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Retro-Bit Wireless Sega Saturn Controller Overview

Retro-Bit Wireless Sega Saturn Controller Overview

Kris Randazzo
7 minute read


One of the best retro controllers of all time just got better. The officially licensed Sega Saturn wireless controller from Retro-Bit given you all the freedom of a modern controller with all the comfort and functionality of Sega's finest controller ever.

Transcript of the video:

Let's talk about the Sega Saturn controller, arguably the best D-pad centric controller ever created for any platform. It's a wonderful controller that works in every way that you would want it to. But time marches on, and technology gets better. So how do you improve on perfection? Make it wireless. This is the wireless Saturn controller from Retro-Bit. Let's take a look. 

OK, so here we have the Officially lLcensed Sega Saturn Wireless Controller from Retro-Bit. These are the same folks who did the wireless Genesis one that we took a look at before. If you're watching these in order or if you're just finding this, there's another video out there for the wireless Genesis one, which is also pretty snazzy. 

You can see here I have the clear blue one. It seems that they cycle in and out of different colors on these particular controllers. So depending on when you visit the site, we might have different colors that weren't available at another time. I wanted to do an unboxing because like the Genesis controller, this has really, really cool packaging. But let's take a look at the outside here. It's definitely worth noting that this is all designed just like the official Saturn accessories were designed back in the day. The packaging is pretty much spot on, which I just absolutely love. It's such a great touch. And it's got this shiny bit up here on how well you can read it. It says "Eight button arcade pad, 2.4 GHz Wireless. Includes original port and USB receivers and deluxe storage case." And you better believe this storage case is deluxe. Let's take a quick look inside of this box and show you the awesome storage case. 

I love this thing. Here we go. Look at that. I'm going to get to do this again. My favorite thing in electronics is pulling the plastic film off of accessories or whatever it is. I had my old Atari 2600 and I peeled the thing off years later. It doesn't matter. Here we go. Ready to peel it off. Yeah, just look at this thing. Oh goodness. It's still running! I should probably turn it off. I was just using it earlier before I threw it back in the box to record another piece of the video and, well look at it. It's still running. I should probably turn it off. Let's take a look inside here. 

This is the super cool wireless controller and we're going to break down all the details on this in just a moment. Let's take a look at the other stuff in the box that it comes with. The two dongles. Like I said, this is the regular one, and this is the USB one. If you want to use it on your computer, you can do that or you've got this one here. This is the one that plugs into your port. Just plug that right in. Here's your your synchronize button. If you've used wireless controllers before you pretty much know what this is all about, just sticks right out of the front of your system. And then I can lift up this fun fuzzy bit here and get your your charge cable. 

There's an instruction manual around here somewhere but I think I left it on the other side of the room. Silly me. But anyway, that's the packaging and it's really quite nice. It makes it seem like it's a really important, you know? And now, let's put this aside and take a look at the controller. 

Now, here is why you're here. This is the wireless controller right here for a direct comparison. This is the original Sega Saturn number 2 controller. I believe this is the original one was a little bit bigger a little beefier than this. This is where they perfected the design. The earlier one had a weird pad. This is the most perfect D-pad in the history of D-pads. I love this thing. I cannot tell you how many hours of the import X-Men vs. Street Fighter with the 4MB cart that I played on my Saturn, I cannot even put it into words. But even playing stuff like NiGHTS with this controller was great because, I know NiGHTS was designed around that 3D controller with the analog stick. The weird... Check out the Saturn 3D controller sometime. If you've never seen it, it doesn't really have an analog stick. It's kind of like an analog ball thing. It's really weird. But playing NiGHTS with this D-pad is just fine because this thing works just amazingly. 

It's got a great six button layout. You got your round ones and your concave ones here. Your Start button in the middle, a couple of shoulder buttons, and it feels great. It's a perfect size. It's got a great weight, but it's got this big cable sticking out of the back. This solves that problem. So let's take a look. Obviously, since this is an officially licensed controller, these are one-to-one. Physically speaking, they're the exact same size. This one has pretty much the same weight but it's kind of hard to tell because this has the cable weighing it down as well. It doesn't feel heavier and it doesn't feel super light and cheap. It just feels legitimately great. It's still got the little thing in the back here for where the cable was was fed through the controller, which I think is kind of neat. I have never had any problem of synchronizing it. It's got a rechargeable battery, which, like I said, it comes with a charge cable. And I've never noticed any kind of button lag or issues with it disconnecting. I've put probably about two or three hours in this. I've run through Panzer Dragoon once, about half of Panzer Dragoon 2, some Street Fighter Alpha 2 just to kind of get a real solid feel for the D-Pad. So I mean, I put this thing through its paces and I have not run into any issues. The only difference that I can tell is obviously you've got stuff like a select and home for more modern features. If you're using this on your your PC or whatever, these buttons do give you some additional functionality and the overall click of the shoulder buttons. I don't know if you can hear this, these have a very small click and these just kind of feel a little bit more like regular buttons. They have maybe a tiny bit more give. I don't know. I think these actually feel a little bit better, all things considered. But you can see it still even has the, they're really hard to see on here, but it has the controls. Right. Because one of the cool things on the Saturn back in the old days, you put your music CDs in there and this has these little things etched in the plastic for play, stop, and loop. And this is a fast forward rewind and whatnot. And it still works. It's a Saturn controller. It is a legit wireless Saturn controller. It looks great. It feels great. And from all my experience with it, it functions exactly as you want it to. 

The Officially Licensed Wireless Sega Saturn Controller from Retro-Bit is available now at stoneagegamer.com in a multitude of colors. Thanks for watching, everybody. If you liked what you saw today, please comment like and subscribe and let us know what you thought about the Wireless Saturn controller if you have one. Leave us a review. Tell us what your favorite Saturn games are. We're always happy to talk Sega Saturn here at Stone Age Gamer. So on behalf of all of us, I'm Kris. Keep playing games.

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