Is This the Best Controller to Play Super Mario Galaxy – PowerA Wireless Gamecube Controller

With the release of Super Mario 3D All Stars, we look back on what might be the best controller to use when playing Super Mario Sunshine, part of this fantastic collection. If you haven’t read our review of the Super Mario collection, you can here! Otherwise, read on to see what we think of PowerA’s wireless GameCube style controller!

We’ve reviewed a number of PowerA products over the past few months, but just after Christmas, our good friends sent us a special Nintendo Switch Lite carrying case (review) and a GameCube style controller. In general, third party controllers – even those licenced by Nintendo – can be incredibly hit or miss, but I won’t bury the lead on this one – the PowerA Wireless GameCube Controller is fantastic; it’s so good, in fact, that I went out a bought a second one!

From PowerA:

GameCube style controllers are widely considered the preferred way to play Super Smash Bros.™ Ultimate. Pull off precise attacks using octagonal gated sticks, larger A button, and nostalgic muscle memory on this officially licensed Bluetooth wireless controller for Nintendo Switch from PowerA.

Ultimately, the Wireless GameCube controllers were aimed at the Super Smash Bros Ultimate consumers. And to be fair, Super Smash Bros is definitely best played with a GameCube controller. We know it, and even Nintendo know is, otherwise they wouldn’t have released the GameCube controller adapter. I was definitely a bit skeptical of how well the PowerA controllers would fair up against official controllers, and frankly, there isn’t that much of a difference, except PowerA has made it wireless!

A few changes have been made from the original GameCube controller design. Physically, the D-Pad is a tad larger on this model – a bit complaint about the original Nintendo controller. On top of that change, PowerA also added a secondary bumper button along the top of the controller, and created clickable left and right thumb sticks, to match modern controller design.

The only downfall to this controller in my opinion is the use of 2 AA batteries. Ideally, the PowerA controller would have used a USB C charging port to save on the waste of batteries, but I can understand why they went this route. In a long run of Smash Bros, people don’t want to play wired, and so popping in new AA batteries is the best way to go.

The fantastic build quality makes this an ideal controller. And while meant for Smash, I’m using it for almost all my Nintendo Switch titles, and will definitely be using it for Super Mario 3D All Stars. If Nintendo ports more GameCube style games to the Nintendo Switch in the future, I see these controllers being a hot commodity!