Bench 26 Six games tested across four input devices Rebinding audit on every review
Controls Remapped emblem Controls Remapped Reviewed at the input layer
A desk laid out for input testing with three controllers, a keyboard with keycaps removed, a flight stick and an adaptive switch box
Lead test · Bench 26

Splinter Arena Asks For Nine Simultaneous Inputs And Lets You Rebind Four Of Them

An excellent fighting game with a control scheme that assumes one kind of hand. We counted every input it demands, tried to rebind all of them, and mapped what is left for anyone the default layout does not fit.

Read the test All reviews
4 Devices per game Every title played on a standard pad, keyboard and mouse, a flight stick where relevant, and an adaptive switch box.
212 Games benched Running total since the first bench, each one with a full input count and a rebinding audit.
61% Fully rebindable Share of games benched that allow every action to be reassigned without editing a configuration file by hand.
9 Inputs at once The peak simultaneous input demand in this bench, recorded in Splinter Arena's late-game combos.
17 Held inputs Actions across the bench that require sustained holds with no toggle alternative offered anywhere.
0 Review copies Every game bought at retail, every device bought outright, no arrangements with anyone.
What a bench measures

A game is not one control scheme. It is a set of demands your hands either meet or do not.

Most reviews describe how a game feels to the reviewer. This one counts what the game asks for, in specific units, so you can work out whether it will ask that of you.

01

Input count

Every distinct action the game binds, and the peak number required simultaneously during normal play. Counted from the binding screen and verified in the hardest section we reached.

02

Rebinding audit

How much of the scheme can actually be reassigned in the menu. Actions locked out of rebinding are listed by name, because that list is what determines whether a game is usable.

03

Hold and timing load

Sustained holds, double-taps, charge inputs and anything with a timing window under 200 milliseconds, with a note on whether a toggle or assist alternative exists.

04

Device transfer

What survives the move from pad to keyboard to switch box. Some games are one scheme in three costumes; others quietly become a different game on different hardware.

Bench 26

Six games tested, two of them unplayable on a switch box without third-party software

Each entry lists the peak simultaneous input count, the share of actions that can be rebound, and the number of held inputs with no toggle alternative.

All reviews
Two stylised fighters squared off on a concrete rooftop under a deep red sky 7.9
Fighting

Splinter Arena

Superb at the top level and openly indifferent to hands that do not match the default. Nine inputs at peak, four of them locked out of rebinding entirely.

Peak 9Rebindable 44%Holds 5
A cloaked figure leaping between two red stone pillars above a grey chasm 8.6
Platformer

Red Pillars

Three buttons, everything rebindable, and a hold that can be switched to a toggle in two clicks. The cheapest good example in twenty-six benches.

Peak 3Rebindable 100%Holds 0
View over the grey engine cowling of a propeller aircraft towards distant blue mountains 8.1
Simulation

Updraft Line

Two hundred and six bindings, all of them reassignable, and a genuinely good scheme on a pad. The rare simulator that does not require a stick to be sane.

Peak 4Rebindable 100%Holds 2
Three figures in grey gear moving along a wet industrial gantry at dusk with red warning lights 6.4
Tactical

Gantry Nine

Good tactics, hostile hands. Lean, crouch and mark are all holds with no toggle, and the rebinding screen refuses six actions without explanation.

Peak 6Rebindable 62%Holds 7
05

Banner Plateau

Turn-based, mouse-first, and the only game in the bench that works identically on all four devices because it never asks for two inputs at once.

Peak 1 · 100% rebindable
06

Wet Circuit

Analogue throttle and brake done properly, then undermined by a menu that cannot see a switch box at all and a pit request bound to a chord.

Peak 5 · 78% rebindable

The finding that has held across two hundred and twelve games: rebinding is cheap and it is still missing

Full rebinding costs a developer perhaps two days of work in a menu that already exists. Thirty-nine per cent of the games benched still do not offer it, and in almost every case the actions locked out are the ones most likely to hurt: holds, chords and quick-time prompts.

None of this is about difficulty. A game is entitled to be hard. It is not obliged to be hard in exactly one physical shape.

  • 100% Everything reassignable in the menu
  • 70–99% Usable, with named exceptions
  • 40–69% Workable only with luck or software
  • 10–39% Effectively fixed scheme
  • Under 10% Take it or leave it
From the bench

Notes from people who tested alongside us

Each bench is run with three additional testers using their own hardware, and their notes go in unedited except for length.

Bench notes
■ ■ ■ ■ ■

The switch box test is the one nobody else runs. Two of the six games in this bench simply cannot see the device, and that fact does not appear in a single storefront description.

Tester on the adaptive boxBench 26, all six titles
■ ■ ■ ■ □

I have played fighting games for twenty years and Splinter Arena still hurt after ninety minutes. Counting the inputs made me realise it was not me being old, it was five holds stacked on one hand.

Tester on padSplinter Arena, 14 hours
■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Red Pillars is the argument. Three buttons, every one rebindable, a toggle for the only hold, and it is still the most demanding platformer here. Accessibility did not cost it anything.

Tester on keyboardRed Pillars, 22 hours