Reporting for Duty - Hyperkin Fleet Admiral N64 Controller

In this episode, we unbox and test out the Fleet Admiral wired controller for the original Nintendo 64. It is reporting for duty and ready to replace tired, worn out, sloppy Nintendo 64 controllers.

The N64 is having somewhat of a renaissance lately, partially thanks to the generation that grew up with it getting to the point where they have disposable income. Part of his thanks to Nintendo themselves bringing the N64 and many of the classic titles back to the market on the Nintendo Switch Online Service. While many people have been picking up classic hardware, the original controllers are hard to find in good shape. That's where Hyperkin looks to provide a budget friendly wired solution with their Fleet Admiral controller.

Pattern very closely after their wireless Admiral, the Fleet Admiral also shares its design with the Hori gamepad. That means the Trident design is gone, replaced with a more traditional controller configuration and layout. On the top of the controller, you have your L and R triggers, but now you also have dual z buttons. The face of the controller features the traditional A and B buttons in their correct colors, plus the up, down, left, right, C buttons on the right hand side of the controller. The analog stick looks to be slightly taller than on the wireless version of the Admiral, and the support from the gimbal up to the thumb stick appears to be slightly narrower. We'll see if that's causes any issues. Finally, the d-pad is offset closer to the center of the controller.

Connecting the Fleet Admiral to my N64 was super simple thanks to the included 10 ft long cable. While I thought the cable was a bit thin, I never ran into any issues during my gameplay. The underside of the Fleet Admiral also features a memory card and rumble pack slot. It accommodates both first and third party accessories through this port, and all worked perfectly. I don't own Pokémon so I also do not have the transfer pack to test.

During gameplay, I felt a decent amount of deadband around center with the analog stick. It also seemed like inputs were not reacted to as quickly as I would have expected. I don't know how this would translate to games such as Mario party which does require quick inputs, but I could see it potentially being an issue when quick inputs are required. I found this most noticeable during Mario 64 when I tried to have Mario run in circles, sometimes he would just unexpectedly jump back and forth versus running a smooth circle.

While it sometimes didn't feel responsive enough, there were times when it felt TOO responsive as well. I think it's one of those situations where, using an RC term, the exponential rate is set to deaden the twitchiness around center to compensate for an overall too-sensitive analog stick.

Why it RoX:
- Good ergonomics
- Svailable in four different colors
- 10 ft long controller cable
- Responsive buttons and d-pad
- Works with first and third party Rumble packs and memory cards

What could be improved:
- Inconsistent analog stick performance
- Shoulder buttons could be larger

Should you buy one?
You got to love the fact that the Nintendo 64 is getting all these new controllers and accessories, almost 30 years after it launched. This does address one of the biggest issues with the N64, worn out controllers and analog sticks. I do wish the analog stick was just better overall, it is both two sensitive and not sensitive enough which is a hard thing to accomplish. It will most definitely be better than your old, worn out N64 controller, and for under $30 is actually does a very good job. If they could tighten up the precision on the analog stick it would definitely take it from good to great, but as it is for the money, this is a very good option for original hardware.

#Hyperkin #N64 #fleetadmiral #Nintendo #Nintendo64 #WirelessAdmiral #HoriPad #HoriN64 #Brawler64 #Tribute64 #N64Controllers

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