Everyone remembers where they were when they obtained their first controller dongle. For me there have been two standout moments in my life where I feel proud to think about my dongle history, the first of which was when I was around eleven or twelve and I found an IR adaptor for the SNES. Bolting it onto the front of the console via both of the controller ports; the Dual Turbo Wireless Remote System by Acclaim was a revolution in my hands and I could now taste the unparalleled freedom to play wirelessly, within line of sight, and only bound to the finite lifespan of some AA batteries. Paired up with a Super Gameboy and Street Fighter 2; take me back, life was good!

The second time I reached for a dongle came much later in life when I hit university and something called UltraHLE started blowing up. Picture this: it was late 2000 and I had just arrived on campus with a swanky off-the-Richter 4GB loaded Dell rig. I was ready to hit the books, but then my first cheque from the student loan company came through and it immediately started burning a hole in my pocket. The obvious thing to do was to blow most of it on a PS2 bundle because it had just released and Tekken Tag looked so dope! A few weeks later UltraHLE was updated and started playing commercial games at a fierce rate and it occurred to me: I could play N64 on my PC and I could potentially use these sexy new DualShock 2s to play games as well. So I strove to find some way of fusing these passions together. In the end eBay came up trumps and I obtained that which would remain in my arsenal to this very day: a very early and extremely crude PSX + N64 USB converter.

Stepping up to the plate is Mayflash, a company that makes incredibly useful tech to facilitate your gaming experiences. From the Dolphin Bar to the countless USB adaptors, Mayflash has been around since the mid-to-late 90s providing us with rock-solid man-in-the-middle products and third-party alternatives for console and PC gaming that not only meet standards but exceed expectations. When this product arrived through my letterbox I was psyched. I had a plan, I knew what I wanted from this and I knew exactly what I was going to test out for you all, so you don't have to!

In the box you get not only the USB dongle, but a USB-A to USB-C adaptor cable so you can use this on the go in portable mode, or even on the Switch Lite, any PC or Mac, or any compatible devices that only have USB-C sockets. You also get a rather generic instruction manual with a well-drawn table of controller configurations for you to memories, and a pack of VHS style stickers (anyone else here remembers those?) to visually mark up your buttons to remind you of their configurations. The instruction manual walks you through an average set up for any of the compatible devices and specifies that for the Switch, you need to enable Pro Controller Wired communication to get the best out of your connected pads in terms of gyroscope and rumble. You can reverse button layout quickly by holding Start and A for three seconds, swapping A to B and X to Y etc, holding Start and A again reverts this back to defaults. You can also tweak rumble sensitivity by holding R1 and R3 for three seconds and using the D-Pad up and down buttons to increase or decrease to your liking. Pro tip: lower is better for battery life and it's less distracting overall, especially when not cranked to 150% intensity!

Turning on the Switch, you then plug in the adaptor (making sure it's set to the red LED) and then finally connect the controller. If you don't follow this strict connection step-by-step you can find the dongle seizes up, and you can lose button functions. After a second or two the controller is ready to use and you're good to go. Going into the Switch's grip order settings screen any connected pads show as simply a generic Pro Controller icon, and from here it is even possible to alter button configuration per controller. If you are unsure of which buttons correspond to which, just visit the Test Controller Button s screen in the Switch settings to verify, and don't forget those handy stickers are there too to keep you reminded!

Connecting any PS3/PS4/PS5 or Xbox 360/One controllers is as easy as connecting via USB in Switch mode (Red LED) and then removing the USB cable; in a blink of an eye they are Bluetooth synced and ready to rock. Alternatively, you can hit the sync button once and press the sync button on your pad to pair them wirelessly, and this adds into the mix controllers such as Wii Remotes and Wii U controllers! Connecting USB controllers such as a wired 360 pad and my wired PS3/PS4 fight-sticks is equally as simple as plug and play. Just don't forget to use the button on your Fight Stick to enable Left Stick/Right Stick input instead of D-Pad input for Virtual Console and games like Hot Shot Racing. Without doing that I could access the menus via the default D-Pad stick input, but once I had started them up I couldn't actually control anything. Secondly and most crushingly of all: my trusty old PSX + N64 adaptor is not supported. I could not get anything out of it on either controller in any of the modes, but hey, maybe they'll add support for it in a future firmware update. I can dream! You can also use the Purple LED Switch Pro controller mode, and as far as I can tell, this is exclusively for wired controller connectivity only.

Having kept Street Fighter 30th Anniversary and Ultra Street Fighter 2 The Final Challengers tucked away in a cupboard for way longer than I should have, I instantly reached for my Fight Stick Alphas. Now was the time I got to use these bad boys on my Switch and brought the arcade feel back to my favourite fighters. The first thing I noticed is that--obviously--there is only one USB socket, and therefore only one controller per dongle can potentially be connected up wired or wirelessly. This means that if you wanted to indulge in four-player combat with sticks you would be looking at needing four of these £20 dongles, along with four fight sticks of course. I thought I would try a couple of things to get around this restriction, but I was thwarted at every attempt. Firstly I tried to connect a USB hub to the Magic-NS and then connect multiple fight sticks through USB. Perhaps two of these beasts draw too much power through the adaptor, but neither pad was recognised, and neither could be connected in this way, even singularly. Connecting two Wii U Pro controllers through USB I managed to get both connected but they both registered as player one. Lastly and equally I tried to connect a wired pad first, then tap the button to connect a second pad wirelessly. To my amazement, it worked, however, and again this is a huge issue: both pads controlled the same player. So if you want some crazy drunken hijinks on a gaming night connect two pads and enjoy messing up each other's games, or very strategically playing cooperatively with one set of controls between two people, there might be some fun to be had. Having said that,  there is no single way I could get two pads working for the price of one dongle, and weirdly it mentions exactly what I attempted in the manual under Additional Functions.

During quite an intense play of several of my Switch games, I'm pleased to confirm that I noticed virtually no input delay when used for wired or wireless play! This means everything felt great and at the very least the experience was superb and exactly as I hoped it would have been. Unfortunately, I don't have a method to verify this with any in-depth technical analysis of frames of input or missed button presses, but personally, as a fighting fanatic, I would say it performed very admirably indeed!

£80 to hook up four pads might not feel like a good deal, but it ultimately depends on how strong your desire is to pump up the arcade vibes in your household. With the Magic-NS also supporting PC/MAC, PS3, NeoGeo Mini and even the PlayStation Classic, you might be able to justify the value further. If you consider the possibilities of using all your existing pads on almost every other console you own then this purchase is an absolute no brainer. This dongle supports several consoles, including PC and therefore Retropie, and other retro gaming arcade boards, with gyro/motion controls, and rumble management across such a plethora of antiquated controllers and now even the newly acquired DualSense. The Magic-NS truly lives up to its magic moniker and fits into my gaming world ever so snugly. For anybody like me, it is an essential purchase.