When you buy a modern controller, you usually have to pick between a modern feature set and form factor and kind of
a retro style D-pad and stuff like that. But what if there was a controller that
let you have it all? That's right, the 8bit do 3
does it all. And I'm really excited about this. I've heard nothing but good
things about this controller and I'm on record for really liking the 8bit do
Ultimate 2C. And this is the fancy step
up. Inside the box, we get our controller. We have our dock with our
dongle already inside. Oh, it's a type-C dongle. That's interesting. We also get
a three-foot cable. We get our joystick
replacement. Kind of like a classic arcade fight stick sort of thing because
not only are the joysticks replaceable, but the buttons as well. So, you can
kind of swap between Xbox layout as well as Nintendo layout. One of the things
that's really cool about this controller is that it is sort of a hybrid between a
modern PlayStation style controller and a classic Super Nintendo controller. And
I find before you actually get your hands on this, it looks like it's going
to be a horrible time. But when you actually hold it, it's a really comfortable experience. It fits really
well into the hands. Very natural hand shape. All the buttons are well within
reach. Although there seems to be something missing. There's supposed to
be a magnetic Oh, inside the dock we have our little
magnetic button puller.
Uh with replacement kind of super Famcom style buttons. So that's that's pretty
neat. I might actually want to use these. There's a little alignment notch
to make sure that you can actually get it in correctly. And what I'm finding is
that you can definitely take off these
buttons without the magnetic puller. It's nice that it's not super hard, but
I could see these getting lost or a child pulling them off fairly easy. But
the good news is once they're on, they feel pretty good. They're snug against
whatever mechanism is inside. Uh so there's not like an extra amount of
give. I would say that those buttons feel okay. They're pretty noisy, too. I
don't love the finish on the buttons either. It's like kind of too glossy.
It's also not a perfect diamond. That's kind of interesting. It's like kind of
stretched, but that's fine cuz that's sort of the angle that your thumb lands
on the controller. Anyway, start and select buttons are super mushy, just
like I remember the Super Nintendo being. These little buttons are fine.
How's the D-pad, though? Cuz that honestly might be the most important thing about this controller. There's a
lot of really good modern style controllers, but there's sort of a der
of good retro style ones. And so if this can do retro stuff well and modern stuff
fairly well, I might be interested in this. H, it's okay. D-pad is better than
most modern controllers. It's got a nice little click when you get to the bottom,
but the actual D-pad doesn't move a ton
or doesn't feel like it moves a ton, and so it feels not super satisfying to
press, but it doesn't feel like I'm going to get a bunch of false positives. So, I think that that's, you know, B+
territory. We also have our TMR joysticks. That's kind of the new fancy
uh selling feature. Tonel magnetic resistance which kind of gives you the
benefit of the higher accuracy of Hall effect while maintaining a lower power
draw which means that your battery life should be better
overall face button experience pretty good. How does that go to the top where
we have our type-C, our connection button, we have left and right bumpers,
left and right triggers. These are Hall effect triggers and the spring on them
feels pretty good. Definitely not the highest tier I felt, but certainly
within the realm of pretty nice. Then we also have our extra L4 and R4 buttons,
these extra bumpers with my short little sausage fingers. I would have to sort of
stretch to reach them. So, I don't think I would put anything assigned to these
that I need really quick access to, but it's certainly there for like a map
button or something. And luckily, there is actually two back paddles, which is
even better for stuff that I need to press more often or more more quickly.
I'm a big fan of back paddles cuz that allows you to put like sprint on it. I
hate holding a face button to run, man. I But not as much as I hate holding the
freaking left click. Hate that. The other thing we have on the back is
actually trigger locks, which is really cool if you're using this in a competitive setting. And that's actually
a very satisfying little click. Sometimes controllers with the trigger
locks, when you kind of go in the the quick reaction mode, it can feel kind of
crappy. And so I actually think this is very adequate. Feels pretty nice in both
the modern size. Although these sticks are definitely close enough your thumbs
could rub. I think that's always the big complaint with the PlayStation style
ones if you have big hands is that can be a bit of an issue. It might have been
nice if they stretched out the controller just a tad. But because the
D-pad is actually above the joystick, it
feels much more natural to play in a retro style grip. This is a really nice
hybrid. I'm actually very impressed. Going back to the back, we have a mode
toggle. We have kind of our two Bluetooth modes, the S input and D
input. And then we have our SNX input, which will be using the dongle, which is
probably the preferred way for most people to be using it. But this is one
of the great selling features of this controller is that it actually will work with your Switch as well, making this a
very versatile controller, especially now that they are really going hard on
the classic games on the Switch. And
while I'm all for extra functionality, uh I can certainly see this being a
little bit confusing for people where they're going to have to try the different modes when they're connecting
to different pieces of hardware and it might just get a little overwhelming for
people who are just getting this controller. And the last thing on the back is we have our little charging
pins, which is really cool because this comes with a nice little charging dock.
You just put it in there and it would charge if I plugged it in. I think
that's really neat, especially uh for a more premium controller to have its own
charging dock. It's nice to have a place to put it. You don't just like leave it on your side table, forget to charge it.
Although the battery life seems to be pretty adequate. It has a 1,000 mAh
battery, which for a controller like this is pretty good, especially if you
use it on the lower powered Bluetooth modes. Before we proceed, I need to try
these joysticks. I can't imagine I'm going to anything but laugh at them.
Those are very cute. I really like the way that that looks. I really don't like
the way that that would feel. I think it's one of those things that you do for
the fun of it. Uh it's certainly not going to give you competitive edge and
it's gets your thumb has to be so elevated from the controller. Whereas
before, you know, you're kind of somewhere around there, now you're all the way up here. It's not like you can't
control it. It would certainly be a bit of an adjustment. And I think the thumbs
kissing issue will be even greater if that's an issue for you. I mean, what's
cooler than thumbs kissing, right? Right. I could see this if you were
playing very retro games that were originally played with a joystick. I
could see this being kind of a novel way of doing it without pulling out a whole
arcade stick to do it. It accomplishes the purpose of fun. Overall, a positive
thing. And although I really like this magnetic storage system for the buttons,
I don't think the joystick toppers are going to fit in here. It would have been
nice just to, I don't know, have a little spot. Even you could put it little clips on the dock and have them
sit on the dock. I don't know. I don't need this to be a matte gray monolith on
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Today, we plugged in our controller. You can't plug it into the computer via the
dock. These are just charging pins, so you have to plug in the controller
directly. And when you do that, you can update or you can adjust profiles for
Windows or Switch by customizing what each of the buttons do. Pretty nifty.
You can set macros. You can adjust the dead zones on the stick. These are TMR
sticks, so they better not need a freaking dead zone, dog. You can invert the axis on a controller level or swap
the left and right joysticks. That's just a nice little accessibility thing.
And then the triggers, you can change the curb so that you really only need a
little bit of a click. Although, I hope that the button removes the need for
that. Okay. Yes, if you use the click, it's 100% right away. So, that's more if
you're using the analog style. and vibration.
You can actually hear the magnetic buttons
vibrating. Oh, no, that's not what it is. It's just general general jank.
That's my new D and D character. That vibration is not particularly
impressive, but maybe in games it's going to be a little bit more. So, let's uh pull up a game. We're inside of
Castlevania Bloodlines, the most underappreciated of the classic
Castlevanias, in my opinion. Uh, and we're just kind of testing out the retro
side of this controller. These buttons aren't great. They like almost have like
a whip sound, which is appropriate for this game, but it's like it's like
they're too mushy, but they're not tactile enough. It's hard to put my
finger on exactly what it is. I don't think the sound that they make every
time I click is helping. Luckily, the D-pad is is pretty adequate. And a game
that requires precise inputs, I think that this would be pretty good. The
tactility of it feels like it's going to wear out, but that's not something I can
test in such a short amount of time. But out of the box, this retro experience is
pretty damn solid. I just want to keep playing, which is exactly what I want out of my controllers, not to think
about them. In terms of comfort, it's definitely very ergonomic. I could hold
this for many, many, many, many hours. It definitely feels more primed for the
angle that having my thumbs on the thumb sticks would have, but this is definitely adequate, and I am quite
pleased. I think if I'm looking for one controller to play all my games retro
style, this is a very, very good candidate. But how does it do in modern
games? We're in Apex. I'm on the firing range, which is my preferred way to test
controllers. And this is pretty
responsive. I don't really like the curve on the right stick. I'm having a
little bit of trouble getting it to feel really natural, but it's not like a
input latency or a actual issue with the curve. I think it's just like getting
used to it. These sticks do feel pretty nice. Fairly smooth. Uh they have the
plastic ring and the kind of metal on the actual stick which helps make it a
very smooth experience. They don't feel like the nicest sticks I've ever used,
but for modern games, this is definitely a good one. Let's try these trigger
stops. See if I like that better. Oh, yeah. I dig that. That's way better. You
know what? This is a very accurate controller. I like the way this feels. I
definitely could see myself using this in a competitive setting. Even though it's not necessarily a competitive
controller, it still has a 1000Hz pulling rate over X input. Goes lower
and lower if you use Bluetooth in terms of input latency, but that's normal. So,
if you're someone that plays only competitive games, I probably would look
elsewhere. There's a lot of really, really good, similarly priced
controllers that are better for shooters or racing games or other kinds of modern
games. But if you're someone that plays a little bit of everything, I think that
the 8bit Dough Pro 3 is a really excellent option that you should check
out. It feels very good quality for its price. It has a very unique shape and
offers kind of a use case that there isn't that many options for. It's the
rare example of a decent D-pad on a modern controller. It has all the extra
buttons you could want for your modern games. And it has like neat little extras like those little joystick
knobbins and the face button change ups, which makes this a pretty good package
for 70 bucks. I think you could do a lot worse for that considering you get the
dongle and the dock. I don't hate the gray. I think that's kind of the most
classic looking one. It also comes in white, but also a purple. Sort of a
Gamecube aesthetic. Although, it would be nice if the sticks, at least on the
right side, had been yellow for it. And so, let me know down below if this is a
controller that interests you. Why don't you just comment that or if you have a
preferred controller, comment that one down below. Maybe we can check it out sometime on another ShortCircuit just
like you can check out another ShortCircuit like the one we did on the Cyclone. I really like that controller
as