Review: CRKD NEO S Purple Wave Edition Switch Controller – Fine For Fortnite Festival, But Not So Rockin’ Elsewhere
It’s not every controller review that we have to start with a rundown of the current state of Fortnite, but bear with us, we promise it’s relevant.
The classic looting and shooting that we all know and love is now just a small part of the “Fortnite ecosystem” *squirms*, a hub-world for games that bundle the battle royale in with the survival sim LEGO Fortnite, the racer Rocket Racing, and the Rock Band-esque rhythm game, Fortnite Festival.
Most of these games are comfortably played with a Pro Controller/Joy-Con. Most of them. A falling notes rhythm game from Guitar Hero originators and Rock Band dev Harmonix was never meant to be played with a D-Pad and buttons and after a few performances in Fortnite Festival, our poor aching joints chalked the mode up to some nostalgic fun, but a ticking time-bomb for future bouts of arthritis.
Accessory manufacturer PDP Gaming released the Riffmaster guitar controllers shortly after Fortnite Festival launched, but they are compatible only with PlayStation or Xbox, so Switch gamers were stuck if we wanted to relive the Rock Band days.
That is until CRKD revealed the Fortnite Festival-themed NEO S Purple Wave Edition controller. Complete with a five-fret Festival Attachment, this pad promised to be the way to play Fortnite’s rhythm game mode on Switch while also doubling as an everyday controller for your other gaming needs.
After going hands-on with the NEO S for the past week, we can confirm that it hits exactly one of these briefs. This is undoubtedly the best way to experience Fortnite Festival on Switch — heck, we’d argue that it’s the only way — but as a controller for wider play, it’s in desperate need of some fine-tuning.
Out of the box, this thing is… purple. Sure, the design is a little in your face, but, bar the big Fortnite Festival icon in the middle, we’re rather fond of the wavy decals and chrome analogue stick bases. A little rock ‘n’ roll pizazz.
We’ll start with the controller’s headline act: the Fortnite Festival attachment. This five-button addition clips onto the bottom and, when the pad’s held sideways, makes the whole thing vaguely reminiscent of a Guitar Hero neck and its iconic coloured frets. We were immediately struck by just how much the pad reminded us of the Band Hero DS accessory from 20 years ago, with its lower row of buttons and rectangular form not too dissimilar in shape and size from the clamshell peripheral.
Much like its DS counterpart, the NEO S attachment is the best way to play any falling-notes game mode — while a full-blown guitar controller remains unavailable, that is. The accessory is quick to connect to the controller (attached via metal ‘jacks’ on the bottom and held in place by a frame that clips to the top) and can immediately be used in the Fortnite Festival game mode. You can hold all five frets to trigger a shortcut that changes the difficulty between tracks, too.
But, as anyone who rocked out on DS back in the day will tell you, that thing cramped up your hands like there’s no tomorrow, and the NEO S’ Festival attachment is no different. Whether palming the controller in one hand with the included velcro strap to hold it in place or using our other hand as support, the NEO S’ width and small fret buttons make jamming out far from a comfortable experience. We lasted only a handful of songs before needing a pretty serious stretch. The controller’s width would strain hands smaller than ours from reaching around it, while the small buttons would be a nightmare for anyone with larger fingers.
CRKD stresses that the controller’s attachment can be used for rhythm games other than Fortnite Festival — it ultimately just maps different inputs to the five frets — though we struggled to think of anywhere the Guitar Hero-style fret format would be genuinely beneficial. Theatrhythm Final Bar Line came close with its timings, but the required directional inputs made holding the NEO S like a guitar neck less than ideal. Even games closer to the Guitar Hero structure like MUSYNX and VOEZ have their own quirks that make other inputs preferable.
What we’re saying is, the Fortnite Festival controller is best used on Fortnite Festival. What a shock.
But this is a controller for wider play, too. The Festival attachment can be easily removed, leaving the controller free for any other gaming that tickles your fancy. Indeed, with Hall Effect sticks, programmable back buttons, rumble support and motion controls, it’s one of the more feature-rich third-party offerings out there — and at £59.99 (the same as Nintendo’s official Pro pad), you’d expect it to be. But those features can’t overcome a central problem: that flat rectangular shape is so darn uncomfortable to play with.
The NEO S boasts two marginally-raised sections on the rear — a vague attempt to be ergonomic, we guess — but the flat design feels too cramped for extended playtimes. With nothing to hold on to, our fingers sat clumped against the rear buttons, forcing our wrists ever-so-slightly out of their ‘normal’ gaming position. It wasn’t a particular nuisance for shorter sessions, or for games that relied on classic D-Pad and button inputs over stick and trigger ones (let’s not forget that both the NES and SNES had a similarly flat controller design), but we wouldn’t recommend heading into any Splatfests with this one in your arsenal.
It was during our time using the controller for Splatoon 3 that we noticed the motion controls leave much to be desired. While the NEO S had no issues registering our spinning movements on the x-axis, the y-axis range felt limited, with our Octoling unable to look more than a few inches up or down before the controller stopped registering the tilting. We had the same issues aiming our arrows in Tears of the Kingdom — Link had no problems taking on enemies beside him, but god forbid if you want to get the crosshairs on an oncoming Keese.
The rest of the controls are fine. The triggers and face buttons feel a little cheap in their shiny plastic material (particularly at this price point), but CRKD’s tie-in app packs a decent amount of accessibility customisation where you can adjust rumble, trigger activation points, and dead zones, and remap every button — something you’ll want to do immediately if you want to get rid of the default, non-Nintendo face-button layout. The app continues the company’s slightly icky ‘FOMO’ approach to marketing, where each controller can be scanned so you know its rarity and can collect ’em all, but that’s a discussion for another day.
CRKD NEO S Purple Wave Edition Review – The Verdict
All in all, the CRKD NEO S Purple Wave Edition achieves its ultimate goal of providing Switch players with an alternative and undoubtedly easier way of playing Fortnite Festival — though one that’s still far from the comfort of using a full guitar controller — but we can’t help but feel that’s an increasingly niche market.
Those who want to play Fortnite Festival in comfort should probably do so elsewhere (like on a system where PDP’s accessories are available), and those who don’t have far better wireless controller options on the market that boast near-identical features, are cheaper, and come in far more comfortable designs. Please don’t ask for an encore; we’re not sure that our joints can take another song.
Please note that some external links on this page are affiliate links, which means if you click them and make a purchase we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Please read our FTC Disclosure for more information.
It's not every controller review that we have to start with a rundown of the current state of Fortnite, but bear with us, we promise it's relevant.
The classic looting and shooting that we all know and love is now just a small part of the "Fortnite ecosystem" *squirms*, a hub-world for games that bundle the battle royale in with the survival sim LEGO Fortnite, the racer Rocket Racing, and the Rock Band-esque rhythm game, Fortnite Festival.
Most of these games are comfortably played with a Pro Controller/Joy-Con. Most of them. A falling notes rhythm game from Guitar Hero originators and Rock Band dev Harmonix was never meant to be played with a D-Pad and buttons and after a few performances in Fortnite Festival, our poor aching joints chalked the mode up to some nostalgic fun, but a ticking time-bomb for future bouts of arthritis.
Accessory manufacturer PDP Gaming released the Riffmaster guitar controllers shortly after Fortnite Festival launched, but they are compatible only with PlayStation or Xbox, so Switch gamers were stuck if we wanted to relive the Rock Band days.
That is until CRKD revealed the Fortnite Festival-themed NEO S Purple Wave Edition controller. Complete with a five-fret Festival Attachment, this pad promised to be the way to play Fortnite's rhythm game mode on Switch while also doubling as an everyday controller for your other gaming needs.
After going hands-on with the NEO S for the past week, we can confirm that it hits exactly one of these briefs. This is undoubtedly the best way to experience Fortnite Festival on Switch — heck, we'd argue that it's the only way — but as a controller for wider play, it's in desperate need of some fine-tuning.
Out of the box, this thing is... purple. Sure, the design is a little in your face, but, bar the big Fortnite Festival icon in the middle, we're rather fond of the wavy decals and chrome analogue stick bases. A little rock 'n' roll pizazz.
We'll start with the controller's headline act: the Fortnite Festival attachment. This five-button addition clips onto the bottom and, when the pad's held sideways, makes the whole thing vaguely reminiscent of a Guitar Hero neck and its iconic coloured frets. We were immediately struck by just how much the pad reminded us of the Band Hero DS accessory from 20 years ago, with its lower row of buttons and rectangular form not too dissimilar in shape and size from the clamshell peripheral.
Much like its DS counterpart, the NEO S attachment is the best way to play any falling-notes game mode — while a full-blown guitar controller remains unavailable, that is. The accessory is quick to connect to the controller (attached via metal 'jacks' on the bottom and held in place by a frame that clips to the top) and can immediately be used in the Fortnite Festival game mode. You can hold all five frets to trigger a shortcut that changes the difficulty between tracks, too.
But, as anyone who rocked out on DS back in the day will tell you, that thing cramped up your hands like there's no tomorrow, and the NEO S' Festival attachment is no different. Whether palming the controller in one hand with the included velcro strap to hold it in place or using our other hand as support, the NEO S' width and small fret buttons make jamming out far from a comfortable experience. We lasted only a handful of songs before needing a pretty serious stretch. The controller's width would strain hands smaller than ours from reaching around it, while the small buttons would be a nightmare for anyone with larger fingers.
CRKD stresses that the controller's attachment can be used for rhythm games other than Fortnite Festival — it ultimately just maps different inputs to the five frets — though we struggled to think of anywhere the Guitar Hero-style fret format would be genuinely beneficial. Theatrhythm Final Bar Line came close with its timings, but the required directional inputs made holding the NEO S like a guitar neck less than ideal. Even games closer to the Guitar Hero structure like MUSYNX and VOEZ have their own quirks that make other inputs preferable.
What we're saying is, the Fortnite Festival controller is best used on Fortnite Festival. What a shock.
But this is a controller for wider play, too. The Festival attachment can be easily removed, leaving the controller free for any other gaming that tickles your fancy. Indeed, with Hall Effect sticks, programmable back buttons, rumble support and motion controls, it's one of the more feature-rich third-party offerings out there — and at £59.99 (the same as Nintendo's official Pro pad), you'd expect it to be. But those features can't overcome a central problem: that flat rectangular shape is so darn uncomfortable to play with.
The NEO S boasts two marginally-raised sections on the rear — a vague attempt to be ergonomic, we guess — but the flat design feels too cramped for extended playtimes. With nothing to hold on to, our fingers sat clumped against the rear buttons, forcing our wrists ever-so-slightly out of their 'normal' gaming position. It wasn't a particular nuisance for shorter sessions, or for games that relied on classic D-Pad and button inputs over stick and trigger ones (let's not forget that both the NES and SNES had a similarly flat controller design), but we wouldn't recommend heading into any Splatfests with this one in your arsenal.
It was during our time using the controller for Splatoon 3 that we noticed the motion controls leave much to be desired. While the NEO S had no issues registering our spinning movements on the x-axis, the y-axis range felt limited, with our Octoling unable to look more than a few inches up or down before the controller stopped registering the tilting. We had the same issues aiming our arrows in Tears of the Kingdom — Link had no problems taking on enemies beside him, but god forbid if you want to get the crosshairs on an oncoming Keese.
The rest of the controls are fine. The triggers and face buttons feel a little cheap in their shiny plastic material (particularly at this price point), but CRKD's tie-in app packs a decent amount of accessibility customisation where you can adjust rumble, trigger activation points, and dead zones, and remap every button — something you'll want to do immediately if you want to get rid of the default, non-Nintendo face-button layout. The app continues the company's slightly icky 'FOMO' approach to marketing, where each controller can be scanned so you know its rarity and can collect 'em all, but that's a discussion for another day.
CRKD NEO S Purple Wave Edition Review - The Verdict
All in all, the CRKD NEO S Purple Wave Edition achieves its ultimate goal of providing Switch players with an alternative and undoubtedly easier way of playing Fortnite Festival — though one that's still far from the comfort of using a full guitar controller — but we can't help but feel that's an increasingly niche market.
Those who want to play Fortnite Festival in comfort should probably do so elsewhere (like on a system where PDP's accessories are available), and those who don't have far better wireless controller options on the market that boast near-identical features, are cheaper, and come in far more comfortable designs. Please don't ask for an encore; we're not sure that our joints can take another song.
Please note that some external links on this page are affiliate links, which means if you click them and make a purchase we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Please read our FTC Disclosure for more information.
