I know where you’re coming from man. I was worried about that when I bought my HRAP2:SA. Then I realized that after I threw out the retail box and the shipping boxes, my room got a lot bigger and I had room for it. You guys who are waiting for the MadCatz FightStick Tournament Edition have it made in that department though in terms of portability and space saving. It’s got a freaking compartment to store the cord! Now that’s nifty!
Just kidding? No need to kid my friend! It’s been done by SRK’s own Big Pockets!
Well, if you’re looking for a PS2 6 face button pad, then you could opt for the Nubytech Street Fighter 15th Anniversary pads. They’re not actually that bad, though the D-pad is a far cry from the godliness that is the Saturn pad. However, compared to say a DualShock 2, I’d much rather play on an SFA pad. I own one myself and I like it quite a bit, especially when friends are over. Many people seem to complain about how crappy the positioning of the Start and Select buttons are, but frankly, if you’re not mashing, I don’t see any reason why you’d hit those buttons.
According to the official Saturn USB pad thread, the USB Saturn pads have been confirmed to perform equally to the official ones made for the Saturn and the USB ones that Sega printed a while back. It’s still being debated as to whether or not the current batches on eBay are officially made by SEGA or if they’re 3rd party clones, but everyone in that thread testifies that even if they’re 3rd party clones, they’re so similar to the real thing that they’d pass an official SEGA inspection of authenticity if the case ever arose. I doubt you’ll be disappointed.
I can see where you all are coming from on that stance, but in defense of the disc-mounted D-pad design, it’s a hell of a lot easier to do extensive rotational motions than say on a regular cross D-pad or on the Playstation line’s segmented D-pad (which, might I add, is just freaking uncomfortable when playing Fei-Long) since it’s a more uniform material you’re running your thumb across rather than having your thumb rub through the edges of cross-pads. It also lets you specifically “feel out” the diagonals present on the pad itself since those areas are indented. Granted, in that respect, cross pads are better to “feel out” the diagonal, but it doesn’t help that it tears up a normal thumb after a while.
Frankly, I’m of the opinion that as long as you can actually feel the direction you’re hitting, it’s a great D-pad. That’s the biggest gripe I have with post-DualShock 1 Sony pads and actually the SNES and GC D-pads. On them, it’s really hard to just feel the diagonal being hit whereas on a Saturn pad, you not only feel it in your fingers, but you hear an audible click. If it just feels like mushy rubber, then I personally can’t perform at all on it regardless of whether or not it is disc shaped or not.
Understandable, but when I play on a pad very rarely do my thumbs go near the edges of the d-pad for inputs. I keep my thumb stationary in the middle and slide to the edges. For a 360 I just keep my thumb in the middle of the pad and roll on the edges closest to the middle.
If the D-pad itself was raised higher than the diagonals a bit more I’d be more accepting, but they have a concave pad with the diagonals filled in and that is unacceptable to me. no different than a normal 360 pad.
I totally understand that argument you bring up as well. I’m not a huge fan of the original Xbox or the Xbox 360’s D-pads myself, but for me, it wasn’t so much the shape of the pads as it is, again, the response I receive from pressing it down. It feels way too much like I’m pressing into something squishy like cheap rubber or some kind of foam as opposed to a good responsive set of rubber contacts. It’s the same reason why I hate the DS Lite/DSi’s D-pads whenever I play Guilty Gear X Advance Edition and why I absolutely love the Saturn pad and the Classic Controller’s D-pads for playing games.
On a different note, that’s a really unique way to do 360s on a cross-pad. I can see it working for like a SNES or N64 cross-pad, but does it really work all that well for the Sony line’s segmented-pad? I’d imagine that’d be extremely uncomfortable.
So far my favorite is the cheap blue logitechs with the “wobbly” dpad.
But I’ve never tried a Saturn or the Neogeopad(man does that looks sweet! like a stick/pad hybrid).
Do we know which version of the dpad is final? The one in the amazon pictures or those new ones that surfaced not to long ago(the ones that have SF2 on them)…
Wow, I haven’t been here in a while. Gotta keep the pad playing tradition alive!
I’m fairly certain the version on the newly surfaced SSFIITHDR pads are the ones that are going to be on the final model. At least, I’m fairly certain. Regardless, we’re still going to end up with a disc-mounted cross as the final D-pad design. As for feel, again, I’m fairly confident these things will be worthwhile since MarkMan himself says they can fight toe-to-toe with the Saturn Model 2 (or Japan version) pad.
Syke1, I totally agree with both your sentiments (I’m a Smasher too! :rock:). The PS2 DualShock 2 is probably the greatest controller ever invented for basically anything. D-Pad, two analog sticks, 4 pressure sensitive buttons, four pressure sensitive shoulder buttons, two digital buttons on the analog sticks, and Start, Select, and Analog? My god, I don’t know about you guys, but the only thing that can top this analogous monstrosity is the Colecovision Roller Controller, with 28 buttons, 2 joysticks, and a trackball. But, I still say the N64 pad or the Saturn Model 2 pad is the greatest for fighters.
Agreed. But for my DC, I use a six-button mad-catz controller and use the standard DC controller for games like Marvel.
As for arcade sticks, I like using the ASCII for the saturn with a hookup that allows it to be compatible with the DC. Pure ownage.
The PS2 controller is great for SNK games but bad for Street Fighter games, except for Street Fighter EX3 for some reason. It just feels comfortable somehow.
My ps2 dpad broke playing 3s on the internet. One of the four directions somehow broke off from the rest which sucked. Hasn’t happened to me with any ps1 pad.