PowerA Fusion Pro Wireless Controller GBAtemp review
Hardware
Product Information:
Review Approach:
After checking in with my OPS v3 review a few months, I'm back with something else from PowerA. #A wireless gamepad boasting a fairly acclaimed Xbox Series compatibility, today we're checking out the company's latest in their long line of Fusion controllers.
A Complete Package
Compared to the Overpowered series controllers we’ve looked at back in October, the Fusion Pro offers a little more out of the box. You get the controller, naturally, as well as a fairly nice USB C to USB A cable. On top of that though, we see a pretty nice and relatively compact case, and a magnetic charging dock. The charging dock is particularly interesting for its modularity, with the small magnetic puck actually being detachable if you’d prefer to have your controller flat on a desk. It’s a bit of a shame there’s no USB passthrough on the dock itself, meaning you’ll need a separate USB port for charging and actually using the controller, but it’s nice to see there’s at least an easily accessible place to store the dongle when not in use.
Looking at the design of the Fusion Pro, we have a fairly standard aesthetic if you’ve seen one of PowerA’s Xbox-centric Fusion Pro controllers before. I actually looked at the wired Fusion Pro 2 back in 2021, and there’s a good bit of overlap. Most of this just mirrors what you’d expect to see from a standard Xbox controller, and unlike the Overpowered series, you’re getting much of the same feel from the buttons too.
Your four face buttons have a decent amount of travel to them, bottoming out firmly, but slightly softer than something like Nintendo’s Switch Pro controller; the central buttons act similarly on a smaller scale. The Xbox button sits flush with the controller and is surrounded by a ring that lights up white to indicate connection status, nothing extraordinary there, but it's an indicator I'm glad to have. A slight point of disappointment for me is the D-Pad, though as I often say this is probably the most contested part of any controller. What we have here is a bit of a departure from the modern Xbox feel, being far less tactile than what we’ve seen from the Xbox One and Series pads. It’s easy enough to roll from one input to another, which I can see working well for fighting games, but it’s equally easy to accidentally catch a stray up or down input while holding left or right. It wouldn’t be my pick for platformers, but it certainly does the job for the small bits of menu navigation in games like Hitman 3 and Monster Hunter.
The sticks on show are both Hall effect, and feature the same twisting mechanism I talked about in my OPS v3 review. By rotating either of the two sticks right, it’ll raise up and lock into one of three positions. This allows you to easily customise your stick height on the fly. To be completely open, this is a feature I very rarely take advantage of, but I commend it being there all the same. For people who don't care about it it doesn’t get in the way at all, and for those who frequently swap out their sticks to get that perfect height, a solution exists out of the box that doesn't require you search for easy to lose add-ons. The rings around the sticks also feel great, giving you a remarkably smooth rotation when in use. I’ve noticed this kind of smooth feel can lessen over time through use in other controllers I've had, but it definitely does start out strong.
Both of the bumpers here are tactile, with the triggers naturally being analogue. Of note here is the lack of Hall effect sensors in the triggers, though trigger drifting and dead zones are something that come up far less frequently than analogue sticks. They feel great to use, with again a decent amount of travel distance and a very firm bottom out. You also get two levels of trigger stop here, allowing you to fine tune how much travel distance you actually want. Much like with other controllers I’ve covered that use these kinds of stops, the physical mechanism doesn’t interact with the controller’s software at all. That is to say you’ll need to manually switch to a different profile to change the input range to match where you’ve set the stops. It’s not too much hassle, but I would love to see a controller that registers the stop position automatically.
Our final feature of note here comes in the form of four mappable buttons that sit on the on the grips of the controller, giving you easy access to any of the usual buttons. Though I don’t make amazing use of them all of the time, they are something I will continue to appreciate for games like Elden Ring where you want to run and move the camera at the same time. With running mapped to the B button, you would generally need to rely on the dreaded claw grip. These grip buttons are a freedom, and one I’m glad are becoming something of a standard in these third party pads.
A Genuine Light Show
There’s a lot to like with the Fusion Pro, but the standout feature has to be the lighting. I’ve gone back and forth on how much I really like PowerA’s Lumectra designs. It’s something I’ve always appreciated but never actually used, opting to leave the lighting off or just stick with plain white outlines. The Fusion Pro is different, and I really think it’s underselling it to just throw it under the same Lumectra branding.
It’s not immediately obvious if you’re just picking up the controller for the first time. To an unsuspecting onlooker what we have here is a relatively normal-looking black Xbox controller with some headphone controls built in, and a few extra buttons on the back. That is of course until you turn the thing on. Instantly the controller explodes into an over the top graphic littered with bright colours. It is the embodiment of tacky and unnecessary, but somehow they’ve managed to pull it off for me. It works, and there’s a surprising bit of customisation to go with it too.
The controller features four individually-configurable lighting zones that are easy to follow from left to right, along with a number of ways to have the controller act. The most basic of these is the rainbow effect pulsing from the middle of the controller and going out, but by tapping the LED button on the back, you can move into various other setups. My favourite is the static zone lighting, where you can assign a single colour to each of the four zones that just stay as you set them. With both of the middle zones being the same colour you get a sense of symmetry I really get on with. Beyond this though you have two reactive modes, with one pulsing once across the entire controller as an input is pressed, and the other lighting up just the specific zone of your button press.
Lighting can be customised just like any other Lumectra controller from PowerA, which is as much a benefit as it is a flaw in my mind. I feel like the more I use them, the more I do at least get used to it, but it’s still just not an enjoyable experience to do these tweaks from the controller itself. It’s cumbersome and can at times feel impossible to get right if you’ve forgotten where you left the manual. Thankfully, there is some solid software to support.
Driver Software that Works
I’ve raved about PowerA’s driver software when talking about the OPS v3 and here there’s just as little to complain about. It’s well designed, it’s polished, it’s navigable with a controller, and you don’t need it running in the background to keep your changes active. The UI is pretty familiar after my previous outing, but notably this is a different app, which is a little annoying in itself. To the best of my knowledge PowerA Gamer HQ is the app used for the Xbox-compatible controllers. This is downloaded from the Microsoft Store as opposed to PowerA PC HQ, which you get directly from PowerA. I don’t know why these very recent controllers couldn’t operate out of the same app, but I’m left speculating it’s some kind of licencing issue with the Fusion Pro working on the Xbox.
Coming back to the app itself, you get seven menu options to test and calibrate inputs, remap buttons, set deadzones for the triggers and sticks, customise the audio settings of the 3.5mm jack, set the vibration strength, and configure your RGB. A lot of this is standard stuff, but I was a little surprised to see how much you could customise on the button remapping menu. For all I know this could be a standard thing in these particularly high end controllers, but the remapping isn’t actually limited to just the four action buttons on the controller grips. You can set any button to do anything, which is really neat. For those who are hard stuck on thinking the A button belongs on the right, you have the power to make it so. There’s definitely room here for some real creativity, even if like some of the other features on show here it’s not something I’d likely use myself. It’s still really great to see.
A Standout Controller?
The Fusion Pro is a good controller that I’ve enjoyed using, but it’s not a controller I could slap an unconditional recommendation onto. Much of the reason why comes down to its price point; £150 is one heck of an asking price, and if you’re looking for a controller for PC gaming, there’s a huge amount out there offering competitive features at half the price. Just take the Manba One I reviewed in November as an example. It’s not to say there aren’t use cases here though, and the one thing the Fusion Pro can do that so many can’t is connect to an Xbox. Wirelessly at that. If you’re an Xbox player who loves over the top RGB, there is something here for you. It’s flexible, it’s well-built, and it does seem to see discounts from time to time. It’s a good controller, but if you’re exclusively a PC gamer, you’ll find there’s better out there for much less.
Verdict
- Well-build premium feel
- Adjustable height analogue sticks
- Three level trigger stops
- Really unique and over the top lighting
- Case and dock included
- Works wirelessly with the Xbox Series consoles
- Multiple driver apps that look very similar can be a little confusing
- Lumectra lighting remains a pain to navigate on the controller itself
- D-Pad isn't to my personal preference
- Pretty high asking price