Review: CRKD NEO S Purple Wave Edition Switch Controller – Good for Fortnite Festival, but not so exciting elsewhere
Not every controller review has to start with a summary of its current state FortressBut bear with us, we promise it’s relevant.
The classic looting and shooting we all know and love is now just a small part of the “Fortnite ecosystem”*squirm*, a hub world for games that combine battle royale with a survival sim LEGO Fortressracer Rocket racingand Rock band-esque rhythm game, Fortnite Festival.
Most of these games can be played comfortably with a Pro Controller/Joy-Con. Most of their. A falling note rhythm game Guitar hero Rock Band originators and developers Harmonix never intended to play with the D-Pad and buttons, and after a few performances during Fortnite Festival, our poor aching joints were done. this level into some nostalgic fun, but a ticking time bomb for future matches of OA.
Accessory manufacturer PDP Gaming has released Riffmaster guitar controllers as soon as Fortnite Festival launches, but they’re only compatible with PlayStation or Xbox, so Switch players are in for a tough time if we want to relive the Rock Band days.
That was until CRKD revealed a Fortnite Festival-themed game NEO S Purple Wave Edition controller. Complete with a five-fret Festival Attachment, this pad promises to female how to play Fortnite’s rhythm game mode on Switch while also serving as an everyday controller for your other gaming needs.
After hands-on with the NEO S over the past week, we can confirm that it meets exactly one of these. This is definitely the best way to experience Fortnite Festival on Switch – hell, we think it is just one this way — but as a controller for broader play, it’s in dire need of some tweaking.
Out of the box, this is… purple. Sure, the design is a bit in-your-face, but, putting the big Fortnite Festival logo in the middle, we quite like the wavy decals and chrome analog stick base. A little rock ‘n’ roll pizza.
We’ll start with the controller’s headline action: the Fortnite Festival attachment. This five-button addition clips to the bottom, and when holding the pad aside, the whole thing is vaguely reminiscent of the Guitar Hero neck and its iconic colored frets. We were immediately impressed by what the mattress reminded us of Band hero DS accessories from 20 years ago, with a row of buttons at the bottom and a rectangular form factor not too different in shape and size from clamshell peripherals.
Like its DS counterpart, the NEO S attachment is the best way to play any falling note game mode – that is, while a full-blown guitar controller remains unavailable. This accessory quickly connects to the controller (attached via a metal ‘jack’ at the bottom and held in place by a clip bracket at the top) and can be used straight away in Festival game mode Fortnite. You can also hold down all five frets to activate difficulty-changing shortcuts between tracks.
However, as anyone who played a DS back in the day will tell you, that thing cramps your hands like there’s no tomorrow, and the NEO S’ Festival attachment is no different. Whether holding the controller in one hand using the included velcro strap to hold it in place or using our other hand as a fulcrum, the NEO S’s small, full-width keyboard buttons make operation easy. no longer a comfortable experience. We only lasted a few songs before we needed some pretty serious time. The width of the controller will make it difficult for our smaller hands to reach it, while the small buttons will be a nightmare for those with larger fingers.
CRKD emphasizes that the controller attachment can be used for rhythm games other than Fortnite Festival – it ultimately just maps different inputs to the five frets – although we tried to think of where a Guitar Hero-style fretboard format would actually be beneficial. The last rhythm line of Theatbeat has come close to its time, but the directional inputs required make holding the NEO S like a guitar neck less than ideal. Even games that are closer to the Guitar Hero structure like MUSYNX And VOEZ has its own characteristics that make other inputs more desirable.
What we are saying is that the Fortnite Festival controller is best used during Fortnite Festival. What a shock.
But this is also a controller for more extensive play. The Festival attachment can be easily removed, leaving the controller free for any other game you like. Indeed, with Hall Effect sticks, a programmable back button, vibration support and motion controls, it’s one of the more feature-packed third-party products available — and at £59 .99 (same as Nintendo’s official Pro pad), you’d expect it to be. But those features can’t fix a core problem: that flat rectangle is annoying to play with.
The NEO S boasts two slightly raised sections at the back – a vague attempt at ergonomics, we guess – but the flat design feels too cramped for extended play sessions. With nothing to hold on to, our fingers gripped the back buttons, forcing our wrists slightly out of the ‘normal’ gaming position. That’s not a particular nuisance for shorter sessions or for games that rely on the classic D-Pad and button input instead of sticks and triggers (don’t forget that both the NES and SNES had similar flat controller design), but we wouldn’t recommend going to any Splatfest with this in your arsenal.
That’s during the time we use the controller for Splatoon 3 that we found the motion controls left a lot to be desired. While the NEO S had no problem registering our rotations on the x-axis, the y-axis range felt limited, with our Octoling unable to look up or down more than a few inches before controller stops registering tilt. We had the same problem when aiming the arrow Tears of the Kingdom – Link has no problem taking on enemies next to him, but my god if you want to target an oncoming Keese.
The remaining controls are Strong. The triggers and face buttons feel a bit cheap given their shiny plastic (especially at this price), but CRKD’s built-in app has a lot of accessibility customization, where you can adjust rumble, enable trigger points and dead zones, and remap every button – something you’ll want to do immediately if you want to get away from the default, non-Nintendo face button layout . This app continues the company’s somewhat annoying behavior The ‘FOMO’ approach to marketingwhere each controller can be scanned so you know its rarity and can collect them all, but that’s a discussion for another day.
CRKD NEO S Purple Wave Edition Review – Verdict
All in all, the CRKD NEO S Purple Wave Edition achieves its ultimate goal of providing Switch players with an alternative and certainly easier way to play Fortnite Festival — although it’s still far from comfortable to play. use a full guitar controller — but we can’ I can’t help but feel it’s an increasingly niche market.
Those who want to play Fortnite Festival comfortably should probably play elsewhere (like on PDP’s accessory-ready system), and those who don’t have much better wireless controller options on the market with nearly the same features will be cheaper, and have much more comfortable designs. Please do not request an encore; we’re not sure our joints can handle another song.
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