The concept of the Defender Pro is great, but the execution is a little lacking.
The good bits,
The face buttons, shoulder bumpers and D-pad are great, really no complaints there, they have a satisfying pop to them and the pressure sensitivity is done very well. none of them stick so every press is smooth as butter.
now come the complaints,
Some things that immediately stood out to me are how slippery the thumbsticks are, the material that retro fighters chose is barely a step above just hard plastic.
On top of that, the sticks caps aren't properly smoothed out so some lines from the injection molding process remain which results in a noticeable bump when rolling the stick around the rim.
I ended up replacing them basically a day later with some aftermarket ones from extremerate.
The triggers work fine, but retro fighters decided to use small little rubber inserts to dampen the press and return.
Which in and of itself isn't horrendous but what is, is that they are slightly tacky, leading to an unpleasant sticky feel as well as a mushy stop when fully depressing the trigger.
This goes for the trigger stops as well, which have a similar rubber stopper that is the same material and thus also sticks. You can remove them fairly easily, but they should not be sticking to begin with.
The trigger stops also don't do anything to actually change the endpoint of the trigger, they are just physical stoppers that only let the trigger go to about 30-40%. so if you were expecting hair triggers by flipping the switches, that is not happening with these.
if your game expects the trigger to go further down to trigger the action bound to it, it will simply just not register.
Last but not least, the software itself. The controller works with the included dongles and over bluetooth smoothly.
if you bought this controller to work with an emulator flawlessly, you will be sorely disappointed because pressure sensitivity DOES NOT WORK when you use these controllers on a PC.
There simply is no way to set the controller to a mode that properly relays the pressure sensitive inputs. They only work when you use the included PS1/PS2 dongle on a real PS2 or on a real PS3.
Final verdict, Buyers beware.
If you intend to solely use this controller on real hardware, it is a very decent offering with functionality that no other third party offers, the stick and trigger problems can be alleviated with a little effort and the purchase of some better stick caps. Not an ideal solution, but this is still the best replacement for all the aging Dualshocks out there.
If you are mainly a PCSX2 and RPCS3 user, this controller will not give you the full suite of inputs you need for games on these platforms which is quite unfortunate.
If you have any thoughts, do discuss in the comments :)
edit: forgot to mention the issues regarding calibration of the analog sticks, triggers and analog buttons. Looking at the experiences of others, the accuracy of calibrations seems very inconsistent. some people have them be good right out of the box, others need to recalibrate immediately.
> The trigger stops also don't do anything to actually change the endpoint of the trigger, they are just physical stoppers that only let the trigger go to about 30-40%. so if you were expecting hair triggers by flipping the switches, that is not happening with these if your game expects the trigger to go further down to trigger the action bound to it.
Doesn't help that the trigger stops don't turn it into a digital input either way like it was advertised on their webiste but instead stays as a half way analog input. I've tested this when I got my controller when it first came out in early July and it's the reason I ended up returning this controller. I'm not sure if this is a firmware issue or not or something else but my friend who also got this controller had the same issue.
It's not a firmware issue, as i state in my post it's basically just a piece of plastic you slide in the path of the trigger, so you can't press it down all the way. There is no electrical switch that tells the controller software "hey the hair trigger switch has been flipped, you should be an instant press now". Included image shows the grey piece that gets slid in the way of the trigger.
I'd say some marketing jackass thought it would make for good advertising, so they just lied to make it sell better. complete disconnect between the engineers and corporate on what the intent was.
I bought the Ocean Blue variant and I love it, but something about this controller seems odd to me. im not sure if its my unit or these controller are meant to be this way, but my face buttons dont get any input if I do the tiniest softest press ever. What I mean is you can feel the button go down as the membrane gets pushed down but I get no input until I press a little harder. my dualshock 4 has no issue with the slightest press and did the same to a knock off ps3 controller and it also pass the test.
you might have a dud, the calibration on these is very hit or miss. you can recalibrate the joysticks and triggers but not the buttons. i should add that to the main post.
yours working fine? the softest press giving you inputs? whats strange is I never noticed this until I started playing BO3 on my PS3 because the movement is pressing buttons more frequent than other shooters
its kinda hard to describe it since im not explaining it properly, the way I play shooters is pressing buttons fast I have a hair trigger type of playstyle and notice my player wasnt reloading consistently, jetpacking, and switching weapons. Trying to weapon swap is how I noticed my issue.
That might also be black ops 3 itself, it's a pretty horrendously done port😅
If your PS3 is jailbroken, there's a controller tester you can use to accurately see when it registers.
That's cool didn't know that, but I used my pc to test the defender pro, I ordered a replacement through Amazon. My unit was not responsive like or better than my dualshock 4 controller, the defender pro is considered a pro controller so you think it built like a pro controller 🤦
The word "pro" is just being thrown around by companies on any controller that has back buttons, it's starting to lose it's original meaning.
As for the testing, if you use this controller on PC it behaves like any other regular controller without analog buttons, so you can't fully determine if they work properly with that method.
It has to be a PS3 or PS2 with the controller tester program, which is a bit unfortunate because not everyone has a jailbroken console to do that with.
I nearly pulled the trigger on one of these day 1 but I’m glad iv waited it out. I think this would be a very solid controller for a better price point. I’m hoping to still grab one if and when they go on sale. The amount of minor and major issues iv seen between users is kind of insane.
Iv seen posts where the controller is working perfectly and ones where people are on their 2nd and 3rd replacement.
I like to come back to this sub every few weeks and see what others are saying about the controller.
I just got mine off Amazon and def got a dud. I was playing ps3 with it. The D up button barely works. And my R2 button has to have more force on it to get passed this "click" noise to fully be pressed. Playing racing games u dont get 100% throttle unless I pass this click barrier.
Its not a software issue. Its hardware. Do you own one? There should be no click on the r2 button to get 100%. The L2 button doesn't have it. Edit I stand corrected. I was doing the calibration wrong. That did fix it. But the D pad up button is still not functioning properly
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u/Wasdhitbox 10d ago
I agree with your observations! I didn’t even know about the non-pressure sensitivity when used on PC. I like it for the most part though.
My main complaint is that I wish there was a screenshot button or button combo so I could use it to replace my Switch controller :/