Victrix Pro KO Leverless Fighting Game Controller Review

I made the switch from pad to leverless controllers for fighting games a little more than a year ago, and while it didn’t magically transform me into a beastly fighting game god, it did help me overcome some personal plateaus. It helped me clean up my inputs in Street Fighter 6, leading to fewer accidental DP’s (aka the Dragon Punch input motion) and more consistent instant-air divekicks, ultimately helping me get all the way up to Master Rank; and in Tekken 8 it improved my movement, helping me push through the purple ranks and finally reach blue.

That was all with a standard 12 button leverless controller, and while I never thought that I’d ever need more buttons, the Victrix Pro KO Leverless makes a compelling argument for it. And it's among the best options for fighting games.

Right out of the box, the Victrix Pro KO makes the impression of an excellent leverless controller. It’s a little bit bigger than the Razer Kitsune at 13.35” x 9.23” x 0.80”, compared to the Kitsune’s dimensions of 11.66” x 8.27” x 0.75”, but still fits very snuggly in the laptop sleeve of my backpack, and has a very comfortable wrist slope to rest my hands on. The buttons themselves are fairly traditional 24mm arcade buttons, with a larger 30mm button for “up” or jump, and they all have a familiar “clacky” feel to them. It’s all fully customizable too, so if you have your own buttons that you’d prefer to use, they’re all easily swappable.

All of the other features you’d come to expect from a high quality leverless controller are accounted for as well: There’s a lock switch that prevents any of the top buttons from being pressed accidentally in a tournament style match where an accidental pause could lead to a disqualification; a switch on the side of the controller that lets you switch between PS5, PS4, or PC platforms; a headphone jack for patching sound through the controller; and a lock mechanism at the top to keep your USB-C plug from getting yanked out. All of these are great, necessary features for a modern day fighting game controller, whether it’s leverless or not, and the customizable lighting underneath the buttons is just extra icing on the cake.

That said, those little LED rings on the bottom of the buttons do lead to slightly less pressable surface area on each button, which made them feel small in comparison to something like the Kitsune, despite the fact that both buttons are the same size. It wasn’t a huge deal, and I eventually adjusted, but I still prefer the included buttons of the Kitsune a little bit better.

But the real selling point of the Pro KO are the extra spots for four more buttons, and how easy it is to plop one or more of them on. Initially, the four extra buttons have covers on them to avoid you accidentally pressing a button you don’t need. But when you’re ready to add a new button, you just flip the four lock switches on the back of the controller, pop off the aluminum top, grab the included tweezers to remove the caps, and replace them with one of the four included spare switches, buttons, and LED rings. The extra buttons and caps can be stored right within the controller, and when you’re done, it’s super easy to just pop the aluminum cover back on, move the switches back into the lock position, and you’re ready to go.

The extra buttons must be remapped in order for them to work properly, but thankfully this is easy on the controller itself by holding down the function button, pressing the spare button you wish to map, and then pressing the button you want to map it to. There’s also an app you can download that allows for deeper customization on PC.

As for what you might actually use those extra buttons for, I’ve found it to be extremely helpful in Street Fighter to have a button with a macro for pressing MP and MK at the same time, allowing me to do drive parries and drive rushes with the press of a single button, eliminating the need for me to shift both my index finger and thumb every time I want to hit that combo of buttons. Not to mention that it eliminates the possibility of pressing one button slightly before the other if both buttons need to be pressed at the same time.

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