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8Bitdo's SN30 and FC30 Pro Controller Overview

Fun and Nostalgia Packed Into One

By Jared WilliamsPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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8Bitdo is a reputable company that is known for its controllers and gadgets video game players like myself love to use. They’ve created different things like classic styled controllers, wireless receivers for those controllers and others, as well as retro styled speakers and USB hubs. The controller I want to talk about is the SN30 Pro Controller. It’s designed really well, feels great, and looks amazing, but it’s not without its flaws.

The SN30 Pro and FC30 Pro look a lot like a Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Famicom controller mixed with a classic Playstation controller. It has all the old SNES buttons, like the four faces buttons (A, B, X, and Y), its directional buttons, the start and select buttons, and the L & R buttons. However, they’ve added two analog control sticks and L2 & R2 buttons where they would normally go on a Playstation controller. There are two extra buttons beneath the D pad and the face buttons, which I believe was put to mimic a Switch controller, for the Home and Camera buttons. They even have the concave X and Y buttons the SNES controller had, which just adds to the nostalgia. The control sticks are very well assembled and are very durable, which means you probably won’t accidentally move them in the wrong direction, such as moving up instead of diagonally. You can also click the control sticks for L3 & R3 functionality.

My only main issues with the buttons were that there are times when the D pad feels stiff and the start button sticks down a little. The D pad isn’t not terrible, and it certainly is an improvement from the old SN30 which had a very loose and lanky D pad, but it is still something that inhibits gameplay every once in a while. When I want to pause my game, there are times when I push the start button and it pauses and unpauses two or three times. This isn’t exactly game breaking because I don’t use the start button too often, but it does get annoying and makes me not want to use it at times.

I personally use this for emulation when wanting to play rom hacks and I mainly use it on my Raspberry Pi single motherboard computer running a software called retropie, which is basically a giant emulator. For that purpose, it works perfectly. It was easy to set up simply by going to my bluetooth settings and connecting the controller. The extra buttons provide nice Home buttons to return to the retropie menu and select another game, or I could use them as shortcut buttons for things like save-states or screenshots. You can also click the control sticks, which is an easy way of bringing up the in-game menu. You can also connect it to your computer, your phone, or even your Nintendo Switch. The only time there was any noticeable input lag was when I was using the Switch, and it wasn’t absolutely terrible, I just wouldn’t do it again. It supports motion controls, so if you want to swing your hat all the way around in Super Mario Odyssey, you go right ahead. The only downside with the Switch is that NFC scanning is not supported, which means amiibos can’t be used, but I think at that point you’re asking a bit much. It isn’t a Nintendo controller, it’s just something you can use with the console.

The controller comes with a USB-C charging cable, which you can plug into whatever you want to play on for wired controller gameplay if you want. When using Bluetooth, there are four lights under the controller letting you know when it’s connected. I’d assume you can also tell which player is which with them, but I never used more than one, so I’m not sure. There is also a button at the top specifically for connecting, and a little light next to the USB cord port at the top letting you know when it’s charging. You can separately buy a smartphone clip that 8Bitdo sells, so if you play games on your phone, you can do that too. There are grooves on the top and bottom of the controller to allow the clip to clip on.

8Bitdo sells these controllers on Amazon for $50, which some may think is steep if they don’t know anything about the controller, but I believe it’s worth every penny. From its sleek design to its broad functionality, the SN30 and SF30 Pro Controllers pack everything you need for nostalgia and fun into one tiny package. I would highly recommend picking one up if you haven’t done so already. I’ll leave a link here so you can buy one and see for yourself how great it is. I couldn't get the Vocal "insert product" thing to work so just click the URL. Thanks so much for reading!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0748S1VDC?th=1

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About the Creator

Jared Williams

I just enjoy writing my thoughts down. No one knows who may be interested.

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