I’m a lifelong fighting game fan — and I just found the best fight pad out there

I’ve been playing fighting games ever since Street Fighter II was released in 1991. Though I loved wasting my allowance at the arcade nearly every day after school, I mostly played home ports of my favorites. Fight sticks are nice for replicating the arcade feel but I always preferred fight pads since they’re more comfortable. I’ve yet to experience a fight pad that’s as good for fighting games as the Japanese Sega Saturn controller, but I just found one that’s pretty close.

Hori has released some exceptional fight pads over the years. In fact, I’ve purchased their controllers for PS3 and PS4 — with the latter also working for PS5 . The Fighting Commander Octa for PS5 is great, but since it has a large touchpad in its top center, it’s bigger than I would prefer for fighting games. Thankfully, the Hori Fighting Commander Octa (Tekken 8 Edition) for PC keeps all the aspects I love about its PS4/PS5 counterpart, only in a smaller profile.

Right now, this Hori fight pad for PC is the best modern fight pad I’ve used. Here’s why.

Responsive buttons

The FCO (as I’ll call it moving forward), has the same basic design of most modern game controllers, with long rounded grips, analog sticks, face buttons and trigger buttons. However, almost every single one of these aspects is designed to better suit fighting games.

Let’s start with the six face buttons, which is a feature I absolutely need in a fight pad. Sure, games like Tekken 8 and Mortal Kombat work fine with four face buttons. But if you enjoy Capcom fighting games like Street Fighter 6 , six face buttons allow you to play more effectively. I also love that the face buttons are super clicky like on the best mechanical keyboards .

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The top bumper buttons aren’t all that different from other controllers. However, the trigger buttons differ since they lack a spring mechanism. That feature makes sense for racers and first-person shooters since the springing action replicates pressing down on a pedal or pulling a gun’s trigger (respectively). But in a fighting game where you want fast inputs, you don’t need standard triggers.

The FCO for PS5 doesn’t have a right analog stick, which is fine since you don’t need one for playing fighting games. Interestingly enough, this Octa has a small nub that acts as an analog stick in case you want to use the controller to play other genres. Though I have no use for this nub, I like that it’s there — and it doesn’t get in the way when I’m frantically pressing buttons during a heated match.

The one thing I’m not enthused about is the FCO’s extremely light weight ,which can make it feel like a toy. I’m not asking for a super heavy controller, just something with a similar weight to the PS5 DualSense or Xbox Series X controller. The added weight would have made the FCO feel more premium and sturdy.

An excellent D-pad

A fight pad’s D-pad is arguably its most important feature. After all, what good is a controller if you can't properly execute moves? I can deal with a fight pad with four face buttons as long as it has a good D-pad — that’s how crucial I find this feature. Thankfully, the FCO has an excellent D-pad.

Similar to the Sega Saturn controller, the FCO has a circular D-pad with small up, down, left and right buttons set within. I play with the middle of my thumb (where it bends) covering the entire D-pad, and this D-pad facilitates that playstyle. The D-pad itself is sturdy enough to not feel cheap but loose enough to allow for fast movements.

How well does the D-pad work? After getting used to this particular D-pad, I had no trouble doing hadokens, shoryukens, sonic booms, spinning bird kicks and more in the various Street Fighter games I played. It does an excellent job of recognizing even the most minute movements.

On a related note, the left analog stick is as responsive as the D-pad. If you prefer using an analog stick, then you shouldn’t face many issues with this one. That said, I’ll stick to using the excellent D-pad.

Programmable buttons

The FCO works great right out of the box. It works so well that I almost forgot there’s a companion app that allows you to tweak the D-pad/analog stick sensitivity and remap the buttons. The app itself is fairly easy to use since it doesn’t throw too much information at you. That said, you can get super granular with customization if you want.

Again, I think the controller is awesome out of the box but the companion app exists if you want to configure it for specific fighting games.

Outlook

I used the Hori Fighting Commander Octa for PS5 to play Street Fighter 6 and had a great time doing so. However, when I heard about the Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection , I looked into other fight pads and came across this Tekken 8 version of the FCO. I’m not a Tekken player but this controller’s design told me that it was close enough to what I was looking for. After playing with this controller for the better part of a week, I’m glad I pulled the trigger.

If you’re looking for an overall solid fight pad, the Hori Fighting Commander Octa (Tekken 8 Edition) is the one to get. Trust me.

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