Do my sticks need fixing, or do I need practice?

Tech Talk
1

Hey, I haven’t been here in awhile but recently I’ve been trying to play some retro fighting games on either PS2 or Dreamcast, games like Street Fighter II or the original Marvel vs Capcom, and well… I’ve run into something.

Okay, I have two sticks: One was originally a Pelican Real Arcade which I gutted, replaced the PCB with an MC Cthulhu, replaced the stick and most of the buttons with Suzo-Happ parts, and took a wire from a PS2 controller for hooking it up to the system. The other stick I have is a straight out of the box, not-modded-at-all Tekken 5 Hori stick. I use a Total Control Plus whenever I want to use this for Dreamcast games, tho I own so many old compilations (SamSho Anthology, Fatal Fury Battle Archives, Capcom Classics etc) that I barely ever need to.

Anyway in my mind the litmus test for any stick is if you can perform all three of Ryu’s SFII moves flawlessly on demand. So recently, I load up SFII Champion Edition (I don’t have a version of Super Turbo that I trust–the CCC2 version is supposed to be buggy) and I find I can do them facing right, but facing left, the dragon punch rarely comes out right. This goes for both sticks. With Marvel vs. Capcom on Dreamcast I’ve found that in general I have trouble making moves come out at all with the Modded Pelican, but with the Hori I still have trouble with a left-facing Dragon Punch and even right-facing I often accidentally get a hadoken or a throw instead. One weird case is with the original Samurai Shodown, where I find moves easier to perform with the modded Pelican.

So at first–and partially because I really have had to do a lot of controller repairs recently (not on sticks tho)–I was like “guess its time to mod these sticks.”

But then I took a step back and wondered if maybe I’ve just gotten rusty and need practice. I seem to remember I used to be able to perform shoryukens fine with both, but then I stopped playing fighters for awhile. And a poor craftsman blames his tools, after all.

But I wanted to know what the experts thought. Should I just keep practicing with these and see if I get better, or do you really think the problem might be the sticks? What’s a good litmus test for this kind of thing?

Thank you in advance.

2

If anything you can disassemble your joysticks down to the microswitches and clean them off and lubricate your shafts. If it’s just for at-home play and you don’t want to invest a lot of money that should be all.

Having authentic Arcade parts would increase performance and durability but if you can’t FB/DP/Tatsu 100 out of 100 attempts on Hori knockoffs the the rust is just in your wrists not your sticks.

3

It’s nothing to do with the parts, you probably a little rusty

I can personally perform better on player 2 side because my older brother would always insist on being player 1 growing up

Play a few hours straight and it will come back to you

4

You’re rusty dude. Those older games don’t have the shortcuts and leniency that sf4 introduced to the fold. Just keep practicing and you’ll get better.

5

Thanks. To be honest I was hoping this would be the case.

I actually haven’t played SF4. Starting with the PS3/XB360 generation gaming became too rich for my blood (not to mention too many changes I’m leery of, like microtransactions or games existing only as digital media which is almost the same as not existing at all) so I tend to stick to the older stuff. I wasn’t aware SF4 introduced any leniency.