Digital (D-pad) vs Analog and the revelation of 8BitDo's M30
Over the last few years I've been playing an increasingly large amount of Shmups, Run & Guns and Platformers which forced me to re-evaluate my preference for Analog over D-pad. Outside of Tetris and navigating menus, I tended to loathe D-pads for actual gameplay because there hadn't been one that felt comfortable for me. Ever since Sony released the first DualShock I always gravitated toward analog when digital/8-way games supported it despite a D-pad offering objectively superior control. I had heard for many years that the Sega Saturn's floating D-pad is incredible so back in December of 2023 I finally grabbed a USB version of that controller to try out... good grief is that thing terrific, within moments of a Shmup it felt as though I was cheating because of the precision it afforded me. This epiphany prompted me to research floating D-pads further which led me to discovering the gloriously comfortable 8BitDo M30 and it is now my favorite controller for games that use digital input; I'm baffled as to why anyone would prefer a traditional cross D-pad once they've experienced a floating one.
What controller has your favorite D-pad?
Over the last few years I've been playing an increasingly large amount of Shmups, Run & Guns and Platformers which forced me to re-evaluate my preference for Analog over D-pad. Outside of Tetris and navigating menus, I tended to loathe D-pads for actual gameplay because there hadn't been one that felt comfortable for me. Ever since Sony released the first DualShock I always gravitated toward analog when digital/8-way games supported it despite a D-pad offering objectively superior control. I had heard for many years that the Sega Saturn's floating D-pad is incredible so back in December of 2023 I finally grabbed a USB version of that controller to try out... good grief is that thing terrific, within moments of a Shmup it felt as though I was cheating because of the precision it afforded me. This epiphany prompted me to research floating D-pads further which led me to discovering the gloriously comfortable 8BitDo M30 and it is now my favorite controller for games that use digital input; I'm baffled as to why anyone would prefer a traditional cross D-pad once they've experienced a floating one.
What controller has your favorite D-pad?