Got the USB controllers today.
The Saturn controller is a disappointment. The Mega Drive one seems alright.
On both controllers the D-pad is slightly wrong compared to the originals. You can press all directions down by pressing in the middle, (like the SLS USB pad to be fair). I can imagine that this would be a problem for those who presses too hard on their controllers. It's not a problem for me, and the Mega Drive controller felt fine during my playthrough of Persona 4 Arena. The Saturn on the other hand does not. The left and right directions are fine, but down is noticeable stiffer and up is somewhere in between. This hasn't caused any wrong inputs, but it definitely doesn't feel like a Saturn controller is supposed to.
The shoulder buttons on the Saturn controller is the worst of all the kinds I own. In order I would rank them OG Saturn > PS2 Saturn > SLS USB Saturn and Retro-bit in last place. I'll open them up later, but I suspect that they have replaced the tact switches with rubber dome buttons. They certainly feel that way. What's worse is that the R button feels ever so slightly less responsive than the L one does. Though to be fair they have worked every single time I pressed them during gameplay with no fault. They just feel off.
The shoulder buttons on the MD controller are alright and better than I expected. They are very "clicky" and seems to activate properly no matter where you press them, though they seem to pivot near the top, so they feel a little different there (think Z button on GameCube, but nowhere near as noticeable).
The face buttons on both controllers are excellent. I only have the smaller JAP MD6 button controller to compare with, and the buttons are a tiny bit looser on that one, but that may just be down to wear and tear. The Saturn ones feel exactly like the originals.
I can only speak for the USB versions, but I can't imagine that the console versions are any different.
I've only tested on the PS3, and the button mapping is completely nuts so a soldering iron is absolutely required so you can fix this mess yourself!
On both of them the buttons are mapped like this (WTF?!):
Code:
L2 R2
[] O R1
/\ X L1
Maybe just pass on the Saturn controllers entirely? As said the MD ones seem quite good, and I expect that the one for MD consoles will work great as I assume it has the proper button mapping... We'll see when I get mine.
I've watched several of the YouTube influencers impression videos on these things, and I'm baffled that they didn't pick up on any of these criticisms. Are they really so stoked about getting free stuff for promoting that they don't think before putting up their videos? At least how stupid the button mapping is should have been disclosed long ago!
EDIT: I was wrong about the tact switches on the Saturn controller:
Also, this might be why the Saturn D-pad is bad. Look how the plastic looks bent towards the down position. And on the up position there is some leftover plastic that makes this piece not entirely flush:
Removing the excess plastic on the up position is easy enough. But the bend part may not be so easy. I'll have to pull out my hot air station to see if it can be restored.