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7/14/2025, 12:34:43 AM
(And, everybody maps their modern Sega pads wrong).
So, establishing common ground: consoles like the NES/PCE/etc (and most portable systems up to the GBA) have 2 face buttons, but a good chunk of their games use the Select button as a tertiary action in-game, so I think it's fair to say they were 3-button games/systems. The SMS really is the only true 2-button console AFAIK, since it didn't even have Select.
When the MD came about, its controller had 3 face buttons in a row but no Select - honestly a good trade. How games mapped these is what's interesting. It of course varied, but usually, it seems A and C would be both Confirm or straight up the same action, and B would be the secondary action/Cancel. If a game actually used all 3, then B and C would be the equivalent of the NES's B and A, while Sega's A is whatever Select would be on NES. The Power Base Converter even mapped the SMS's action buttons to B and C by default.
With the MD's "6-button pad", it really just existed for fighting game ports. Very few other games totally utilized it, and why would they - the XYZ buttons were so small and nubby!
(Cont.)
So, establishing common ground: consoles like the NES/PCE/etc (and most portable systems up to the GBA) have 2 face buttons, but a good chunk of their games use the Select button as a tertiary action in-game, so I think it's fair to say they were 3-button games/systems. The SMS really is the only true 2-button console AFAIK, since it didn't even have Select.
When the MD came about, its controller had 3 face buttons in a row but no Select - honestly a good trade. How games mapped these is what's interesting. It of course varied, but usually, it seems A and C would be both Confirm or straight up the same action, and B would be the secondary action/Cancel. If a game actually used all 3, then B and C would be the equivalent of the NES's B and A, while Sega's A is whatever Select would be on NES. The Power Base Converter even mapped the SMS's action buttons to B and C by default.
With the MD's "6-button pad", it really just existed for fighting game ports. Very few other games totally utilized it, and why would they - the XYZ buttons were so small and nubby!
(Cont.)
7/8/2025, 4:03:09 AM
Is there a Saturn-style controller out there with full button remapping and built-in controller profiles? I know there's the Xbox edition of the 8bitdo M30, but that shit's wired only.
Comfort-wise, picrel is probably my favorite controller for emulating basically any 2D game, but the fact it doesn't have built-in remapping really hurts my usage of it, because the shape and layout of the buttons is so different from the rest of my controllers, which are all the typical 4-button diamond layout.
As an example: for most 2-button systems (NES, SMS, PCE, GB/GBC/GBA, Wonderswan, etc), I map them to the West and South face buttons on a 4-button controller, cuz that's most comfortable for me. Games on the SNES, PSX, etc. also usually have similar layouts, like Mario World/DKC using X+B instead of B+A, or Klonoa using Square+Cross.
With this mapping though, on a 6-button controller, this means I would be using X+A. I don't really like that, I find the smaller X to be a bit uncomfortable for such a commonly-used button.
I'd rather use A+B instead, but that would mean changing the mapping in my game/emulator, which would change the mapping for ALL controllers, which is really, really annoying.
And that's all without getting into the headache that would be, "what type of controller should I prioritize when setting mappings for actual Mega Drive/Saturn games?"
It just seems stupid that this is the type of controller that'd benefit from built-in profile mappings the most, yet basically none of the ones on the market include it (that I know of).
Comfort-wise, picrel is probably my favorite controller for emulating basically any 2D game, but the fact it doesn't have built-in remapping really hurts my usage of it, because the shape and layout of the buttons is so different from the rest of my controllers, which are all the typical 4-button diamond layout.
As an example: for most 2-button systems (NES, SMS, PCE, GB/GBC/GBA, Wonderswan, etc), I map them to the West and South face buttons on a 4-button controller, cuz that's most comfortable for me. Games on the SNES, PSX, etc. also usually have similar layouts, like Mario World/DKC using X+B instead of B+A, or Klonoa using Square+Cross.
With this mapping though, on a 6-button controller, this means I would be using X+A. I don't really like that, I find the smaller X to be a bit uncomfortable for such a commonly-used button.
I'd rather use A+B instead, but that would mean changing the mapping in my game/emulator, which would change the mapping for ALL controllers, which is really, really annoying.
And that's all without getting into the headache that would be, "what type of controller should I prioritize when setting mappings for actual Mega Drive/Saturn games?"
It just seems stupid that this is the type of controller that'd benefit from built-in profile mappings the most, yet basically none of the ones on the market include it (that I know of).
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