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Joycon Awful as controller

I have a story about how not only I bested Jamal "Zophar321" Nickens at Super Street Fighter II The New Challengers for the Sega Genesis, but how others using my technique beat him hands down. I bring this up because this is important for the review of how I won't play it until I get a Switch version of my secret weapon.

To understand this, we need to go to my beginning: The Colecovision. In the arcades for game like Lady Bug and Pac-Man, there was one joystick in the center and you can play either way. In Dragon's Lair, there was one joystick, and one button on either side. Some games with lots of buttons, or had 2 players had limited space so they had to choose one side or the other. Some pick right, others pick. It was varied based on who made the original game, and whether it was an old machine repurposed, like a conversion kit. Most games I accepted the way they were, but if I had a choice, I played with the stick on the right hand side. I was like 7 when I got my brother's and my Colecovision. The Colecovision controller was a little awkward compared to an arcade game panel, but I got used to it. One of the cool forward looking features was that the joystick was ambidextrous, meaning you can operate the joystick with either hand. But the joystick was gripped in the other hand with the thumb and index finger on 2 buttons on the side and it's painful to play more than one long credit. But at least they were forward-thinking. But they were on the cheap. They thought whatever worked, after all, The Atari 2600 required you to hold the joystick in the left hand. One innovation was enough.

Nintendo's Game and Watch also came out a year before, and the patent design had a d-pad on the right hand, but the arcade version of hit game packaged with the Colecovision changed that thinking. No one at Nintendo considered whether a left-hand or right-hand joystick was better. They didn't have that luxury, because it was designed as a conversion kit for failing RadarScope games. Radarscope was a vertical shooter, and the philosophy was for game where it's more important to fire faster than steering more a accurately, it's usually advisable to put the joystick on the left and the fire on the right. Because Donkey Kong was a victim of being a conversion kit, to save money, the joystick was left handed. Apparently that influenced there decision from that point on to put it on the left. if Donkey Kong was teir most popular hit, and it was right handed, don't fight it. This is DESPITE the fact that most of the High scorers I saw at the time used a cross hand method. And a lot of strategy suggestions say it you're right handed, try crossing your wrists. You don't have to rapidly press jump. The jump button was more timing, but you had to be nimble to activate the stick, rounding corners to climb ladders. If you didn't hit it in time, you were stuck. That was the only game I heard of at the time that people wished they could drill a left hole for right handed play, but arcade operators didn't mind. The left handedness cause poorer, shorter games and because the game was so attractive, it meant more money for the operators, so they had no incentive to make righty or ambi consoles. I don't know if nintendo prohibited righty and ambi consoles, but they probably did because if there was an arcade that did have an ambidextrous Donkey Kong, they would have advertised it to draw more clients.

Ever since then Nintendo had Super Mario Bros, Vs Systems, and Play-Choice Tens so to make everything uniform for people who bought the NES, they decide to make everything left handed. For pads, that was okay, becuase the way I saw it, I put the joystick on the ground, used my left index and middle finger to manipulate the joystick, and the right index and middle finger to manipulate the 2 buttons. I had quicker firing, and when I got the die a behind Mega Man 3, I was better than my brother, because I could rapid fire and control my jump on jump/fire combos better than a thumb user.

A few years later, my Mom and Dad planned to give me an NES Advantage. The took me to a store to test it out. The game it was tested on was Super Mario Bros. WORST GAME to show off the Advantage. Rapid fire make you jump lower, slow has a start/stop herky-jerky feel instead of slow motion. Added to the fact the joystick was LEFT handed, whihc was my biggest complaint. Well I got one anyway. I kept it, and later I learned to use it when more and more arcades were left-handed. Well I got used to it.

I wanted a joystick because because on the Genesis, I was drifting upward when I was doing the Golden Axe alternate attack left/attack right with enemies on either side of me. This is due to the loose circular diagonals on the cross pad. Also when playing Street Fighter II on my cousin's machine on the Super NES, doing dragon punches were awful, because I couldn't use the 2 finger typing method because there are 2 buttons on the shoulders, so to access all attacks, I have to hold the pad, and the thumb is less accurate in typing commands than 2 fingers. If I was going to buy it, might as well get it the way I want it, ambidextrous.

Jamal had Super Street Fighter 2. Before in the old days, when he had 2 six-button pads, all of us played, and pad vs pad, Jamal was the best one. few weeks later, I had my ambidextrous stick. The stick was weakly wired, and broke in 2 weeks. But during those 2 weeks, I beat everyone in a game of SSF2 against everyone. Jamal couldn't believe I could beat everyone, I had near-100% special action/thought ratio. Unlike the pad, I had to manually think of the directions. but with the joystick, I was so quick that I was unpredictable with my Dragon punches, where before, it was obvious I was setting up for a Dragon Punch. And when I use less energy to execute the move, I spend the savings on strategizing about spacing, reacting to an opponent, and defense.

Jamal though the right handed joystick couldn't make all the difference, so I had everyone else play Jamal with both the left- and right-handed joystick. Some people were able to beat him sometime with a left stick, but EVERYONE was able to beat him EVERY TIME with them on the right handed stick, and Jamal on a pad.