{"id":137611,"date":"2026-06-15T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/#article-202552"},"modified":"2026-06-15T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T12:00:00","slug":"review-retro-fighters-battle-dock-for-switch-2-time-to-dig-out-those-old-gamecube-pads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2026\/06\/15\/review-retro-fighters-battle-dock-for-switch-2-time-to-dig-out-those-old-gamecube-pads\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Retro Fighters Battle Dock For Switch 2 &#8211; Time To Dig Out Those Old GameCube Pads"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/c2970daef182b\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/c2970daef182b\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<figure class=\"picture\" data-uuid=\"c2970daef182b\"><a class=\"scanlines\" title=\"Review: Retro Fighters Battle Dock For Switch 2 - 1\" href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/c2970daef182b\/review-retro-fighters-battle-dock-for-switch-2-1.large.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/c2970daef182b\/review-retro-fighters-battle-dock-for-switch-2-1.900x.jpg\" width=\"900\" height=\"507\" alt=\"Review: Retro Fighters Battle Dock For Switch 2 - 1\"><\/a><figcaption class=\"caption\"><em class=\"credit\"><span class><\/span> Image: Damien McFerran \/ Nintendo Life<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>If you crave the authentic feel of a GameCube controller in your hands while playing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/gamecube\/legend_of_zelda_the_wind_waker\">Zelda: Wind Waker<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/gamecube\/f-zero_gx\">F-Zero GX<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/gamecube\/soulcalibur_ii\">SoulCalibur II<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/guides\/every-nintendo-switch-online-gamecube-game-on-switch-2-ranked\">Nintendo Switch Online<\/a>, then Nintendo has you covered \u2013 for a price.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2025\/06\/the-switch-2-gamecube-controller-has-gyro-and-a-better-d-pad\">The &#8216;Nintendo Classics&#8217; wireless GameCube pad replica<\/a> is great, but it&#8217;s not cheap \u2013 and, if you want to get the maximum number of players on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/gamecube\/mario_smash_football\">Super Mario Strikers<\/a>, things become even more expensive.<\/p>\n<p>But what if you want to use your original wired GameCube pads from yesteryear? Well, there are already options on the market for that, with the best arguably being <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2025\/04\/icymi-switch-2-gamecube-controller-adapter-compatibility-confirmed\">Nintendo&#8217;s official adapter<\/a>, first released for Wii U but also compatible with the original Switch and Switch 2.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"gallery\"><figcaption class=\"caption\"><em class=\"credit\"><span class><\/span> Images: Damien McFerran \/ Nintendo Life<\/em><\/figcaption><\/aside>\n<p>Another option has arrived this year in the form of the Retro Fighters Battle Dock, a device which effectively replicates what the official (and no longer manufactured) GameCube adapter does.<\/p>\n<p>While it&#8217;s called the Battle Dock, it isn&#8217;t a replacement for your existing Switch 2 dock \u2013 instead, it connects to it via a cable with two USB-A connectors and one USB-C connector. The USB-A pair plug into your Switch 2 dock&#8217;s dual ports, while the USB-C end goes into the Battle Dock. The Switch 2 dock then sits inside a shelf on the Battle Dock, effectively creating a neat &#8216;whole&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s worth noting that, while the Battle Dock&#8217;s shell has been designed to accommodate the Switch 2, you can actually use it with the original Switch dock, too, thanks to the fact that the <em>really<\/em> important thing here is that aforementioned USB connection between the two \u2013 but you can&#8217;t slot the Switch 1 dock inside the Battle Dock itself, so it doesn&#8217;t look as neat.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"gallery\"><figcaption class=\"caption\"><em class=\"credit\"><span class><\/span> Images: Damien McFerran \/ Nintendo Life<\/em><\/figcaption><\/aside>\n<p>On the front of the Battle Dock, you&#8217;ll find four GameCube controller ports, allowing you to plug in your original wired pads for super low-latency play. These ports, as you&#8217;d expect, also support the Wavebird and other modern wireless pads, like Retro Fighters&#8217; own <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.timeextension.com\/reviews\/retro-fighters-battlergc-pro-time-to-finally-retire-your-gamecubes-wavebird\">BattlerGC<\/a> controller.<\/p>\n<p>Also included in the box are four different faceplates, each matching a different GameCube console colour. The default is Jet Black, but you also get Spice Orange, Indigo, and Platinum Silver. These clip on with a set of magnets and are easy to replace (almost <em>too<\/em> easy, in fact; I kept accidentally knocking off the faceplate when interacting with the dock).<\/p>\n<p>The Battle Dock is the very definition of plug-and-play, and it takes little effort to get it up and running. The big issue when comparing this to the Nintendo Classics wireless GameCube pad is pretty obvious \u2013 if you&#8217;re using wired pads, then you&#8217;ll almost certainly need to either reposition the dock or sit closer to your TV, thanks to those pesky old-world cables.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"gallery\"><figcaption class=\"caption\"><em class=\"credit\"><span class><\/span> Images: Damien McFerran \/ Nintendo Life<\/em><\/figcaption><\/aside>\n<p>Another downside is that the GameCube pad lacks &#8216;Home&#8217; and &#8216;Minus&#8217; buttons, so you can&#8217;t use those buttons to invoke menus and the like. Therefore, you&#8217;ll need to ensure you have a Joy-Con or Pro Controller handy for dropping back to the Switch 2&#8217;s Home screen. There&#8217;s not much Retro Fighters can do about this, but it can still be an annoyance.<\/p>\n<p>On the upside, for $40 you can unlock the potential of your existing controllers without having to shell out for new ones, and the wired connection means virtually no input lag.<\/p>\n<p>If you absolutely have to have the proper GameCube controller experience when playing on your Switch 2, then this is a solid purchase, especially for such a reasonable price. It&#8217;s arguably the perfect way to play <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/super_smash_bros_ultimate\">Smash Bros. Ultimate<\/a>, and, when Nintendo does eventually release <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/gamecube\/super_smash_bros_melee\">Smash Melee<\/a> on Nintendo Switch Online, I&#8217;d imagine the Battle Dock will become even more desirable.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"positive-negative\">\n<ul class=\"positives\">\n<li>Use your old GameCube controllers on Switch 2<\/li>\n<li>Low-latency connection<\/li>\n<li>Also supports wireless pads, like Wavebird<\/li>\n<li>Also works with Switch 1, but not quite as elegantly<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul class=\"negatives\">\n<li>Wired connection means you might have to move your dock away from the TV<\/li>\n<li>Magnetic face plates are easy to knock off accidentally<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/aside>\n<aside class=\"scoring rating\">\n<p class=\"score\"><span class=\"accent\">Great<\/span> <span class=\"value accent\">8<\/span>\/<span class=\"best\">10<\/span><\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p class=\"disclaimer\">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 <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/advertising\">FTC Disclosure<\/a> for more information.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"article-products article-products-list\">\n<div class=\"items\">\n<div class=\"item\" data-product-id=\"31713\">\n<div class=\"image\"><a class=\"external\" rel=\"sponsored noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/nintendolife.com\/p\/31713\/202552\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/products\/31713\/100x100.png\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Battle Dock for Switch2\"><\/a><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"item\" data-product-id=\"31712\">\n<div class=\"image\"><a class=\"external\" rel=\"sponsored noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/nintendolife.com\/p\/31712\/202552\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/products\/31712\/100x100.png\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Battle Dock Switch 2\"><\/a><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p><!-- cache: html:nintendolife.com\/ssl\/gamecube\/related-articles:137532,88668,198897 @ 1781550231 --><\/p>\n<aside class=\"block object-related\"> <\/aside>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image: Damien McFerran \/ Nintendo Life If you crave the authentic feel of a GameCube controller in your hands while playing Zelda: Wind Waker, F-Zero GX and SoulCalibur II on Nintendo Switch Online, then Nintendo has you covered \u2013 for a price. The &#8216;Nintendo Classics&#8217; wireless GameCube pad replica is great, but it&#8217;s not cheap [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}