Directional buttons

The directional buttons on the left Joy-Con

The directional buttons are the four blank, dark-gray buttons present on the left Joy-Con.

Overview

In normal gameplay, the directional buttons are the collective equivalent to the directional pad, which typically are to perform taunts. The up button performs an up taunt, the left and right buttons perform a side taunt, and the down button performs a down taunt. Pressing the left, up, and right buttons as a game is ending will also manually trigger its corresponding victory pose just like the D-pad.

When the left Joy-Con is used by itself, they change functionality to mirror the face buttons on the right Joy-Con. From the perspective of the Joy-Con held horizontally with the control stick on the left side, the right button becomes the A button and is used for standard attacks. The down button becomes the B button and is used for special moves. The up button becomes the X button while the left button becomes the Y button and they are used to jump. Clicking the control stick then pressing any directional button will perform their respective taunt.

In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, all four directional buttons can be remapped in the controls menu to perform other functions. Nintendo Switch hardware version 10.0.0 introduced the ability to map the functionality of any button to any other button from the console options menu, further diversifying how the directional buttons can be used in Ultimate.