More and more arcade fight sticks are going wireless these days, and the PowerA Fusion Fight Stick is another entrant to the space, albeit one that’s made just for Nintendo Switch. While PowerA has a decent reputation for making affordable gaming accessories that can compete fairly well with their more expensive counterparts, the Fusion Wireless Arcade Stick comes in at a $129 price point that sets it up for more of a head-to-head competition in the market. So, let’s see how it holds up.
PowerA Fusion Fight Stick – Design and Features
The PowerA Fusion fight stick is straightforward in its design and has a fairly minimal footprint for an arcade stick. There’s only a small amount of buffer space on either side of the balltop joystick and eight arcade buttons, and there’s reasonable room below to rest your palms. This makes it a fairly compact and portable accessory that fits with the nature of the Nintendo Switch’s hybrid console design.
PowerA has built a solid frame for this fight stick. The top and sides are an incredibly sturdy plastic. The bottom is metal, so won’t be a weak point, and has a rubber foot in each corner for stability. PowerA has gone for a strong color scheme with all black and red, though the large red faceplate can actually be swapped out, with just six screws holding it in place.
For the price, you might expect some higher end components, but PowerA doesn’t advertise what type of hardware it’s using for its joystick or buttons, so it’s a safe bet they’re not Sanwa. The buttons are actually clicky, more akin to the feel of Cherry MX Blue keyboard switches. While that may be an uncomfortable change for some, they at least maintain a more typical Taito Vewlix arrangement.
Beyond the arcade controls, the PowerA Fusion fight stick includes the main Nintendo Switch menu controls as well as a three-way switch to select whether the joystick will act as a left stick, right stick, or D-Pad.
The back edge of the Fusion fight stick is where it gets the most drab. There’s a large compartment to house the included 9.8-foot USB-C cable, but it’s barely big enough to hold the cable bundled up. Even when the cable is plugged into the fight stick, it has to bend so sharply that it presses against the back of the compartment door and barely lets the thing shut. At least PowerA included two small cutouts so the door could be shut while playing, helping keep the cable plugged in.
This back edge also has a power switch to turn on Bluetooth and the Bluetooth pairing button, both of which feel a bit cheap for this price point. Strangely, the Bluetooth pairing button has an indicator light next to it, but the light is there to indicate low-battery and not pairing status. The Fusion’s Bluetooth runs on a pair of AA batteries, though no battery power is required for wired operation.
PowerA Fusion Fight Stick – Gaming and performance
It was a delightful coincidence that my review unit of the PowerA Fusion fight stick should show up the same week my roommate brought home the Switch port of Killer Queen. I dove in to see how the arcade stick held up in the fast-paced arcade game.
The clicky arcade buttons may be a somewhat contentious choice, but they feel great. They do require a bit more travel to reach the actuation point than the switches of most other fight sticks I’ve tested, but they’re also harder to accidentally actuate by just resting my fingers on them.
Whenever I got into head-to-head jousting matches with an enemy queen or powered up drone, I didn’t find that lower actuation point or higher resistance holding me back. I was also able to tap rapidly enough to fly up through the levels. With a wired connection, I also don’t notice any latency. In the heat of battle, I might also fail to notice latency over the controllers alternative Bluetooth 5.0 connection, but navigating menus, the delay of Bluetooth seems to be subtly present.
This is all to say the controller can get the job done, but it’s certainly not exceptional in any way. Worse, it’s held back by the arcade stick’s platform limitations. I reviewed 8BitDo’s arcade stick, and for significantly less it offers wired, 2.4GHz wireless (i.e., latency free), and Bluetooth connectivity. It also uses a rechargeable battery. And, to top it off, it worked on a wide variety of platforms and a simple toggle would actually change the legend next to each button to either Switch or Xbox controls.
from IGN Reviews https://ift.tt/3k3yGQl
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