Circle Pad Pro

I now own my very own Circle Pad Pro. I have to say that the device is rather interesting. It’s actually pretty bulky in your hands, but it feels comfortable. I haven’t had any issues with comfort while playing through Resident Evil. The face buttons are pretty easy to get to, though I have found myself just wishing that they were above the circle pad instead of off to the side. It’s weird reaching over instead of up to press the face buttons. The triggers are good and easy to use.

It does have some unusual functionality though. Because it’s not actually physically connected to the system (it uses the IR port to transmit button presses and stick movement) it loses sync every time you put the system into sleep mode. So if you’re playing RE and you close the system you have to do one of two things to play the game again. You can either press the triggers before you open the system and it will turn the circle pad back on, or you have to go into the game’s settings to re-sync the Circle Pad.

It feels like you’re holding an old Game Gear or an Atari Lynx in your hand instead of a 3DS. It will be very interesting to see how much the device is actually supported in the future.