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N64 Controller stick center manipulation and its effects on SSB

JaimeHR

Smash Ace
Joined
Oct 25, 2005
Messages
912
Location
Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico
At this point you may already know that you can Re-Calibrate your N64 Controller’s stick center by pressing L+R+start simultaneously while making sure to leave the stick centered in order to fix oddities like having your character moving forward by itself.

Now, have you ever wondered what happens if you don’t leave the stick centered while using the “calibration command” on the controller? Well I tested this yesterday while playing console SSB the results are really interesting. It seems one can completely manipulate the N64 controller stick’s center to make it behave “Improperly” and reproduce the “character moving by itself” effect/problem on the controller.

How to do it:

1.- at any moment while in game (title screen, menus, gameplay, etc) Hold L and R.
2.- Tilt the stick to any direction you wish and hold it.
3.- Press start (you do not need to hold it).
4.- Release L, R and the stick.

Note: as long as you Hold L and R the start button won’t have any effect on the games.

After that you should see that the stick behaves as if it you were holding the opposed direction that you held while recalibrating (up will make it go down, left will make it go right and so on). To reset your stick back to normal just L+R+Start while leaving the stick centered. Also tilting the stick slightly as possible but enough to make your character select cursor to move a little bit will give you the best results

How does this affect Smash? If we are able to manipulate the stick’s center we can basically make any chosen move to come out by just pressing A, that includes any of the directional aerials and tilts. Yes, now Kirby pivot uptilt just became is as easy to do as pivot jab (…)

However I do not know yet all of the side effects or repercussions that could happen by manipulating your controllers’s stick center during gameplay, it may be safe for your controller or you may end up messing it up. There’s also Pros and Cons of using stick center manipulation for smash:

Pros:
1.- many moves and techs may become potentialy are a lot easier to do
- Fast falling upair
- Platform drop upair
- Pivot uptilts
- Can dair without fast falling ever
- Retreating fair Reverse bair
- Can disable Tap/Stick Jump or Fast Falling
- and so on…

Cons: However it seems there are more cons of doing this and the first one should be very obvious by now.

1.- You can only manipulate the stick to one direction at a time.
2.- Accidental Pauses if attempting this trick during game, holding L and R will disable pausing with start so you have to always make sure you release start first then L and R.
3.- Can’t do smashes are harder to do on the chosen direction (faster pivot uptilts but not up smash for example) as the sticks needs to be on the current "center" before trying to input a smash attack.
4.- Can’t let go off letting go off the edge is harder but still posible by holding down-left or down-right, that is as long as you aren't setting your neutral to the bottom of the stick zone.
5.- Is hard to get the exact desired input, if you go all way down for example, Kirby and Jigglypuff will immediately exhaust all their jumps after the first midair jump.
6.- You can't use nair or jab unless you move your stick to the current "center" position.
7.- ftilts, fair and bair require to tilt the stick enough for your character to move forward or you'll just jab or nair anyway.
8.- There may be more...

I don’t know if this works on Hori or any other controllers through adapters as I do not have access to those devices to test but it seems to work on my USB adapter in Project64k. Try this trick at your own risk though, as I said before, I do not know if constant recalibration may mess up your controller in the short or long term It seems this calibration occurs naturally whenever you unplug your controller or turn off the N64 and should be safe to mess up with, however it is probably better not to attempt it in competitive play for now as you may end up accidentally pausing the game (and that’s a stock xDDDDD) unless you are really careful with the L+R+start imput.

I made a quick video demonstration about this if you want to skip the wall of text, (sorry for my poor english)
https://youtu.be/JbJTv8Hoaqs

What are you thoughts on this?

Thanks to Mitchell Meerman and Robert O'Connell for their contributions on this.
 
Last edited:

Uair

Banned via Warnings
Joined
Jun 16, 2015
Messages
580
I tried this but my sister keeps making me lag so I can't recalibrate my analog.
 
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