Gamepads are more comfortable than KBM.
Disregarding the subjective X is more comfortable than Y issue, the problem is that every pc in general has a keyboard and mouse, but a USB gamepad is a seperate entity that most (?) people don't have. I happen to have one and my biggest peeve is going "OH MAN NOW I HAVE TO GET UP AND HOOK IT UP, WHY BOTHER WHEN I CAN JUST KEEP USING THIS KEYBOARD THAT'S RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME.".
Doesn't help that everything else my computer does is keyboard-based, so I'm really just only hooking up the gamepad to play 1 game.
First, major change: pressing a DPAD direction won`t move you anywhere. You have to press A (while holding the direction) for that to happen. Sounds insane? Thought as much too. And yet...give it a whirl and it soon becomes a second nature. One thing, diagonal "problem" disappears. The other: it`s a lifesaver for a hotheaded players like me who kind of rush everywhere by just holding a direction, which is quite often suicidal. So, a safety lock of sorts.
ALTERNATIVELY, you can use the d-pad or whatever to orient your character, and then press A to move (one move per press) in the direction you're facing. Rotating your character doesn't take up a move. I think I remember Izuna (a jRL on the nintendo DS) using this system. I'd prefer it to [holding a direction and tapping the button] because it requires less buttons to do the action.
Worth noting that Izuna/Shiren/Journey to Farland (I'm just gonna call em jRLs from now on since they're pretty much consistent) have smaller rooms, and IF enemies have ranged attacks, they're in the 8 directions. So you can't shoot an arrow in an L-shape, like you can in a lot of roguelikes. Generally they feel as if they're more about tactical positioning (?) with a VERY heavy emphasis on fighting inside of corridors.
If you have an ipod touch (or whatever compatible device) there's also The Isle of 8 bit Treasures (
https://itunes.apple.com/nl/app/the-isle-of-8-bit-treasures/id336755042?mt=8).
It uses the ipod's touch screen with virtual controls (which is pretty garbage; can't beat tactile response).
It follows the jRL formula, but spices things up a LITTLE;
You can choose from the overworld which dungeon you want to tackle, unlocking more and harder dungeons as you beat previous ones. The goal is to dive a certain amount of floors and find a macguffin. En route you can pick up powerups (stun 1 enemy, do 1 elemental attack, do 1 screenwide elemental attack, heal, etc etc.). If you make it to the macguffin any powerups you're carrying are saved in a sort of bank, from which you can withdraw them to bring them with you to your next dungeoncrawl.
Also you can use your music library to generate your weapon, weapons in this game being a sort of roulette wheel with various specials.
So you could have a hammer with the on-hit effects of
[normal normal normal firey-swipe normal normal instakill normal stun-enemy normal heal-enemy normal].
I never thought about whether that was a good system, but it did make the game less boring just by being there.
