Fight pads have come a long way since the early days of fighting games. For the most part, the arcade stick/fight stick was the standard piece of equipment most used if they wanted to take their game to the next level. That and playing a fighting game on a fight stick felt more natural since most fighting games were better on arcade machines. But as the years went by and consoles ports of fighting games caught up to the quality of the arcade versions, more and more people started using the standard controller. This put controller users (or pad warriors as the FGC refers to them) at a disadvantage since stick fighters could easily pull off combo inputs thanks to the stick’s six button layout compared to the standard controller’s four face buttons and triggers/bumpers. The range of motion is very minimum in order to input a combo or a command so the player’s fingers don’t have to go far. So the muscle memory they’ve gain from playing at the arcade can easily transfer over when they play the console port with a fight stick. Not so much with pad warriors as when they use a console’s controller, its a standard four button layout with a pair of shoulder and trigger buttons each. Pad warriors would have to remember that their high kick and high punch are mapped to the shoulder buttons. Plus after playing a while on a standard controller hands tend to cramp up, whereas with stick fighters, they don’t have to grip much. Which is why some third party peripheral manufactures started making arcade style fight pads. This brings us to today’s review as we take a look at the PowerA Fusion Wired Fight Pads for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4.
PowerA Fusion Wired Fightpad
Manufacture: PowerA
Make/model: FUSION
Specs: weight- 178g, W- 154.6mm, H- 88.65mm, D- 36.9mm, cord length- 3m, floating D-pad design, 6-button layout, 3.5mm audio input
Contents: Fightpad, USB-micro cable, 3 interchangeable magnetic face plates, user manual
Warranty- 2 years limited
Price- $59.99 (Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4)
Growing up there was always a stigma about third party controllers. They were seen as cheaply built, cheap in price and in some cases ugly looking. This was the controller you had your siblings, friends and any company you had over use instead of the main controller. Over the years however third party manufactures, such as PowerA, started to develop and design better looking, affordable controllers for consoles. Last year PowerA was nice enough to send over the Enhanced Wireless Controller for the Nintendo Switch and their Wired GameCube Controller. They were a part of the Nintendo Switch Holiday Gift Guide, which you can check out here. This time they sent over the Fusion Wired Fight Pad, one for the Switch and the other for the PS4.
For the most part both the PS4 and the Switch fight pads are the same, the only real differences between them is that one is configured for the Switch and the other for the PS4 (this includes the XB1 version of the fight pad, which is not included in this review). The Fusion Fight pads are much smaller than the controllers that I usually use for fighting games on each system.
While the DS4 and the two Switch Pro Controllers are some of the most comfortable controllers I have for both systems, they are obviously not built for fighting games. What do I mean by that? Try playing a couple of rounds of Street Fighter using the cross shaped D-pads on either the DS4 or the two Switch Pro Controllers. After pulling off a couple of hadoukens and shoryuken over and over again your thumb will start to hurt due to having to drag it across the inputs. The cross shape isn’t really made for these rolling motions. PowerA saw this and decided to go with a floating D-pad design for the D-pad. This makes pulling quarter circle and half circle motions (hadoukens and shoryukens) much easier. But if you’re more used to using analogue sticks, there is a switch in the middle of the controllers that can change how the D-pad works. Now if some reason you need the functionality of L3 or R3, there is a switch right next to the right shoulder and trigger buttons can have the shoulder buttons mapped as L3 and R3. Now I haven’t played a fighting game that warrants me changing my shoulder buttons to L3 and R3 inputs, but the option to do that is there. Then there’s the best feature that the Fusion Fight Pad has: a 3.5mm audio jack on the bottom. Ok so it’s not that big of a deal for the PS4 since more 3rd party controllers have the audio jack, but as far as I know, there is not audio jack on the bottom of any 3rd party controller that I’ve seen. Not even Nintendo’s own Pro Controller has an audio jack.
Functionality wise, the Fusion Wired Fight Pad works just great. By default the Switch/PS4 see the controllers as wired USB controllers, which means the button mapping defaults to whatever game is being played. For a game that uses a six button set up like Street Fighter, this won’t be much of a problem. For other games such as King of Fighters, Tekken 7, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and any of Arc System Work’s games (BlazBlue, Guilty Gear, Dragon Ball FighterZ, etc) you will have to remap your button inputs to your preference. Remapping buttons to fit your needs isn’t a new thing to most players in the FGC and is quite normal.
As I mentioned before the Fusion Fight Pad is a very comfortable controller to hold. The built quality is nice and the plastic has a really nice matte finish to it. If I had to compare its shape to another controller, I’d say it feels like the Sega Genesis six button controller or the Sega Saturn six button controller. If you get tired of the default face plates (red for the Switch, blue for the PS4) there are two more face plates packed in. The plates can be easily taken off and replaced since they are magnetic. Hopefully PowerA decided to release blank white face plates, as it would be really cool to have custom art on them.
Overall PowerA has been killing it so far with their controller offerings for not only the Nintendo Switch, but also the PS4 and the Xbox One (more on that in a future review). There aren’t many controller pad options that are made just for fighting games, at least options that I’ve seen. And from that small lot of controller pads that are made for fighting games, they can be pretty pricey for the average gamer. PowerA seems to understand that and thus the Fusion Wired Fight Pad came into existence. For $59.99, a price that is way lower than other fight pads, the PowerA Wired Fight Pad is a pretty good deal if your are looking for a premium yet affordable controller to use for fighting games. They’re on out now on PowerA’s site and you can also find them on Amazon as well. So if you’re looking for a quality pad for a decent price the Fusion Wired Fight Pad is highly recommended.
