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StrikerDC Dreamcast Controller Overview

StrikerDC Dreamcast Controller Overview

Kris Randazzo
9 minute read

Have you ever wanted to play your Dreamcast games with something a little more... modern? Thanks to Retro Fighters, you can! The StrikerDC is designed to meet all of your Dreamcast playing needs. Have a look! 

Purchase yours here: https://stoneagegamer.com/strikerdc-next-gen-sega-dreamcast-controller.html/

Transcript of the video:

Chances are if you've played the Sega Dreamcast, you like the Sega Dreamcast, and really why wouldn't you? It's a great platform. But then you have this. It's a perfectly functional controller. But for everything it gets right. It seems to get a bunch of stuff wrong. Well, Retro Fighters to the rescue. This is the Striker DC. Let's take a look. 

OK, here is the Striker DC from Retro Fighters, and as you can see, it is quite pretty. It's a nice looking little controller, but let's do a side by side comparison with this monster right here. Here is my original Sega Dreamcast controller right next to the Striker DC. And you can see, size-wise, they're pretty similar. The Striker is a bit wider, really just because these little grips come out a little bit wider, which is fine. It's actually quite comfortable, which is I mean, the original Dreamcast controller is not the most comfortable controller in the world, but it's actually really way more comfortable than it looks because it does have a really good grip on it. It's just overall functionality is kind of bizarre. But in the straight up comfort factor, I definitely give the the nod to the Retro Fighters controller. It's just got a really nice modern ergonomic design. 

So let's do a one to one here. You've got your start button, you got your regular face buttons, you've got your your analog stick. And this is kind of an interesting bit here. Let's compare these analog sticks now. This guy is concave. This guy is not. This one has these little dots on it to kind of stop your thumb from slipping off of it. But it's kind of a weird design. It's always been a little bit of a point of contention, especially in light of modern analog sticks that are concave. And this one this really does feel a lot more like a modern stick. It does have a very, very light resistance, which is designed to kind of mimic the Dreamcast, one that the resistance is a bit lighter. This was an intentional design thing. There's a whole bit about it in the box for this thing that'll explain why they went this route for using the really light resistance on the analog stick. 

And then you have the D-pad here. This was one of my least favorite things about the Dreamcast was was this D-pad. I played a lot of Street Fighter III, Street Fighter Alpha 3, and Marvel vs. Capcom 2, especially MVC2, I played a ton of that game. And this D-pad ripped up my thumb. The original Dreamcast pad has some pretty sharp edges as far as D-pads are concerned. I'm not saying you could cut paper with these things or anything, but prolonged use definitely messed with my thumbs. And coming off the Saturn pad, stuff like X-Men vs. Street Fighter, this was just a weird change and I didn't love it. This D-pad, on the other hand, is wonderful. It's got really nice the edges that are a little bit more rounded. It's got a really, really good feel to it. It's got a nice click to kind of tell you when you give you that good tactile feel this feel as far as like when you're pressing the deep head down, it's got a very nice feel for it. I've spent a bunch of time playing MArvel vs. Capcom 2 on this and it worked out perfectly. I had no issues with this at all whatsoever. Then you've got turbo and you've got clear because you can do a little programing things in this or whatever, and that's kind of cool. 

Let's do the face buttons here. They're a little bit flatter and you can see they don't stick out quite as much as the original Dreamcast ones, but they have a really good click to them. They don't feel like you need to press them in too far or anything. They feel quite nice and smooth and they've got the right colors. You still got the window in the middle for your VMUs and stuff. We'll get to that in a minute. 

Trigger buttons. This is another great improvement. So Dreamcast controller, one problem that seemed like a great idea at the time. You got these triggers for your L and R buttons, but then you've got games where you kind of want them to be buttons instead of triggers. And these just didn't feel right for doing something like Marvel vs. Capcom throwing a fierce punch or something with a trigger button. Now for stuff like Crazy Taxi, this was great, but it would have been cool to have an option to press a button. Well, this one does. It has a set of L and R buttons. You've got an L and R button and you've got L and R triggers. They do the same thing. They serve the same purpose. But depending on how you feel like playing, that's what you can do. 

Now, one of the biggest gripes about this Dreamcast controller is the cord comes out of the bottom of the controller, which is a really weird thing. So what they did was they put this little notch. They put this little grip on the back of the Dreamcast controller so that you could clip the cable here. So it comes out of the top of your controller, but it kind of doesn't. And it also loses all this space. This is a good like four or five inches at least of cable length. This guy does not have that cable come straight up. It's, you know, functionally down here because of these inputs and whatnot. But it's still faces upwards. So you don't lose all that extra cable space and it's just a much more comfortable design. 

So let's get down to the brass tacks of these guys. So how does this work with your VMU? Well, I just happened to have my trusty VMU right over here and here we are. So in the original Dreamcast, VMU goes right here in the front tada! And it slips in nice and matches up with your controller and well, it looks great. Here's the thing with the Retro Fighters. One, it does fit in perfectly. It actually slides in just ever so slightly tighter than this one. Don't worry, you're not breaking anything. It's just got a nice tight fit and it does stick out a little bit on the top, which, you know, is a thing. It doesn't look bad. In fact, it's kind of cool having access to these little controls up front here. So. So that's kind of neat. Fits in just fine. But what about the the Jump Pak, your rumble capabilities? This one would go in the second slot over here on the Dreamcast controller, slipped in, clipped in and had this little on jobby here to to lock it in place. And that also works just fine here. And this is just a neat design that they kept up with. See the view is the color of the front of the controller and the jump pack is the color of the back of the controller. And it was the same way with the the Dreamcast. In case you ever wondered, why is the Jump Pak a slightly darker gray? Because clearly you've wondered that at some point. It doesn't mess witht he weight. Everything still feels just fine using it like this. Sure. It looks a little bit like a monstrosity, but that's kind of always going to be the case with the cask controller. But you still have full access to your screen and your Jump Pak. And in fact, it's actually a little bit easier to get the Jump Pak out of here because the cord isn't so much in the way when we're trying to get that out of there. 

I will point out that this right here is a little it's a bit sharper than it is on here. It's not really rounded at all. So just be careful when taking things in and out of there and just like, oh, I'm going to shove my fingers in here, because that would be that would be crazy. But I know what you're thinking now. What if my Dreamcast looks like this? Am I expected to plug this into this? It's such a strange, crazy mismatch. What should I do? Well, you can get it in multiple colors. This is the solid black one to match this sports bundle. Isn't it just the nicest looking thing? I love the black Dreamcast. You know, it matches my black Master System, black Genesis, and Black Saturn. And so the white Dreamcast was always a bit of an outlier. So this Sega Sports one is super cool. And if you have one, this black controller matches it perfectly. And if you don't have one, this black controller is cool anyway.

Now you might want to get yourself a cooler looking VMU, because if you have the the standard white one, it looks a little silly sticking out of the top of this guy. But your Jump Pak is always going to be gray no matter what. I don't think they made the Jump Pak in different colors. But if you have one of those really cool, like blue or green VMUs, they look awesome sticking out of this thing. I don't have one because I don't know why I don't have one. I should really get around to buying one. Either way, that's your that's your breakdown. That's the StrikerDC from Retro Fighters. And it's pretty darn cool. 

The StrikerDC GamePad from Retro Fighters 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 think of the StrikerDC. What's your favorite Dreamcast game? Why do you love the Dreamcast? Why wouldn't you love the Dreamcast? Let us know. We want to hear from you. Thanks everybody. On behalf of Stone Age Gamer, keep playing games.

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