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| Nintendo's 1987 NES Advantage |
A fighting stick, or arcade stick, is a unique controller, with a unique purpose. They’re segmented re-creations of a traditional arcade box found in an arcade. Classics like Nintendo’s Donkey Kong were ported to home consoles to give the player a nostalgic, arcade gaming experience. With titles like Donkey Kong in the home, it made sense that companies would design arcade sticks for their home console to complete the experience.
Traditional arcade sticks have two main characteristics. The first is the stick itself, which is usually on the left. These “joysticks” are made to look just like the ones you’d see in the arcade. On the right, you have anywhere from two to eight buttons. The buttons are typically the size of a quarter, and are made to withstand a significant amount of abuse. Because of this, arcade sticks usually get poor reviews unless they’re built to withstand constant “button mashing.”
Durability is important in the gaming industry. Since fighting sticks such as the Advantage are bigger and more complex than normal controllers, they’re more expensive. Because of the extra price in making them arcade-sized, companies are often pressured to reduce the overall quality and durability of the stick, eliminating one of the main reasons in buying them.
The NES Advantage has both an arcade feel to it and durability. I’m not an arcade stick connoisseur, but I’ve used enough of them to say that the NES Advantage is better than the newer sticks being made today. For one, it does what it’s supposed to. It plays games well, and often better than a normal NES controller. Part of the interior and the bottom plate is made out of metal, giving it a nice weight, which is complimented by rubber feet that grip perfectly to any flat surface. Arcade sticks today make up for the lack of grip by sheer size, making them a hassle to store or transport. The NES Advantage, however, is just under 7¾” x 6¼”, making it half the size of average arcade sticks today.
Small dimensions are great because storage is a major factor to me, but what about the buttons? The NES Advantage has two main buttons to replace the original controller’s A and B buttons. They are bright red which makes for beautiful contrast with the rest of the light gray arcade stick. The A and B buttons are both large, which makes it impossible to mistake them for the smaller, oval Start and Select buttons. They are both sturdy, which is nice, but that brings me to one of the best parts of this controller: the Turbo buttons. The NES Advantage has two Turbo buttons, one for A and B respectively. Above the turbo buttons is a dark gray knob, once again placed far enough away from the red A and B buttons so as to not get in the way. Each knob raises or lowers the effect that the turbo button has (if the turbo button is turned on). For example, if I turned the gray knob all the way up for the A button, all I have to do is hold down A and it will automatically press A up to twenty times per second.
Since the Advantage is meant to be played with arcade style games, I don’t even have to button mash to have fun. Because button mashing isn’t required to effectively use the Advantage, Nintendo could have ripped us off by putting crappy buttons instead of the more durable ones it has.
Nintendo poured a lot of quality into the NES Advantage. They haven’t really put anyone to shame, since the Advantage was released in 1987 and was one of the few arcade sticks around anyways. But what I find jaw dropping is how many competent third party video game companies have failed to meet the standards that Nintendo set for home arcade sticks almost twenty five years ago.
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