Buffalo SNES gamepad

[Mooshi]

Delicious 16-bits of fury!

 

 

Emulation can be a tricky subject, so let's assume you have a physical cart of what rom you plan to play. Okay? Okay.

 

Tested on Zsnes emulator* (set-up was a breeze!)

 

The controller I ordered finally arrived and after spending several hours with it, a sudden feeling of the past comes over you. That little bit of childish nostalgia. I've ordered this gamepad in particular because I wanted games played on Zsnes to feel as close to the original as possible. I'll be honest, things felt awkward on the keyboard for some games. This controller itself is possibly the best 3rd party controller I've used that emulates the original feel nicely. Another consideration for this gamepad over other options was because when I read reviews on the others, they seemed to have too many issues for my taste. From poor build quality to not feeling right aka MY D-PAD IS FAIL AND WHY ARE MY BUTTONS PLASTIC INSTEAD OF RUBBER.

 

Look and Feel:

 

After holding it in my hands for awhile, it felt as natural as holding the real thing. It's also visual appealing. While I have no use for the turbo and clear buttons, they are there and don't stick out too bad in my eyes. The colours for the buttons are more towards the Famicom than the N.American purple SNES controller. Buttons are nice and responsive, the D pad feels great. Mine has slight cosmetic issues that you can only notice in certain light. If this wasn't there, I'd have given a 10/10. YMMV

 

Note: These buttons are standard buttons and are not convex/concave like the N.American original SNES controller XYAB buttons were. That said, once you're playing a game, it all feels natural regardless.

 

 

Other Info:

 

The cable is long enough for most users so this shouldn't be an issue. The controller also is kinda lightweight compared to something like a 360 controller, but that is to be expected. The construction seems durable enough to service multiple drops like the real thing and keep going like nothing ever happened. Not sure how this controller works under other OS's, but for the majority Win7/Win8 users, there are zero issues with this gamepad. All you do is plug it in and boom.

 

 

Where to buy:

 

I purchased mine off of eBay and had to wait a week for it to get to Texas from Hong Kong. Again, YMMV Some people may have to wait 2-3 weeks depending on where you live -- I'm surprised mine came as soon as it did. With shipping, expect to spend around $20usd. Compared to the USB SNES controllers on market outside of an OEM SNES controller + adapter or a modified OEM SNES controller to have a USB connector, this is as good as it gets.

 

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If you like to play some old school games and wish to play them on a nice controller instead of your keyboard or 360/PS2 inspired PC gamepad, this is worth giving a try.

[threadysparrow]

I've been wanting an snes controller for a long time. the kind with squishy buttons and not clicky buttons

[Mooshi]

The tactileness of these buttons feel nice. Ran Visual Boy Advance to play some Klonoa and the controller worked just fine for this popular emulator as well. Keyboard and Mouse might be perfect for an FPS, but for some precision platforming type stuff, you can't beat a proper controller.