Key

The Nintendo 64 Controller

If you grew up playing the Nintendo 64 or have in any way gone back to playing on original hardware with the original controllers and everything, then you already know why this deserves it's own post. I could easily just say that the controller was such an obnoxious design choice and really what the hell were they thinking, but I feel like more could be said than just that. Well, aside from the fact that I literally just said it so now I don't have to. Let's move on shall we.

Let's first talk about the joystick and how many times I got blisters on my thumb because of how uncomfortable that thing was to use. First off, it felt like you were always pushing your thumbs into really cheap plastic and while it was manageable, playing for long periods of time really proved to be uncomfortable for that, and for how you would hold the controller in general. One hand was just a little further up than the bottom one so your arms always had to adjust weird and man, I could go on for days just adding more things about this dreaded thing. But most importantly, it served it's purpose. While I do think it's possibly the worst designed controller I've ever had the displeasure to use, I still think for the time, it's what we had. I would probably go as far to say that Nintendo did it on purpose to stick out, as they like to be one to stick out among the rest, but I don't really know if that's true or not. Though I guess you could say they could've gone with a design like other consoles were doing at the time that proved to be much more comfortable. Probably why the original Playstation did as well as it did because the controllers were really nice to hold compared to the Nintendo 64. But I digress, we're not talking about Playstation here. It's almost as if somebody at Nintendo was like like "hey know what'd be funny, add a third handle on the controller that virtually goes unused. Also, unfortunately it doesn't get used often but it is way more comfortable to hold the controller when your left hand is on the d-pad. Unfortunately I rarely, if ever, used the d-pad on the controller. At least with the games I played at the time.

Fortunately however, while the Nintendo 64 controller was hot garbage. It did lead them to making one of the most comfortable controllers I've ever held - the Nintendo Gamecube controller. OF course that also goes along with the fact that the Nintendo Gamecube was an excellent console in terms of design choices and games to play. And that's impressive considering it had to one up the Nintendo 64 which during it's time, was really making a name for itself with excellent release after excellent release. That didn't stop it from getting crappy release after crappy release however. But it was a nice mix.

Anyway, back to the controller. It just wasn't fair that while the games were really great to play, we had to experience them on these ****ty things and as I said before, it could get to feel very uncomfortable to have your thumb pressing on that joystick for hours on end. Or even just an hour. I imagine it would've been an enormous amount more enjoyable to play certain games if the controllers weren't so uncomfortable to use.

Yeah, those controllers suck.