Controller talk

[mwekunmos]

Hello Shmup community,

It has come to a surprise to me that no controller discussion exists in this forum, so i thought its time to start one, in this thread; i do not aim to discuss controllers for console shmups, as most consoles are limited to their own controller, instead i feel its more fruitful to discuss controller choices for PC shmups

so far from the people that i have talked with: it seems that many prefer to use the keyboard, i personally use the d-pad on an xbox 360 controller which does lose its edge after a few months, i usually try to fix it, but, somethings cannot be fixed.

what i am looking for is precision (mainly no joysticks, but maybe you can suggest a good?), accuracy (mainly the ability to give small very inputs), ease of use and no input lag.

discuss!

[Special World]

I feel like people talk about controllers all the time, but eh.

Joysticks with Seimitsu or Sanwa parts are good. From what I understand, Seimitsu is the "go-to," for shmups, but I prefer my Sanwa parts to Seimitsu. Seimitsu is pretty chunky.
I have a wired Hori Gempad controller for 360/PC that has a nice tight dpad, much better than vanilla 360, the sticks on it are crap though so don't plan to use it for newer games
I really like using a USB saturn controller for MAME shmups. It's just a good controller and that's all there is to it.
If I could rig a NeoGeo pocket color to be a PC controller, I would love to try that. Just a pipe dream. Love that fuckin thing.

Not really that picky about it. There's a ton of good options. Vanilla 360 controller has a pretty terrible dpad though, yeah.

[clippa]

360 d-pad?
I can think of nothing worse than that mushy lottery button.
"roll up, roll up, try your luck! Find out which one of our eight exciting directions you could be ploughing headlong into bullets in this evening!"

Even when me and my nephew used to play left 4 dead split-screen, I'd get panic attacks when he asked me to heal him as I'd invariably spend 30 seconds turning my torch on and off in his face and showing him my pipe bomb.

"HEEEEAAAAALLL MEEEEEEE!"
"I'm working on it! Jesus!"

If you're not competent with all input devices then the right tool for the job might just be the one you're most comfortable with, the one you've used the most.

Personally, I play best with an arcade stick (ls-32 is the one I settled on, though I've got an ls-40 in the mail, we were discussing sticks on another forum and I realised that I'd never tried that one and it sounded promising), keyboard (I think I'd play best with this if I practised more but I don't think I've got the carpel tunnels for it), analogue stick and then d-pad.
Those last two, I'm sure, by rights, should be the other way round, but I'm just not good with a d-pad for shmups. I've bought one of those retro-bit saturn pads, I need to practise more with that.

As Special World says, you need to work on your google-fu, but it's as good a time as any to discuss this again. It's always interesting to see all the different personal preferences, which particular pad or which particular stick people favour.

edit: Oh, and welcome to the forum, by the way!

[clippa]

Yeah, I like my crappy membrane keyboards too. Maybe I just haven't tried the right mechanical switch yet.

After my nephew kicked fuck out of the 20 year old solid, built to last keyboard we had on the downstairs pc after a particularly harrowing fortnite defeat (legend!) I replaced it with a redragon kumara as it was cheap enough.
The keys are "cherry green equivalent" by all accounts and I haven't used it too much for gaming myself but it feels pretty good, not too hard and not too easy to push down the keys, not just right, to my tastes, I could do with a bit more give, but I didn't have a bearhouse full of porridge to test, so it'll have to do.

[bigbadboaz]

There's always been plenty of controller talk here, but you're in the wrong subforum.

I would say over the years the preference for arcade sticks has been pretty strong. I personally enjoy playing with a Sega D-Pad more or less as much as with a stick, but I sure do appreciate a heavy-duty arcade quality stick. I can still remember the days when there was no such thing available in the home marketplace.

[2a03]

For me, it's F310/F510

[Shepardus]

I remember Perikles saying that he uses a standard Xbox 360 controller and its dpad, so clearly it works for some people. I personally use a mechanical keyboard, though mostly any keyboard would work provided I have some time to get used to it.

[BurlyHeart]

I use an arcade stick with a Seimitsu LS-40. I can see how a keyboard would be advantageous, especially on bullet hells, but I like using a stick. Also use a Hori fighting commander 5 (pad) for some games, but I do get carpal tunnel if I use it too long.

[Stevens]

Depends on what I'm playing and what I'm playing it on.

Generally I'll play with whatever the default pad for the console is (PS 2/4 (with an adapter on the d pad), Dreamcast pad, 360 transforming pad) but I love playing Progear on stick for some reason.

[ciox]

keyboard nearly always for pretty much all the reasons. a joypad with rumble is fun sometimes if the game uses rumble in an interesting way (meaning it does more than turn it up to 11 when you die) as that's something you just can't get on a keyboard, but that's about it.

[Xyga]

Usually your average Sanwa equipped stick, whichever it is. Though in cases I've kept the original parts like the Saturn 'Astro' stick's, or the Namco stick's as long as they still click well (not the Hori-ble buttons though)
The tighter Seimitsu LS-56 has my preference for shmups though.
Never tried Seimitsu buttons, or only briefly on borrowed controls so I don't remember if I liked them or not.

For pads usually an USB Saturn one (SLS re-edition), though contrary to popular opinion I don't like Saturn pads much.
My favourite is the original PS1 DualShock which I sometimes use w/ a JoyBox 3 Pro adapter.
Probably spent so much time playing that console in my life that it feels like a natural extension to me lol, even though it's not ideal for all types of games.

On PC/emulation lately it's been essentially a 360 VX, or the Saturn pad, but I'll probably go for a 360 pad next.

[Elaphe]

I'm using a custom made arcade control panel with a Suzo STC 500 stick, the best device I've ever tried for quick and precise movements.

[ED-057]

SNES pad connected to parallel port or Buffalo Classic USB

[Ghegs]

Moving this over to Hardware.

[vol.2]

I had a friend (no longer with us) who swore by the 360 controllers because he insisted that the difficulty of using it "made the experience closer to real life" because "really shooting a gun or operating a vehicle isn't easy," and that "because your wrist is a natural fulcrum, the ergonomics of better control methods set the bar too low for competition." Boy did I ever get into a lotta fights with him about that shit. Miss him tho.