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samuelryanlilly · 4 years ago

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The ìpega Controller for N-Switch

Have you ever wanted your Switch to be more like a Wii U gamepad? Probably not, but the idea of having a similar FEEL might be appealing. After my initial, new, used-for-less-than-a-month joycons developed drift after hardly even touching them, I was definitely on the lookout for an alternate solution. I got an official Nintendo Switch Pro Controller already, but what if I wanted more controllers? Well, I tried out the Hori D-Pad Left Joycon but the stick did not seem significantly different... which is good for matching them with standard joycons but bad for my peace of mind. I got a FaceOff wired pro controller by PDP (I may go into more depth on that in another post if you'd like) that functioned surprisingly well for a cheap, simple, slightly gimmicky controller. And then there was this.

Behold! A peculiar piece of plastic with their own control sticks! There's also a d-pad, no batteries required, no crazy settings needed, just plug it in and go, baby! It was relatively inexpensive (if not a tad more than I normally would risk) and though I had never heard of the brand ìpega before, I couldn't resist the temptation to try it and a least, if nothing else, have something to say about this strange product.

Of course, the pictures and wording definitely made me even more curious as they tickled me. The blurred imaged of Fortnite and Splatoon 2 along with calling it a controller for N-Switch definitely made me feel like they didn't want to get into legal trouble while advertising this.

Now this controller does have some nice features to it, don't get me wrong. The Switch fits into it nicely with rubber on the insides to grip it so firmly that you can shake it (lightly to moderately) when it's upside down and it won't fall out! I'm impressed. The design also uses that bottom bar and supporting back extensions of the plastic to help support the system weight more evenly without putting stresses on the side connections. The sticks feel nice with concave tops to keep your thumbs from slipping out. You get a D-pad. The handles are shaped to give you something substantial to grip onto unlike the flat joycons. And it uses no batteries of its own. It just runs on the system's battery at a very small drain since it has no fancy features to power.

Then again, not having fancy features isn't exactly the highest praise. To get this working you need to turn on wired pro controller communication. You have to hit buttons on the console to wake and unlock it before connecting it to the controller or else it won't do anything. There's no gyro, rumble, NFC reading... nothing. To make matters worse, it doesn't have the best feel. The curved mold of the plastic makes the D-pad directions and buttons closer to the inside shallower than those closer to the outside. The +, -, home, and screenshot buttons are far at the bottom and tiny. The sticks are a bit tall to be this high up on the controller. And of course, as is pictured above (very blurrily... sorry) they didn't even get the right labels on the triggers! Was it to avoid legal action? Did they jut have these parts laying around from cheap Sony controller projects? Or did the actually not know Nintendo uses ZL and ZR? Whatever the case, if you don't push those triggers inward squarely then they while stick and often not even register.

Ultimately, this controller replacement falls on its face for a few key reasons. It's not its lack of fancy features or crappy button feel. It's more than that. One major reason is because, well, let's face it, this DOES make it feel like you're playing a Wii U in off-TV play mode. But unlike the Wii U gamepad, there's no way to charge this while playing. There's no passthrough on the bottom so you have to take it out and stop using it if the battery is low. The second major flaw is that it's not at all potable despite only being usable in handheld mode. It's bulky, unprotected, and doesn't fold up in any way to save space in a bag, much less an optimistic pocket. And lastly, ironically, the left stick on this broke on me. For some reason it will now only move diagonally up and to the left or diagonally down and to the right. I guess I could just play D-pad only games but I might as well use something more convenient or with a better D-pad for that. In the end, this cheap piece of crap turned out to be... as expected... a cheap piece of crap.

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