felt in transition. The

horizontal spacing is actually a little wider than on the GC pad, but the CC’s smaller vertical gap between the buttons and the stick is what really matters when it comes to fast and clean analogue smashes. In that respect it’s actually better than the Gamecube’s controller.

So, the catch that’s currently threatening all of us with major spine issues later in life due to the crushing weight of its inevitability? It’s the throw button again unfortunately. The ZL and ZR buttons are used for that function, and they’re just a teensy bit too close to the middle of the controller’s top edge to be within comfortable range. It’s never a major stretch to reach over the standard L and R buttons to hit them, but it’s still a stretch, and a noticeably bigger one than flicking from R to Z on a ‘Cube pad. Of course, with the main shoulder buttons both mapped to shielding, you could always use L and RZ (or vice versa) to cover both actions with minimal fuss, but the slightly asymmetrical finger layout needed to do that just doesn’t feel quite right.

David Houghton
David Houghton
Long-time GR+ writer Dave has been gaming with immense dedication ever since he failed dismally at some '80s arcade racer on a childhood day at the seaside (due to being too small to reach the controls without help). These days he's an enigmatic blend of beard-stroking narrative discussion and hard-hitting Psycho Crushers.