Any competitive fighting game worth its salt has some sort of wired controller option. At major fighting tournaments, trying to have multiple wireless controllers going at once is a logistical nightmare. The Pokémon Company and Bandai Namco commissioned a wired option for Pokkén Tournament, and it's pretty good for that – but it's unfortunately completely useless otherwise.

The pad itself is quite comfortable in the hand – it's shaped very similarly to the Classic Controller Pro that came out around the time of Monster Hunter Tri in North America. What buttons are there are large and easily noticeable, and the directional pad has a nice sink to it that makes it quite useful for quick dashes in Pokkén Tournament. The L and R trigger buttons, which get a fair workout in Pokkén, satisfyingly click and take up a good part of the top of the controller. Most of the time I reviewed Pokkén, it was while using this controller, and it was my preference for playing the game. The USB cord is quite a long one, about 10 feet long, so it's suitable for larger living rooms.

However, the most noticeable things about this pad are what is missing. It has no Circle Pad or Home button. You have to use the GamePad or another controller to quit out of Pokkén when you're done with it. The ZL and ZR buttons are on the front of the controller, beside the Start and Select buttons in a horizontal row. It even has a lot of blank space that likely could have supported an NFC reader. Despite all that, I thought it might work as a controller for Virtual Console games; NES, SNES or GBA would work fine with what the controller gives you in theory. In practice, nothing does. Part of this was my fault for not seeing the giant “This controller only works with Pokkén Tournament” warning on the front of the box, but I hope the homebrew community has a field day with this once it's in wide release, or that an upcoming stability update sneaks support in through the back door.

Chances are if you're buying this controller, you have a very specific reason for doing so – you're either taking Pokkén Tournament very seriously, or Pokkén is why you bought the system and you don't want to drop US$50 on a Pro Controller (the Pro Pad's MSRP is US$24.99/C$29.99). If you're in one of those camps, you probably already have this thing pre-ordered – and given how far in advance my local EB Games got these, you might already have it. If you're on the fence, stick with the far more functional Wii U Pro Controller unless we announce otherwise.