Controller REVIEW: Hori Pad for Nintendo Switch

After my review of Street Fighter Anniversary 30th Collection for the Switch I set out to find an affordable controller that had a decent D-Pad. Let’s be honest, for all the things the Switch does wonderfully the Joy-Con and Pro Controller D-Pads are weak, and with a ton of great fighters heading to the Switch soon, a good D-Pad is a must. I went over to Play-Asia.com and I found a Hori Pad controller for the reasonable price of $27.99. The controller was wired, but since I was testing this to see if it would work better for fighters I thought this would cut down on some input lag. Let’s see how this bad boy worked, shall we?

This Hori controller has the exact same layout as the Pro Controller, but this D-Pad is rounded. This makes hitting diagonals much easier. You can take this rounded D-Pad off if you want and you will have the standard four directional buttons just like a Joy-Con. There’s even a storage area on the back of the controller if you want to leave the D-Pad off. I don’t really know why you would want to do that since the directional buttons are kinda sunk into the controller with it off and if just feels odd.

This controller has a good shape and size. It feels very natural when holding it. The buttons have a nice feel to them, and respond very well when pressed. There is no rumble or motion sensors of any kind in this controller. I didn’t really expect those at the cheaper price, but I was mainly looking at this one for fighting games which usually use neither of those features. Not having rumble and motion sensors does make the controller really light when you hold it. This was a good trade off in my opinion, but I am not a big fan of either of those things to begin with. The cord is a good length at six or seven feet long. You should be able to play comfortably without having to sit too close to the TV.

I tested this controller for quite a few hours with the Street Fighter Anniversary 30th Collection and a couple of the ACA Samurai Showdown games I have on my console. What I found was while this D-Pad isn’t perfect, it is much better than the Joy-Con. The Pad is a little tight on the Hori Pad, but it responds really well. Which actually kind of shocks me since its just a Pad clipped on top of directional buttons. I was able to pull off any special move I wanted with ease. I did much better when playing all the games in the Street Fighter Anniversary 30th Collection, except Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, nothing will help that except a patch to make the CPU stop input reading every move you make. I had the same results with the Samurai Showdown games I played.

While the Hori Pad is far from perfect it does work very well for fighting games due to the improved D-Pad. The bottom line is if you’re looking forward to games like Blade Strangers and SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy you’re likely going to need a controller with a better D-Pad. This Hori Pad is an inexpensive option for those on a budget that still want to enjoy fighting games on the Switch. It may not have all the fancy rumble and motion sensors of the others, but if you need an affordable controller to play fighting games, this will get the job done.