Duelpad Zen 16 Review: a carefully considered controller for fighters, rhythm games and more
by Amr (@siegarettes)
A review unit was provided by Duelpad for this review.
The Duelpad Zen 16 isn't going to surprise you. It's familiar in terms of features and build quality, and it easily fits in with the family of budget fighting game controllers saturating the market right now. It's the same acrylic sandwich design, with the same strip prone Chicago screws, running the same open source GP2040CE firmware.
What makes it stand out are the small details that show careful consideration. The corners have been extended to make room for your wrists, button rims surround the keycaps to create a feeling closer to traditional arcade buttons, without compromising the hot swap functionality. The OLED status screen sports a small navigation cluster that can be used to configure options without a computer, and it rocks a split layout with extra button placements that actually make sense.
The split layout is my personal headliner, combining a WASD style directional cluster, with a set of thumb buttons that make it a viable option not only as a fighting game controller, but a controller replacement.
GP2040CE supports up to 4 remappable layouts, so you can swap between layouts that support different games.
For 2D fighting games I keep the two large thumb buttons as jump, keeping the advantages of a traditional Hitbox layout, while allowing a more relaxed posture with more space between the movement and action buttons, and the smaller thumb buttons still free for extra functions.
For other games I leave the WASD cluster as my main movement, with the thumb buttons replacing the shoulder buttons, triggers, or thumbstick clicks, leaving the pinky column on the action buttons free for additional functions and modifiers.
For example, here I've mapped the thumb buttons to the shoulders and triggers, leaving the 4 face buttons in the first two columns, followed by the L3 and R3 buttons, with the pinky column used to switch the directionals to dpad and right stick movements.
It works for both 2D and 3D games, as long as they don’t rely on the right stick for aiming or frequent camera adjustments.
In Mega Man 11 I used this setup to quickly switch weapons with the right stick, leaving two extra buttons available to map shortcut buttons. In DMC4 this allows me to quickly perform multi-button maneuvers while charging projectile weapons, and quickly adjust the camera or switch styles by using the modifiers.
You can even set up dual stick setups, for twin stick arcade games or rhythm games. In Project Diva you can mirror the WASD setup with the face buttons, while in Theatrhythm you can control both sticks on the action and movement buttons, with the thumb buttons available for drumming out notes.
Let’s talk about that OLED. These tiny screens are quickly becoming a killer feature of modern controllers, allowing you to easily check your buttons and settings. The Duelpad Zen takes this one step further and allows you to change the settings directly on the screen itself. What I initially assumed was an extra button turned out to be a full navigation cluster, allowing you to cycle through various settings from an on board menu, without the need to connect it to a computer. You can change the console mode, dpad settings, RGB lighting and even the extra button mappings through the menu, saving you from memorizing several shortcuts for each function.
In its current state, it’s unfortunately a bit finicky. At least with my configuration, the menu seems to only operate when I’m in the first profile, and frequently freezes after swapping to another profile, until restarted.
On the opposite side of the menu are the RGB underglow controls. With them you can cycle through the various lighting modes, though they seem to be controlled separately from the rest of the controller, with no dynamic modes that react to button presses. The topside RGB can be controlled through the menu or web config, with a lot more flexibility for customization.
The problem is that these LEDs are blindingly bright, with even the lowest of the three settings being bright enough to distract you from your game. I can’t see these as useful for anything except blinding your opponent.
In terms of other customization, the dense layout doesn’t leave much room for art in the center, but the sides provide ample space for details. A paper layer is pre-installed in the controller, and makes a good template for cutting out your own art should you choose to do it by hand, like I did.
The Duelpad Zen 16 has plenty of small issues that give a sense of jank to what’s otherwise a well considered device. But none of these issues got in the way when it was time to play. Setting up could be troublesome, but once I dialed in my settings and got into a game, the Zen was rarely less than a joy to play with.
The layout is well spaced and comfortable, the button rims add a sense of stability other controllers lack, and the quiet, fast response switches translated inputs with satisfying feedback. Whether I played fighting games, platformers, or rhythm games, the Zen felt up to the task. With its novel form factor and button layout, I can easily see it staying in my controller rotation, even with many more high end competitors.
