8BitDo Pro 3 Wireless Controller GBAtemp review
Hardware
Product Information:
- Official Store: https://aknes.com/products/8bitdo-pro3
Review Approach:
Having started life reimagining classic controller designs in modern wireless formats, 8BitDo have since become a leading player in the third party controller space. As it stands today they have two premium lines in their repertoire: the Ultimate series and the Pro series. Despite sounding similar, both have entirely different roots, with the Ultimate being their take on a premium modern controller, and the Pro being the gradual evolution of one of their first popular models in the SN30 Pro. Now with a heap of modern features and niceties built in, we take a look at their latest in this series to see whether it's one worth picking up.
A Modern Retro Gamepad
The Pro 3 is a controller I’ve been looking forward to for some time now. Having really come to appreciate 8BitDo’s adopting of more tactile D-Pads in both their budget Ultimate 2C and more recent Ultimate 2 controllers, I’ve naturally wanted to see this same style in a more D-Pad centric format. This is exactly the market the Pro line has filled to this point, formally being known as SN30 Pro controllers thanks to their original SNES inspirations. I won’t mince words here, the Pro 3 has been exactly the controller I hoped it would be.
If you’ve had one of 8BitDo’s Pro controllers before, you might be surprised by just how many small changes and inclusions there are here. All of them for the better in my books; the larger design will at least be familiar though. What we’re looking at is basically a SNES controller that’s been turned up to eleven, with the main body resembling its inspiration pretty well. Beyond that body we do see some modern niceties in the dual analogue sticks, triggers, grips, and extra buttons, amongst other things.
Of all its features, the one that stands out most to me is admittedly one of the least interesting. It’s the D-Pad, and I really cannot stress enough just how much I like it. For me it’s about as close to a perfect D-Pad as I’ve found in a standalone controller. Each input feels distinct with a tactile, if slightly loud, bump, each press requiring enough weight where accidental inputs aren’t something I’ve experienced. I don’t play fighting games enough to comment on the efficacy of rolling from one input to another, but at the very least I can say it feels great in platformers where you’re frequently transitioning from a held right input to down and left for adjustment. If like me you love tactility, this is a dream. Especially with its primary positioning.
Moving to the right side of the controller’s face we see a fairly standard set of ABXY buttons. The colour of these will vary depending on the flavour of controller you opted for. With the GameCube purple you get grey X and Y buttons, with the A and B button being green and red respectively to match the larger theme. The retro Game Boy variant has similarly themed purple buttons to go along with its more uniquely textured D-Pad, and the more neutral grey controller has black buttons with coloured text. Regardless of which version you opt for the button feel will be the same, this boiling down to a decent bit of travel with a firm bottom out. Though not particularly loud on being pressed, I have found them to be noisy when released quickly. It’s the kind of thing I don’t personally have a problem with, but is definitely worth looking up a video for if you do find yourself sensitive to such things. Having it side by side with the Ultimate 2 it is noticeably louder.
Though the Pro 3 comes with Nintendo layout buttons as standard, the face buttons do hide a fun feature under the hood. This is the use of magnets to hold them in place. You might think this isn’t especially notable at first, but the system being used here allows for you to pry the buttons (or use an included tool) and rearrange them how you see fit. For those who need their button legends to match the system they’re using the controller with this is an absolute game changer, and a complete departure from 8BitDo’s confusing assortment of Ultimate controllers with specific button layouts. Supporting both the Switch (and Switch 2 by extension) and PC, you're free to move the buttons as you see fit. There’s also a set of SNES-style legend-less buttons included with every controller, giving a simple degree of customisation that I really like to see. I actually settled on a bit of a hybrid with the grey controller, having the red and green blank buttons alongside the red and green text of the B and A buttons it came with. I've been spending a lot of time with this controller emulating GBA games, and the colour matching is a nice touch to represent rapid fire B and A respectively when using mGBA.
With the ability to swap the buttons to an Xbox layout, you’re probably wondering just how well the controller holds up for more modern games. After all it does have everything you’d need to play them, with two TMR analogue sticks and Hall effect triggers. The short answer is that everything feels great. If you’re used to PlayStation controllers that use this kind of layout as standard I can see you having a really good time here. Triggers have a firm but soft bottom out that isn’t too loud, paired with a smooth range of motion. Where these really stand out is in their locking mechanism. Since the Ultimate 2 8BitDo have been experimenting with making a trigger really feel like a button when you don’t need analogue input, and with the Pro 3 we have yet another really nice implementation. When the trigger lock is enabled, you get a shallow bit of travel followed by something of a deep mouse click. It’s incredibly satisfying feedback, and something I tend to leave enabled as somebody who typically uses this controller for retro titles.
The rest of the buttons, outside of start and select, mostly serve as extras to enhance the larger experience. I will just throw in here that the start and select buttons are rubber tabs as opposed to the rest of the controller’s quite tactile experience. Holding start will also power the controller on and off. In terms of bonus mappable buttons, the Pro 3 again keeps step with the Ultimate 2 in giving you a button on each of the controller’s grips, as well as one next to the left and right bumpers. Each of these can be mapped by holding the button you want to map and the extra button, and then following it up with a press of the star button on the controller’s face. From there any time you press the extra button, it will be detected as the button you’ve mapped. Clearing that mapping is as simple as holding the extra button and pressing the star button without holding anything else. It works well enough, as it has with previous controllers. I can however see some people being annoyed by two things: the fact these mapped buttons don’t support turbo, and that the ring around the home button will constantly flash while holding one of these extra buttons once mapped.
Looking at the former of these complaints, it’s fairly easy to see why turbo doesn’t work with the extra buttons. The star button, outside of mapping your extra buttons, is also used to cycle through the turbo modes. This works by holding the button you want to mash, and then hitting star. Hitting it twice will enable turbo only when the button is not held, with holding the button disabling it. There have been times where I’ve wanted to have turbo on one of the grip buttons, most notably for swimming in Super Mario Wonder, but as a whole it is something you do get used to. The flashing light though? That might be a deal breaker if 8BitDo don’t add an option to disable it somehow. In the past where there have been lights that annoy me, I’ve had no issues slapping some duct tape on the problem and calling it a day. It’s not the prettiest but that’s not too important to me. Here that’s not possible, and it’s because the light in question encircles the home button. This is different to the Ultimate controllers where there was a small separate LED. Flashing lights like this is something I can personally get used to, but that certainly won’t be the case for everybody.
To finish on a more macroscopic view of the Pro 3, the larger quality is very nice. The plastic used throughout feels sturdy, with a dotted pattern being used on the back plate to add a bit more grip. Buttons feel well-positioned, with the bonus grip buttons especially being exactly where I’d want them. There is more to this package than just the controller though.
Every Controller Needs a Dock
I will never stop raving about controller docks. Since picking up the original 8BitDo Ultimate 2.4G it has been right at the top of my wants for any third party mainstay. There’s not really anything to complain about here. Included in the base price for each model is a colour-matched dock, this acting both as a means of charging the controller and as a pass-through for the USB C dongle. With a USB C port of its own on the back, you just need to plug it into your system of choice and you’re good to go!
Also hidden inside the dock is the bonus coloured buttons mentioned earlier, and the little plunger tool for prying at the magnets. These are all stowed quite neatly alongside the USB C dongle, making them pretty difficult to lose even for people like me. As with other 8BitDo controllers, the Pro 3 automatically powers on when removed from the dock too, connecting to the last device without issue. I had quite a good time using it in Bluetooth mode with my Switch 2. Because the Bluetooth mode doesn’t require the dongle, I was free to plug the dock into my TV’s USB port just for charging, keeping my Switch 2’s dock free for more random peripherals.
Supporting Software
When it comes to 8BitDo’s software I usually find myself with mixed feelings. In the past it’s worked, then it’s been incredibly buggy, and now it seems to work again. For those of you out there with such disdain for driver software as myself, I will make it perfectly clear now that the Pro 3 can be used almost to its fullest without downloading anything. Extra buttons can be remapped, turbo can be enabled at will, and your active connection mode is controlled by a switch on the back of the controller. 8BitDo’s Ultimate Software V2 is the kind of thing you can get away with booting once, figuring out what you like, and never touching again.
The basic idea here is that the software is used to create a controller profile, where any one controller can store up to three profiles for Switch mode, and three further profiles for the Windows mode. In these profiles you can fully customise your buttons, going beyond simply mapping the four bonus ones. On top of this you can also create short macros, customise stick sensitivity, configure your effective trigger range, as well as the controller’s vibration strength. Having six total profiles really gives you a good amount of freedom, and enough breathing room to have configurations specific to a given scenario. At the time of writing I’ve also had no issues with Ultimate Software V2, though as I mentioned your mileage may vary from machine to machine, and update to update.
A Controller Worth Buying?
I did touch on this a little earlier when talking about the Pro 3’s layout and feel, but in my mind this is very much a retro-first controller. Using it like that I have had an absolutely fantastic time, but it’s pretty versatile in what it’ll work with if you do want to make it your daily driver. Using the switch on the back of the controller you can easily move between the Switch, DInput, and PC modes (XInput). The configurations are a little odd, with XInput only working via the dongle on PC. Plugging the dongle into other devices, including the Switch, will have the controller picked up in Switch mode. With other 8BitDo controllers there have been button combinations to move between these modes with the dongle, but none of them appeared to work here. Using the switch on the back of the controller, you can also move between two Bluetooth modes: Switch and DInput. Each mode has different benefits, with Switch allowing the use of gyro and the star button working as a screenshot button, the PC mode benefiting from the higher polling rate of the dongle as well as supporting analogue triggers, and DInput allowing you to use the additional buttons as something other than a standard input. The latter of these is particularly notable for giving you incredible options with emulators.
Instead of being limited to your usual face buttons, you now have two back buttons as well as two fairly out of the way buttons by your triggers. It can be seen as a negative that they’re hard to hit, but for this use case it’s very much a positive, making them ideal for saving and loading games on the fly without fear of accidental inputs. With that you can use the other buttons for speed up, rewinding, or any other of the numerous handy emulation features out there. Given its excellent and priority-positioned D-Pad this is exactly the role the controller has found for me. I will make a note here that there are some reports of the DInput mode having particularly bad latency, going as high as 70ms in user tests on Gamepadla. For playing games like Pokemon and Fire Emblem I’ve not found this an issue, but if fighting games and more precise platformers are more your speed, this particular mode might be one to skip. Both the PC and Switch modes fared much better in these same tests.
When it comes down to it, I feel the Pro 3 is a great controller. For a long time now I’ve been searching for a controller I could reach to for my ideal retro emulation setup, and this certainly is it. For those wanting more though, it very much can be. With great connectivity options, and the ability to easily swap buttons out on the fly to match the control scheme you’re using, it’s a great all-rounder. Especially for those out there who prefer having PlayStation style analogue sticks. It’s a controller more than worth the £52 asking price, and one I can wholeheartedly recommend picking up.
Verdict
- Premium feeling controller
- Magnetic buttons allow for easy swapping of positions
- Extra coloured buttons included with every controller
- Dock included in base price of the controller
- Good connectivity options
- D-Pad prioritised for a great retro experience
- DInput available to fully utilise extra buttons
- Well priced for what it offers
- Poor latency in DInput mode
- Magnetic buttons are louder than other controllers
- No way to disable flashing light when using mapped extra buttons
