Back in the handheld emulator scene, a lot of people were obsessed with the idea of a “fighting handheld.” Mostly old-timers grinding KOF 97, pining for a handheld with good feel that could handle fighting games, or side-scrolling beat ’em ups and the like. And of course the god of the bootleg handheld world, Zhou Ge, answered their prayers with the Anbernic RG-Arc, a machine that’s blatantly modeled on the Saturn, complete with the standard six-button layout and that familiar disc-style D-pad. But once the thing came out, a bunch of old-timers weren’t happy, saying the design fell way short of the original Saturn, especially the D-pad feel, which was off by more than a little. They all insisted that only the original Saturn pad had that flavor, that perfect balance of firmness and give, that silky-smooth quarter-circle execution…

This isn’t my first 8BitDo controller, actually, but the one I bought before somehow went missing, so all I’ve got left is one with a bad feel. This time, in order to play some “poorly optimized garbage Unity game,” I had to buy a new 8BitDo controller. Times have changed, though—this thing has evolved. It’s got built-in rumble now, and supposedly a gyroscope too. I’ve used it for about two weeks, so let me share my impressions.

Obviously I’m a handheld nut, and my love for handhelds outweighs any other kind of console gaming. In some ways I even use the Surface Pro 4 as a handheld, even though it’s not remotely “handheld” sized. A while back I got my hands on the GPD Pocket. It’s great in every way except that gaming on it is a hassle — compared to the GPD Win it has no built-in gamepad buttons, and the default keyboard is just painful. So pairing it with an 8BitDo portable gamepad does the trick.