Controller Experiences

[Vipershark]

The only N64 game that I can think of that FORCED the use of the D-Pad was Kirby 64. Otherwise, why would your hand even be on that part of the controller?

I think this goes back to the original question of "Why would you design a controller like this anyway?" If only half of it is ever going to be used at a time, why not simplify the design? It'd be like if you had an SNES controller, but playing games that only ever used as many buttons as an NES controller; there's no need for all of those extra buttons. Holding this thing was never comfortable for me, even when holding it from the middle.

I don't consider that a fault of the controller, but more a side-effect of the fact that the N64 was more or less designed as a 3D console, and a joystick is inherently more intuitive for controlling a 3D world than an 8-direction D-Pad. Not to mention that at the time, 3D was the new, hot thing, so everyone wanted to jump in and make games that take advantage of the new feature(s) instead of making updated SNES games.

Having extra buttons isn't a problem, the problem was that nobody actually IMPLEMENTED them.
I'm sure if there were more 2D games made for the N64 then there would be a lot more games that use the D-Pad and L as opposed to the stick and Z.

-Wait, I thought the GCN controller did have analog L/R buttons, considering a game like Super Mario Sunshine where you could change the intensity of FLUDD's spray by pressing down a certain amount on (IIRC) the R button.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that!
In that case maybe they were then? That just proves that it's that much closer to perfect, ahahah