RetroGaming

One if the better controllers I had for the Atari ST was the Quickshot Maverick 2 - it was rock solid, a good facsimile of an arcade controller, and took anything my younger hands could throw at it.

I had a Blaze controller for the PS1 that had a spring-loaded rotational control around the D-pad. Not a jogger style rotational dial like the JogCon, but one where you pushed it one way, and it returned itself to neutral, almost identical to the set up on the left half of this controller:

It was kinda cool and was designed for first person driving experiences to simulate "driving", but it just approximated analogue inputs rather than be natively be an analogue input, so games like Formula 1 '97 were still rock hard to play.

I used the official Final Fantasy XIV controller as a daily driver too and it's was brilliant, even if the drivers and configuration app was janky as anything.

I bought a replacement when the analogue sticks went tits up, but looking at their current price, maybe I'll keep hold of it in it's box...

I'm guess I'm the odd man out with this

In recent years I've gotten a couple 8BitDo controllers that I love.

As a kid though I think I had one Wildcat controller for the N64 that I felt was lucky, but besides that I was never even aware of what brand my controllers were, it was just whatever you could convince your parents to buy you.

My fav was the SNProgrampad

It was great because the 3 buttons that were around the diamond (a la GameCube) were programmable and supported macros. Made street fighter stupid easy.

I was a big fan of the ASCII Grip back in the Playstation 1 days. Used to sit in my room all night playing Final Fantasy Tactics with one hand, and chain-smoking with the other. Not the best time in my life, but at least the controller was top notch.

Define third party controller.

I have my Steel Battalion controller, which was required for the game. Best controller and gaming experience I have ever had. Worth every penny.

But does that count as a third party controller, especially since it can only play one game?

Regarding controllers that are more generic, I have found 8bitdo's Pro+ pretty good, but I am not fond of the joystick placement. I had an Xbox One knock off controller that had the layout of a WiiU Pro controller and I loved that, but it was wired only and that was disappointing. I had a Wii Classic controller that was styled like a WiiU Pro controller and I liked that too, but it was only a Wii classic controller, and couldnt be used on basically anything other than the Wii (the vapor console Coleco Chameleon used images of it for its controller).

I'm happy with the 8bitdo controllers I've picked up. They're great if you like the official controllers, but want something wireless.

The N64 Hori Pad or he SNES Scoremaster. Not sure if the Scoremaster counts, as it's an arcade stick but I really like how it looks like the console itself.

Were any ever good? Is somebody making good ones now for old systems?

I loved this thing as a kid https://www.oldschoolgamermagazine.com/crazy-controllers-the-super-pad-64/

Instead of three grips like a normal n64 controller, it had two. It combined the left and middle grips into one. So the d pad, analog stick, L, and Z buttons were all on one grip. I don't know how the economics would hold up today, but they were great for me back then.

It also had turbo buttons, which is always nice.

The Turbo Touch was ahead of its time. Had one for my Genesis. No more blisters.

The Mad Catz Dreampad for the Dreamcast is the only 3rd party controller I've ever encountered that's better than the original. Better grips, extra face buttons for fighters, a nicer analog stick. The whole thing just felt really high quality. The exact opposite of what you'd usually expect from Mad Catz.
Only issue is for whatever reason the white ones have a crooked d-pad. All the other colors are fine.

Negcon for the Playstation:

https://youtu.be/hUFbnfj2V1Y

The best 3rd party controllers I've had are the Logitech F310 for PC (any PC controller is technically 3rd party, right?) and some MadCatz thing for the N64... I can't remember the model number but they were almost identical to the stock 1st party controllers with two distinct differences: they were thicker and they had better joysticks.

For the latter, I loved them because of the stick not the thickness. Back in those days, my siblings and friends all played a lot of WWF and Mario Party and those games took a heavy toll on the springs in the N64 controller. Eventually after a few sessions, the first party sticks were loose as fuck and barely functioned. Those MadCatz pads, however, were sturdy as fuck. You could full-palm the stick all day, every day and it would still snap back to center perfectly.

NES Advantage although technically that's not a 3rd party.