Afterglow Wave Wireless Controller review — Closing in on perfect

Third-party controllers are a dime a dozen and, because of poor experiences with them back in the PS2 and GameCube days, I tend to avoid them unless I trust the brand. While I wasn’t familiar with PDP before doing this review, they’ve already jumped high up on that list of trusted brands thanks to their Afterglow Wave Wireless Controller for Switch. The box boasts fantastical, prismatic RGB lighting, but what really makes this a controller worth using are the basics.

First, though, we need to talk about what’s in the box. Opening it up, you have the controller itself, some legal text, and that’s it. For any useful documentation, you need to scan a QR code on the back of the box which takes you to a 404 page. Not a great start, especially for a controller with specific button combinations to do certain things.

After finding the manual on the PDP website, it says that holding the triangle-shaped button near the bottom of the controller can do a few things. Pressing L or R in combination with it will change the type of RGB, from a solid color to a pulsing color or flowing rainbow, and even one which changes depending on the positions of the analog sticks. Pressing ZL or ZR will adjust the brightness of the lights, though this doesn’t work on the stick-changing type. Finally, on the solid or pulsing profile, holding left or right on the D-Pad will change the current color. There are quite a lot of colors and it’ll go through the whole spectrum while you hold the button.

This same triangle button allows you to program the two back buttons, which rest comfortably under your middle finger when holding the controller. By holding the triangle button and then pressing one of the back buttons, a light will begin to flash. If you press another button while it’s flashing, presto! That back button now functions exactly the same as that other button. I like to have these set as clicking in the sticks, as I find it makes it easier to press while still moving the stick if I need to.

This brings us to how the controller feels to use, and it’s largely positive. The buttons are large and clicky while not being loud or overly stiff, the sticks feel silky smooth and have a nice, textured grip, and the D-Pad allows you to rock it without feeling too loose. I tested the Afterglow Wave extensively, and it felt fantastic in just about any game I threw at it. Red Dead Redemption, Doom, Doom (2016), Mario Odyssey, Fire Emblem: Three Hopes, and even the recently released demo for Ys X: Nordics all felt fantastic. As a bonus, there were no erroneous D-Pad inputs like you may get on the official Switch Pro controllers, which is a bit pet peeve of mine.

This version of the Afterglow does have Gyro, and it feels exactly the same as it does on Pro Controllers. I tested this in Metroid Prime Remastered, Splatoon 3, and Tears of the Kingdom, and while initially, I thought it was too sensitive while playing Metroid, swapping over to the Pro revealed that it was simply my settings. Put simply, it feels really good to use.

It’s not quite as comfortable or fully featured as the Pro controllers, unfortunately, because if it was this would be my new go-to. The Wave is missing NFC, but the real kicker is the lack of vibration. I’m a huge fan of Nintendo’s HD Rumble, but missing even basic vibration functionality is very disappointing as it adds a lot to several games. Aside from those issues, the Home and Capture buttons are placed above and on the outside of the Plus and Minus buttons, which is opposite to how the Pro controllers place them. This has me constantly taking screenshots when I just want to look at the map in a lot of games. The Capture button is at least a different shape, but I still don’t think I’d ever get used to this layout.

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