When I first looked at the Nacon Pro Compact Colorlight, it felt a bit like nostalgia. Years ago, there seemed to be a massive trend in tech that every product had to be translucent so you could see all of the inner workings and components. Most notably, Nintendo with their N60 and Apple with some of their desktops, “see-through” tech was the thing to have. Well, this new Nacon controller is seemingly reaching after that lost trend, by making pretty much the entirety of the Pro Compact Colorlight out of clear plastic and adding a modern RGB twist. I must say though that while this controller definitely looks a bit funky, I’m not sure it’ll be for everyone’s taste.

Nacon has followed its Pro Compact design, keeping the controller nice and small for smaller hands. It follows the traditional Xbox design, with the off-centre right analogue stick, the A, B, X, Y buttons, a D-Pad on the left for your thumb and four shoulder buttons. You got Start and Select and an Xbox button in the centre, as well as the Upload button at the bottom. Around the back are two switches though to cycle through various RGB effects. These are a mixture of solid colours, fade effects and some incremental lighting. Nothing super flashy, but it does enable you to customise the controller to your liking.

Now though this is a wired controller, the Pro Compact Colorlight gives users a very generous three meters of cable length, which for me was WAY more than enough to reach around to the rear of my PC, and even across my living room from my sofa to games console located under the TV. The braided cable aids with snagging, and there is a USB Type-A on the end to plug into motherboards or front IO ports on PCs and consoles.

When it comes to how comfortable the controller is to use, for me it’s a bit of a mixed bag. Its size is the biggest problem for me. The handles aren’t as long as an official Xbox controller and it has a harsher curve towards the shoulder buttons making its overall height a little bit shorter too. For smaller hands, I can see it being perfect. I would have also liked to have seen some grippy silicon on the rear of the handles, just to give you a bit of stability during long gaming sessions. All buttons are very much reachable though which is great, and I never felt like I had to cramp my fingers to hit any action.

Nacon I think have done a great job with the Pro Compact Colorlight. It’s a well built controller with a very funky design. It’s not for my taste personally, and it’s not the best for the size of my hands either. But if you’re someone who appreciates funky looking tech, and have hands on the smaller size, then it could be a decent wired controller for you. I mean, at least it’s more interesting than the usual second controller that Player 2 would usually use during a bit of couch co-op. But if RBG and see-through tech isn’t your thing, Nacon do offer the Pro Compact in white and black too. It’ll set you back around £40 from various online retailers which for a controller isn’t a bad price at all, especially for one with this build quality.