HORI HoriPad Turbo – Review

Been a while since I made a controller review. At this point, everyone knows the HORI brand, but for those who are uninitiated, HORI makes controllers that are tough and made to last. With great care, one you own could even serve to at most a full decade before you’d need a replacement. Since my old HoriPads have started to die down, I decided to nab a replacement, one with a static and un-removable D-Pad but feels the same: The HoriPad Turbo.

The HoriPad Turbo looks like its younger counterpart, the HoriPad, which I think is made to surpass it. A static D-Pad instead of the removable plate of the former version, an adjustable turbo rate from 3x to 5x to 20x to suit the need, precision sticks and buttons giving it a close feel to the HoriPad FPS Switch, and wider shoulder buttons for a much comfortable feel to it. It feels right in the hands, playing for hours, especially on more frantic games like good ol’ Broforce or testing it on the Contra Anniversary Collection’s port of the original arcade Gryzor.

A bit of diving into the adjustable turbo: You can adjust it by pressing and holding the Turbo button, then flicking the Right analog stick up or down to adjust it. The indicator is the same: The turbo notification light, which will blink faster or slower to indicate which mode is active. The rapid blinking means it’s in the 20x Mode, the regular blinking speed indicates 5x is in operation, and the slow blinking means 3x Mode is active.

Changing on the fly might be a bit weird from the get-go, but sooner or later, it will feel natural especially when you’re playing a game at least as frantic as the older Contra titles, especially the original arcade versions of Contra/Gryzor and Super Contra, if not on other side-scrolling shooters such as Dariusburst Chronicles and R-Type FINAL 2. It feels right to use on other action-heavy titles such as Megaman X4 (Thanks to the Spring Sale, I was able to net the Megaman X Legacy Collection set.), having run four full runs (Fourth/Ultimate for X, Red/Black for Zero) with the Base Megaman for a finishing touch for the last run.

Let’s start with my experiences in the Contras first: The 20x Mode helped me a lot on all stages, especially the final stretch that covers the last few stages in the NES port, considering how frantic it could get with the floating and crawling aliens, not to mention the spores that home in if not destroyed immediately. Super Contra on the 20x Mode becomes tricky when you have the Lv. 2 Spread Gun since it fires only twice in-game, meaning you’d have to be up close and play in a high-risk manner on the top-view parts, especially in the final stage. Dariusburst has me relying on 20x Mode as well, considering the enemy ships appearing in patterns, and the added speed helps when it begins feeling a tad overwhelming for 5x Mode.

Outside of using the Turbo Mode, its hand-feel is nice enough that it surpasses the original Horipad, and the buttons are responsive and precise from the get-go. The controller’s shell feels great against the palms as well.

The downside to it is that it doesn’t have the same driver as the HoriPad, as it registers as an Xbox controller, which takes away its most key function from playing: taking screenshots on the go. You’d have to have a hand hovering over the screenshot key to keep taking screenshots, at least when playing on a PC.

HORI, if this reaches you, please make it make sense. Make the HoriPad Turbo have the same driver as the older HoriPad, so screenshots are easier to make, or at least a downloadable hardware update.

Summing everything up on this review, HoriPad Turbo is a great successor to the HoriPad and is a nice replacement for an aging HoriPad, or a better choice if you’re looking for your first one for the Switch and the PC. With a 2.3k-2.5k Philippine Peso price tag, it’s a steal considering the long usage life it will have in your hands and the long range of help it’d bring to a gamer needing a long-living controller. In the immortal words of Joe Bob Briggs, “Four and a half stars! Check it out!”