Greentext

I disagree and point to Metroid Prime as the evidence. Mind you, it was still an amazing game, but it was despite its horrible control scheme (which was still closer to Goldeneye than the modern fps control schemes today).

Halo was the first game I remember having the better modern control scheme (outside of mouse + keyboard, where PC users lucked out that the obvious control scheme was the basis for any good ones, due to the much better precision of mouse aiming).

To be more specific, I mean the one stick moves while the other stick looks scheme. Metroid Prime used a one stick looks left and right, moves forward and back, hold down one button to strafe (with the same stick, around a locked on target), hold down another button to make that stick just look around. Goldeneye had the same basic stick scheme plus hold one button to look, but it was a bit better because it had buttons for straffing. Iirc, the up and down c buttons could be used to look up or down and hold it, which was useful when you were playing split screen against others who knew the levels as well as you did. Just look at the ceiling or floor and they can't just peek at your screen to tell where to go.

I recall awkward controls being a common thing on the GCN in general, I think due to their attempt to move away from the SNES button scheme entirely. If I had to rank their controllers, I'd only put the GCN controller over the NES (edges were all to sharp; those controllers hurt to use for a long time), Wii remotes (they look the worst IMO and I dislike that the IR gimmick means they have to be used to play Wii games on the Wii U instead of a better controller), and maybe a tie with the Switch controller (specifically the ones attached to the system when using only one half, because it's awkwardly small and can cause cramping over long periods of play, but it at least has the 4 buttons, which gets it the tie).

The best controllers are pretty much anything that follows the dual shock scheme. It's a great foundation. I think the PS5 did improve on it, and that the early xbox controllers did the scheme well but failed a bit on the shape (too bulky), but the good ones are all pretty much iterations of the PS2 controller.