Honestly, it feels a bit strange to go out of my way to write a review of a controller. That being said, even more so than the Switch Joy-Cons/Pro Controller, the Dualsense has really impressed me.
When the switch came out, I’d say the controllers were somewhat revolutionary. Full gyro support, Haptic feedback as opposed to regular vibration. For the joy-cons there was also the ability to use them in handheld, and as actual controllers, and of course an IR sensor that never gets used. The Pro controller ditched those things for a beautiful form factor, that honestly is probably the most comfy controller I’ve ever held.
And then you have the Dualshock 4, the controller used for the Playstation 4. Now granted, there’s about 4 years of hardware improvements between these controllers, but I just need to write about this since it was honestly my least favorite controller of the past generation of consoles. The dualshock 4 has a strange form factor. The handles are a bit more narrow than I’d like, and the sticks are both along the lower half of the controller. Now the stick placement is actually a playstation staple. For some benefits, they have concave joysticks (the kind that your thumb can rest in a bit) instead of them being convex. The right side buttons are placed well, and there’s nothing wrong with the triggers.
Now, for the Dualsense. Honestly I got a PS5 without really knowing about how cool the controller was. I just wanted to play stellar blade, and the PS5 was the way to make that happen. But my goodness is the Dualsense controller not the coolest controller I’ve ever used. And when you get down to it, it’s just a bunch of minor improvements, mixed with some killer new technology, that makes this thing feel like magic.
Let’s just start with form factor. Slightly more bulky handles make this feel much more comfortable to my hands at least. Because of that the sticks are also nicely situated right where my thumbs want to be. If I’m being 100% honest, I’m still not a huge fan of the D-Pad being above the left stick. That being said, it was a benefit when playing stellar blade. Since the healing button is mapped to up on the D-Pad I was able to kind of wrap my index finger over the top of the controller on occasion to press that button when I needed to heal, while still moving around. Very niche I know, but I thought it worth mentioning.
Where this controller really shines for me though, are the haptics, and the adaptive triggers. The first time the adaptive triggers activated for me in stellar blade I honestly thought there was something defective with the controller. And then when it continued to happen I eventually realized that it was a feature, not a bug. And after getting used to it I have to say that I really enjoy the triggers on this controller. For stellar blade, there’s a very cool feeling threshold you need to overcome, which makes it feel much more like pulling a trigger. As well, the fishing is significantly better with the adaptive triggers, I can’t imagine that minigame being as fun with a regular analog trigger. I’ve also been playing some Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, and the use of the adaptive triggers is much more subtle in that game, but it adds so much. Usually it comes in the form of grabbing something heavy, or running uphill or something, but it adds to the immersion when you feel that bit of extra resistance.
As for the haptics, it’s hard to say much more than it feels like the switch pro controller, but with much more precision. As far as I’m aware, the switch doesn’t have a bunch of haptic feedback locations on their controllers, so they feel much nicer than regular vibration, but nowhere near as nice as the dualsense. The dualsense then, has a number of haptic feedback locations, to provide that added bit of immersion when playing. This actually works incredibly well with the adaptive triggers, since the haptics can provide feedback specifically at the triggers when you use them.
Anyways, it is a mini review so that’s all I’ve got this time. So far very impressed with the new tech, and I’m excited to see more uses of it in different games!
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