So @ExarKunIv , just update emulationstation and it now magically works?? Sweet! And no, you were not alone! I actually thought my controller was defective because it was doing this same thing over several very different builds.

On RetroArch it's q and w - but please try and be more specific as RetroPie consists of many components that accept input. https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first