Blog:Grust Reviews the Tribute 64 Controller

When it was released in Japan, the Nintendo 64 Horipad Controller became one of the best and most beloved third-party controllers in the world. So much so I even looked them up on EBay and.... yikes the pricing kept me from getting one. Cut to Retro-bit. They released their own version of the Horipad called the Tribute 64 and after seeing many reviews opted to buy all three color versions which came today. And after some tryouts with some games and having fun, I want to talk about these controllers.

First the boxing itself, I really like the boxes they came in, they're durable plastic and well designed. When I'm done, I may put them back in for display, they are that good looking. The cords are also 10ft in length so a fair amount between my Nintendo 64 and futon. Now for the layout. You ever see the Horipad, it's the same, but some slight differences in size. The top buttons aren't labeled but the Z buttons are on the back. Now I have heard some of these top buttons had dead spaces but I tried this out on Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon and haven't encountered anything like that. Also while being a completely different form of the original 64 controllers, it still gives off a sort of classic vibe.

Now to truly test this out, I tested this controller on 4 games, Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, Resident Evil 2, Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, and easily one of my all time favorites, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Now I started off with Mystical Ninja and after doing some platforming the controllers responded very well and made it all the way to the first giant robot battle. The aiming was just slightly more sensitive than what I'm used to but I had no trouble beating him and saved right there. The only other trouble I had was I didn't want to stop playing but I had more tests I needed to do.

Now one thing I had some concern with was the D-pad being in the middle and close to the other buttons. However my thumb got to it just fine but to give it the ultimate test I tried to play some Resident Evil 2. And that's where some trouble with the D-pad arose. Due to the layout I had a lot of difficulty controlling Claire (BTW, she's like my 2nd all time favorite female video game character 1st if you count playable, my number 1 is Zelda) and ran into zombies a lot. Restarting with the analog, I was able to avoid the zombies and make it to the gun shop. So in Resident Evil2, the D-pad failed me miserably but the game can still be played very well with the analog. Not giving up so easily on this controller though, I played me some Kirby 64 and fought the final boss. Unlike RE2, the fight went well, only getting hurt once which was more my fault than the controller and I beat him with no trouble, so the controller still works well for 2d gaming at least but not tank controls.

Finally I decided to test out aiming accuracy with OoT. When I was able to stun Ganondorf via Dead Man's Volley, I naturally used the light arrows. The aiming was just slightly more sensitive than the original controller but I still had no trouble with Ganondorf just having to slowly move my analog and I beat him with no damage. So the aiming was no big problem.

The only true problem I have with this controller is that it only come in 3 colors when the N64 is capable of 4 controllers. I'd like a fourth color to come out, maybe gray as that the original color for the controllers.

Overall I can easily say these are very very good controllers and upgrades compared to the original controllers. The analog is comfortable, it fits well in your hands the D-Pad is accessible and I can easily see these as worthy successors to the Horipad and must owns for Nintendo 64 fans. I'm not that good with out of 10 rating scales but if I had to make my choice, a solid 8 out of 10.