Retro-bit Tribute64 2.4GHz Wireless Controller GBAtemp review
Hardware
Product Information:
- Official Store: https://retro-bit.com/tribute64-wireless/
As many of you know, the Nintendo 64 marked a huge turning point in gaming and hardware. Ushering in a new era of three-dimensional analog control, hot-swappable peripherals, and three ways to hold it. Nintendo's "trident" controller for the N64 was about the most alien design you could have imagined for a controller back in the mid-to-late '90s.
Because of this, third-party peripheral manufacturers had a field day producing some of the whackiest, most outlandish and bizarre controllers of any console. You had such memorable devices as Interact's MakoPad 64, the Arcade Shark Stick, and Mad Cats Arcade Flight Stick to name but a few. Yes, Google them; they're weird!
At the time, Hori took a more refined approach. With just a few tweaks to button placement, the Hori Mini Pad 64 scaled-down and revolutionised the Nintendo 64's first-party trident, giving it a more modern compact and minimalist twist that gamers never even knew they wanted back then. Since its release, the Hori Mini has become one of the best and most sought-after controllers for the N64, however, due to the sheer age of the hardware, it has become a combination of hard-to-find and becoming increasingly overpriced for the average gamer to comfortably obtain.
Retro-bit has taken Hori's formula and gone one better by making the aptly named Tribute64 entirely wireless, and with an off-centre D-Pad. Gone are the 6ft restrictions of yore and incomes 2.4GHz of freedom, USB-C recharging (2hrs full charge), and built-in macros so you can now play at a comfortable distance to your TV, whilst still having the ability to use rumble and/or memory paks!
The off-centre D-Pad also fixes an issue with the initial batch of wired pads that meant that the A button was too close to the right D-Pad button causing unwanted presses during fighting games. Thankfully, this D-Pad is concave and positioned perfectly for your left thumb to take advantage of. This pad also features a dual trigger set-up that houses L and R in their traditional places but adds a ZL and ZR underneath each respectively so you can pull the Z-Trigger from either side. The pad feels great in hand with the triggers sitting comfortably under your index fingers, and the D-Pad/Stick on the left is situated perfectly anthropometrically under your left thumb.
Above the face buttons, which feel perfectly clicky and incredibly tactile, you will see two further non-descript buttons that essentially act as home and select buttons when in use on another system such as the Nintendo Switch. When in use on PC or Switch, you can adjust the buttons via preset macro combinations (shown on the rear of the pad) to swap AB/XY, swap triggers, or put the pad into Legacy or All-Star configurations that suit themselves better for fighting or shooters and mirror the stick movement to the C-Buttons for dual analog games, however, most of these do not work on the N64 itself, just on the PC/Switch side of usage.
The main reason I wanted a controller such as this so badly was to replay titles such as Goldeneye and Perfect Dark on real hardware with a more modern loadout. Firing the Tribute64 up you can feel the quality boost versus my OG green N64 controller, the analog stick is chunkier and more akin to that of the GameCube, and has some burley grippy grooves which feel fantastic and won't slip even with sweaty mitts. The Analog range itself is far more sensitive than a stock N64 pad, and this is proven if you run Sanni's controller test homebrew via an N64 flash cart, such as Krikzz amazing Everdrive 64 X7. Regular pads hit the high 80s whereas this pad hits the high 90s, which isn't terrible because the first wired versions of this pad used to hit around 110 per direction, and often got stuck on the right-hand side.
Running my OG Gold NTSC console, with Everdrive 64 X7 (OS V3.07), the EON Super 64 for HDMI connectivity and the Retro-bit Tribute64 wireless controller, I can honestly say that this is my favourite set up to date. To use the Retro-bit Tribute64 you simply plug in the supplied N64 connector with the memory card socket on your N64, select the mode you want to use it on (memory card/rumble), and hit start twice on the controller. You could technically use four of these on one console, with four memory cards too!
Playing Goldeneye again I could feel the enhanced comfort of the grip style, the way less grinding-sounding floppy sticks, and the freedom to sit over 6ft away from my TV! I had wanted to attempt to speed run Goldeneye again, having seen Karl Jobst smash the world record recently, so I was inspired, and easing into it I tried with my old controller hitting a consistent 1:03 on the Dam on Agent difficulty. Let's be clear that I'm currently using no strategy, without particularly using any methods I've seen speedrunners employ, I just wanted to strafe and run it as fast as possible, for now. Swapping over to the Tribute64 I hit 1:05 initially but within a couple of tries, I learned the feel and nuances of the alternate stick and managed to hit a 1:03 within my first sitting. Coming back for another few goes I scored a 1:03 doing nothing particularly differently but feeling more comfortable with this more updated pad layout. Pushing on I hit a 1:01, then a 1:00, then 0:59, and finally a 0:58 by simply hammering it over and over and trying to get faster and faster with no major strategy. Looking on the speedrun.com forums anything 0:57 and under is worthy of the top 15, so I will endeavor to push for sub 0:57 times in the near future (I understand that flashcart runs are not allowed, however, if I really want to proceed I do have the carts and the consoles in storage to transfer to).
Testing out other games including Majora's Mask, World Driver Championship, Wave Race, and even prototypes such as Dinosaur Planet and Die Hard: the Tribute64 feels incredible across them all. The sensitivity is a little more than you would expect, but the learning curve to balance those nuances is a relatively minor incline, which takes just minutes to adjust to. Shooters feel refined with the second set of shoulder buttons for triggers, platformers feel more precise, and turning in racing games feels better on the whole thanks to the improved stick ruggedness and the increased sensitivity, though it would have been cool to have some analog calibration to style it exactly how you want it.
The Tribute also comes with a USB dongle for use on Nintendo Switch or PC/Mac etc, and no, it doesn't work on PS5--I tried that straight away! Using the Tribute64 on Switch is fantastic for Switch gaming, and NSO N64 gaming too, giving you the ability to use this rather svelt £28 pad instead of a £60 Pro controller or the £90 official Bluetooth N64 controller. The memory pak adaptor can also be used to transfer saves from real pak to PC via a USB micro cable, which while great is just a little odd that it cannot be used with the supplied USB-C cable, a small grumble but this should have been a no-brainer.
Verdict
- Effortless plug-and-play
- Works on every single game
- Ability to use memory packs
- 30hr battery life without rumble (20hr with rumble)
- USB dongle for PC/Mac/Switch
- Backup memory pak saves via USB micro
- No adjustable Analog sensitivity
- No included micro USB
