Does anyone have a Classic Controller?

NintendoArielle

NintendoArielle

CAG Veteran
I've been wanting a Classic Controller for a while (Super Mario World is nearly unplayable with the GameCube controller,) and I was wondering how much battery life it takes up and if it's worth it just for SNES games (I use the Wiimote sideways for NES games and I haven't downloaded any N64 games yet.) Also, what does it feel like? I can't wait to rub my thumbs against those analog sticks...if you know what I mean. :cool:
 
I have two and I like them. They feed off the Wiimote's battery power, but since you wouldn't be using the motion or rumble, I would guess somewhere around 35-40 hours of gameplay if you are solely using it for VC games.

The CAG answer, of course, is to just get a Wavebird, since they can be used with GC games and all VC games, where as the VC controller cannot play GC games. Since the button layout is almost identical, and the GC controller has the "grips," it's a hard argument to not bring up.

That said, the classic controller is sexy and pretty small. The sticks feel good, the buttons are large, and the dpad smokes the GC's offering.

Really the only problem I have with it is that the button layout takes a little time to get used to. For example, with NES games, it maps B and A to those buttons respectively, but the diagonal button layout can be a little bothersome. It takes a little time to get used to it with N64 games - every once and a while I forgot that B is Mario's "attack" button, and A is jump.

If you don't play on playing GC games on your Wii, then a CC is a great idea. If you are, then just get a Wavebird, which has amazing battery life. That is, unless you really hate the dpad on the Wavebird, in which case go with the CC.

I guess those three things are the biggest things to consider.
 
[quote name='Strell']I have two and I like them. They feed off the Wiimote's battery power, but since you wouldn't be using the motion or rumble, I would guess somewhere around 35-40 hours of gameplay if you are solely using it for VC games.

The CAG answer, of course, is to just get a Wavebird, since they can be used with GC games and all VC games, where as the VC controller cannot play GC games. Since the button layout is almost identical, and the GC controller has the "grips," it's a hard argument to not bring up.

That said, the classic controller is sexy and pretty small. The sticks feel good, the buttons are large, and the dpad smokes the GC's offering.

Really the only problem I have with it is that the button layout takes a little time to get used to. For example, with NES games, it maps B and A to those buttons respectively, but the diagonal button layout can be a little bothersome. It takes a little time to get used to it with N64 games - every once and a while I forgot that B is Mario's "attack" button, and A is jump.

If you don't play on playing GC games on your Wii, then a CC is a great idea. If you are, then just get a Wavebird, which has amazing battery life. That is, unless you really hate the dpad on the Wavebird, in which case go with the CC.

I guess those three things are the biggest things to consider.[/quote]
Thanks a lot. I appreciate your help. :cool:

However, I already have 2 regular GC controllers, and the button setup is what annoys me (using Y to run and B to do a regular jump in SMW is a real pain.) If a Wavebird has the same setup as a regular GC controller, then I don't think it'd make much difference. Unless I am misunderstanding something. :whistle2:?
 
I finally found one of these last week. The only game I have that really needs it is Contra III and that's next to impossible to play with my Wavebird. For SNES games, I would say its next to required, unless you're really super cheap. For the N64 and the rest, its not so much.

If price is a big concern, get one of them $5 off BB coupons. Classic Controller for $16? Hells yes.
 
classic controller is a great investment...i didn't think so at first but now i can't not use it. it's great.
 
I have a classic and love it. I have wavebirds but like someone else said you must have a death wish if you want to play contra 3 with a GC controller.
 
I'm a fan of my CC. Great D-pad and large buttons. I agree with the others that say the NES mapping is the only downfall.
 
I too highly recommend the Classic Controller, but Nintendo seriously needs to put out a clip to connect it to the Wiimote already. I know some modders made their own, but I can't believe there's nothing official (or even 3rd-party) on the market yet.
 
Just a heads up that you might want to check out GamingLagoon.

I got my first 2000 Wii points from GamingLagoon specifically for Super Mario World, and I was immediately cursing my beloved WaveBird. I had never considered picking up a Classic Controller because I always thought the WaveBird was the greatest controller ever created. Unfortunately, that button mapping is braindead. I've developed a crazy solution of holding down the Y button with my right index finger so that I can run and jump at the same time, but it feels worse than trying to play with gloves on.

Anyway, GamingLagoon has the Classic Controller as one of the things they give away. You should be able to get a free Classic Controller with very little work. You have to wait a bit longer than walking into a store and buying it, but for me free is worth the wait.
 
Definitely worth it. I wouldn't bother with the VC without one as the Wavebird is just terrible for 2D games as the D-pad is so tiny and the button layout near unusable in games like SMW as you note.
 
Thanks for your help, everyone! The Classic Controller is definitely high on my list of what to purchase. I'm definitely going to use it for SNES games. Does it work well with N64 games, too? :bouncy:
 
[quote name='NintendoArielle']Thanks for your help, everyone! The Classic Controller is definitely high on my list of what to purchase. I'm definitely going to use it for SNES games. Does it work well with N64 games, too? :bouncy:[/QUOTE]

Beautifully.

Switching the camera on the fly inside Mario 64 with the joystick is bliss.
 
CC is the greatest controller, period. Ok now seriously for NES, SNES, Genesis, TG- 16 games, can't live without it. Now for the N64 games, I only played MK-64 and the thumbstick was way sensitive I mean almost uncontrolable for me . When I played MK-64 with a wavebird the problem was fixed. So for N64 games, I only played one but I am sticking for a wavebird, luckly I don't own any N64 VC games yet. So seriously get a CC even if you do only use it for SNES games because you don't want to play SNES games on a wavebird, that is on par with superman 64 wrong. Although N64 games do work fine with the CC I guess, I just found the CC to be over sensentive to MK-64.
 
The classic controller is a MUST purchase if you have a Wii. It's a little awkward, but way better than the GC controller. Now we need most games to support it as an option and everything will be good to go.
 
I actually prefer the Wavebird for pretty much every game except Super Mario World. I'm sure I'd prefer the Wavebird for that too, if it weren't for the inability to change the button configuration. CC isn't bad, but I hate the wire hanging off it. 8(

RD
 
The classic is a must for SNES. I tried playing DKC and Mario World with the gamecube controller and good luck. I had to position my fingers in such an awkward way. The classic controller is smooth.
 
Classic Controller is only $20 ($15 after GGC) and it makes things a lot better for most of the VC games. For NES games, you're more likely to hold the remote sideways. I have Mario Kart 64, Link to the Past, Donkey Kong Country, Gunstar Heroes, and Beyond Oasis, and I use my classic controller for everything except Gunstar (I just use the remote).
 
Though this doesn't apply to everyone, it should be noted that if you have a PC with bluetooth the CC also makes a great gamepad for PC purposes as well. I probably use it more there than on my Wii itself.
 
[quote name='troa11']Though this doesn't apply to everyone, it should be noted that if you have a PC with bluetooth the CC also makes a great gamepad for PC purposes as well. I probably use it more there than on my Wii itself.[/QUOTE]

Holy crap, really?

I'd heard about using a bluetooth adapter to allow Mii editting, but not for this.

That's awesome. Who are the people who figure out how to do this stuff?

If you got a min, could you post some links on this? I'd imagine there'd have to be drivers or something to install to allow this.
 
as I'm almost going to bed, I'm too lazy to find links right now...but all you need is a scripting utility called GlovePIE (v29 as of now) and a joystick emulator called PPJoy. There's some tutorials out there, but when I get some time I'll post a short one here, it's all pretty slick and customizable. All you have to do is set up PPJoy once, then connect your Wiimote via bluetooth and run a GlovePIE script. It doesn't even destroy the syncing of it to your Wii.
 
Sweet. I'll look around a little tonight and maybe try it out. I just bought a new Bluetooth adapter for the Mii editting angle, and I haven't tried that out either, but now it makes the purchase all the more worthwhile.

I'd appreciate links, but no rush of course.

Thanks for the heads up!
 
i love the classic controller, its great for snes and genesis games. i have no proof, but i think the battery life is longer if you used a classic controller until the batteries died compared to using the wiimote & nunchuck until it dies.
 
Oh what the heck, I'm not tired enough for sleep anyway.

To use your Wiimote/Nunchuck/Classic Controller on your PC you need to do a few things to setup first.

Step One, Install PPJoy. Once you have done so (you may need to reboot), go to your Windows Control Panel and run the new "Parallel Port Joysticks" item there. Once there, choose "Add". In the new window, be sure to set the first three menus (if they aren't greyed out) to "Virtual Joysticks" and the controller number to "controller 1", then hit Add. The computer will go through the process of installing new hardware (twice I think), be sure to approve any unsigned driver warnings you get. Once that's done, choose "PPJoy Virtual joystick 1" and click "Mapping". In the next window hit "Set a custom mapping for this controller" and hit next. In this case, set it to 4 axes and 16 buttons (yes I know the CC only has 15 buttons, there's a reason for this). Then just keep hitting next until you're done.

You can add more virtual joysticks for different Wiimote setups. I have two...one for using the Classic Controller and one for using the Wiimote/Nunchuck. The reason for doing that would be because the number of buttons/axes would change. Anyway, you're now done with PPJoy and shouldn't have to go back to it.

Step Two, connect your Wiimote via bluetooth. With your wiimote in hand (and whatever you want to use plugged into it) and your Wii not nearby or powered on (otherwise it'll just connect to the Wii), open "My Bluetooth Places". The easiest way to get to it is the bluetooth icon in your system tray on the taskbar. Once there, on the menus on the left, click "view devices in range" and hit the "1" and "2" buttons on the remote simultaneously. The LEDs should start blinking. Once you see the Nintendo device in the window, click on it and then click "Bluetooth Setup Wizard". On the next window that pops up, click "skip pairing" and then wait for the Nintendo option to show up in the next window (if your remote stops blinking, hit 1 and 2 again). Choose the Nintendo service and hit next. The first time you do this you'll go through some more windows hardware installation stuff. Anyway, if you did it right you'll be back at the "devices in range" window, but now the Nintendo device will have green arrows by it shwing it's connected. Hooray!

Step Three, run GlovePIE. Once it's open, you either need to select a script or create one yourself with the GUI. If you setup PPJoy as I suggested, you can use this script I made to turn the Classic Controller into a 15-button, 4 axis joystick. Once you've got a script going, you can hit "run" and it'll go to it. While GlovePIE is running you can disconnect your remote by holding the power button on it at anytime (you'll still need to shut down glovepie yourself).


Future use: After the initial setup, all you have to do to play is connect your remote via bluetooth then run glovePIE, load a script and hit "run". Pretty simple.

A few notes: This seems to burn through batteries a little faster than usual. If you don't have some sort of rechargable setup, get one.

The reason I had you map 16 buttons instead of 15 is for some reason the 1st button setup by ppjoy just never seems to work right. If you look at my script I only assign buttons 2-16 to the classic controller, never button 1 (they're actually numbered 0-15 but you get my point). If you're trying to play a game that you can't reconfigure that requires you to have a button 1, you'll need to do some editing of the script.

The scripting language is very open and powerful. You can assign keypresses, key combinations, mouse commands, whatever. Experiment with the gui and the script to see what you can come up with.

Lastly, if you don't have bluetooth, I recommend the Kensington USB adapter you can find at Best Buy or Circuit City for about $30. It's tiny and works great.

Feel free to copy/post this guide somewhere else around here if you think it'll be more visible helpful.

Let me know if I missed anything or got a detail wrong.
 
[quote name='RAMSTORIA']i love the classic controller, its great for snes and genesis games. i have no proof, but i think the battery life is longer if you used a classic controller until the batteries died compared to using the wiimote & nunchuck until it dies.[/quote]
I would not be surprised if there was some truth to that since I'd imagine the gyrosensor in the nunchuck might consume more power than the classic controller, also less rumbling on the remote itself
 
Sweet, troa. I'm going to check it out.

In case anyone is interesting, here's a link to Classic Controller silicon skins. If you use "wiiclassic" as a coupon, it chops it from 6.99 to 2.99. Shipping starts at 2.85. So for a little under 6 bucks, you can get one shipped. However, if you want more than one, you'll have to do multiple orders - the coupon is only for one skin at a time. This is important to remember. (A small side note - If you want to use Google Check out, you can save $10 off your order. HOWEVER, it will not stack with this coupon, so it's better to not use it.)

I ordered a blue one last week when I found this deal (on Thursday), and got it yesterday, so they ship fairly quickly. It fits the controller exceptionally well, and I played a few games of Ice Hockey with it. I later tried out Beyond Oasis.

It works well, but I do want to mention a few things.

The first is that (and this is minor) the blue color isn't a dark color like on the site, but rather a light/sky/baby blue sort of color. This goes in line with the Wii's color scheme, so it's not a big issue. Plus it's kind of transparent, so you can still read all the buttons whose labels get obscured by the skin (such as "Home").

The second is that you'll notice the dpad opening is cut just like the dpad - like a +. This isn't a problem, but occassionally (when I was playing Beyond Oasis), if I had to do a hadoken type move, I'd sometimes slide over the skin and cause it to flip up. There's a small chance it could tear in the future. I'm trying to maybe find a way to cut it out in a circle, so this kind of thing can be avoided.

This would solve another complaint - as thin as the skin is, it still makes the dpad slightly too flush. At no time will you lose track of where the dpad is or anything, but it can be a little bothersome.

On the backside, there are small ribs. I assume this is meant to make it feel like you're getting a better grip. Most people won't notice this. My gf did and remarked that it felt weird (I guess ribbed is not to her pleasure).

Finally, the skin feels very powdery/dusty at first, but this does go away very quickly. It feels nice and solid now.

Anyway, it's a fun little addition, and I might suggest anyone interested to pick one up. My complaints are actually very minor, and again, I think the biggest ones can be solved with a little ingenuity. There's probably a way you could get the skin and cut a circle pretty easily. (If anyone has any suggestions on this, I would be most appreciative.)

Just thought I'd mention it in the thread.
 
I feel bad for my roommate, because he has never played Super Mario World in his entire life (he chose Sega in the 16-bit console wars).

I feel even worse for him because he has no CC to use with SMW, and his first experience with it was with the GCube controler.
 
[quote name='Mr. Beef']I feel bad for my roommate, because he has never played Super Mario World in his entire life (he chose Sega in the 16-bit console wars).

I feel even worse for him because he has no CC to use with SMW, and his first experience with it was with the GCube controler.[/QUOTE]


I oldly have two copies of the SNES version that I stole from my grandma after my asshole relitives started stealing my games.
 
[quote name='David85']I oldly have two copies of the SNES version that I stole from my grandma after my asshole relitives started stealing my games.[/QUOTE]

:?:
 
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