Battle Beaver GameCube Controllers: "Primary Use" and Smash Titles

Why would selecting primary use "Smash Ultimate" make it incompatible with other Smash titles. What’s the difference?

This is a common question we receive in regards to our custom GameCube builder. Read on for the answer as to why!

The Reason Why

Selecting "Smash Ultimate" as the primary use for the controller makes in compatible with other Smash titles. The main reason is because of how the L and R trigger inputs are read. The GameCube controller has two separate inputs per trigger: an analog input, registered by a slide potentiometer as the travel of the trigger, and a digital input, registered by a simple button press as the click at the end of the trigger pull.

Smash Bros. Ultimate and Smash 4 in particular, will only register a trigger input when the analog slider reaches about halfway and does not register the digital input at all. When modifying the triggers for Ultimate, we remap the analog input as the digital press so the trigger “click” is registered properly as intended in-game. Which is also why simply removing the springs or adding trigger plugs will not work.

Smash Bros. Melee has a dedicated function for both the analog and digital inputs. The analog input is used to activate the “light shield” and “L cancel”, while the digital input is used to “hard shield”, “L cancel”, “airdodge/ wavedash”, “powershield”, and “tech”.

Smash Bros. Brawl and P+ read both the analog and digital press similarly, but only the digital press can “powershield."

Our Universal Trigger option allows both the analog and digital inputs to register simultaneously to function across any game.