Unlike a lot of people, I decided to opt out of the Super Smash bundle as I thought it wasn’t really necessary to own another Gamecube remote when I already have four.  Instead, I decided to get the game and the Gamecube remote converter separately.  Unfortunately, despite my preorder, the Gamecube converter was already sold out and won’t be expected to ship to me until the middle of December.

Fortunately, before the release, I preordered  the HORI Battle Pad for Wii U (Mario Version) with Turbo.  Lots of title fluff for just a Gamecube controller that connects to your Wiimote.  That’s basically what it is too!  If you have more than four players who just have to have a Gamecube controller than these controllers can solve that for you.

Image from http://www.amazon.com/HORI-Battle-Mario-Version-Turbo-u/dp/B00ND0E5ZU

The fact that this is a wireless controller means you aren’t constrained to how close you have to be to the TV which is nice.

But the main thing I want to say is that it’s basically like a Gamecube controller with some exceptions.  For one thing, it lacks the reassuring weight that the normal controllers have and I assume that’s because the important stuff is on the Wiimote and the controller simply acts as a button receiver.  There’s also an extra Z-button on the left side of the controller.  The shoulder pads also lack the usual “pressing-down-until-it-clicks” method.  They’re just simple buttons which I find funny but I assume they’re designed like that so they could imitate the Wii U Pad.

The Turbo buttons are also strange but basically they’re similar to the NES Max.  While pressing the Turbo button you then press another button and it does that action for a certain amount of times per second.  I haven’t used them yet as I haven’t found them necessary so I can’t comment how well they work or not.

But let me just end my reaction here and say if you want to play Smash Bros on the Wii U and are looking for a good wireless controller then this will work great for you!  You’ll look over its slight peculiarities five minutes in and after that you will be smashing away while having a good time!  Have fun smashing!