Hey guys, I’ve been a long time lurker and now I need some help.
I currently have very shotty Hori Wireless Fight Stick 3 for my play station three. The same stick I used to have that came with my tekken bundle ages ago.
Now I realize it’s a bunk stick and I’m selling it to my friend, and in it’s place I’m buying a stick I can easily mod, so I have some questions.
Is it worth it to mod my current Wireless FS-3? Will an JLF Octa gate fit it?
I wanted sanwa buttons and stick out of the box to prevent too much modding other than an Octa gate. I’m very new to the fight stick scene and I’ve grown weary of my input consistency on my 4gate stick. Doing anything that involves a z movement for a Shoryuken or anything that it involves is hard unless I play for hours practicing, and then I lose the movement in a couple of days of not playing. I played on a friends Octa gate stick and I never missed an input.
Thank you for reading an I hope to be a more active part of these forums now. :woot:
For you to be looking to buy a stick, and to completely be closed to the option of a TE stick just because it is madcatz is pretty ignorant.
You want Sanwa stick/buttons. The TE sticks have those. Read around about them… even top players can agree that for a madcatz product, the TE sticks are of great great quality.
I can understand if you are new to sticks that getting one from Madcatz may sound crazy as their stuff in the past hasn’t been the best.
The TE stick really is good though… Easy to open, easy to mod, and are IMO perfect in size/weight… If you can somehow try one out if you are doubtful I encourage you to do so.
Those horis are real popular too…
Best advice I think is to try them out if you can.
Yeah, I work at a gamestop and everything Madcatz I stay away from. I guess I’ll see if I can find a TE edition stick. So they come with a Sanwa JLF Joystick and Sanwa buttons?
I think the TE is probably the best mass produced stick you can buy with regard to weight and comfort. It doesn’t hold a candle to my maple Bobobo-bo-bo-bobo stick, but then again, nothing does.
The Mad Catz TE sticks use the same Sanwa parts that the upper-line Hori RAP series use (the SA sticks at any rate).
Put a gun to my head, I’ll tell you the Mad Catz sticks are generally easier to service and mod than the Hori’s are.
Stay away from the Mad Catz SE (unless you plan to upgrade the parts) and the even crummier Hori Fighting Stick line.
The Hori FS is probably the worst mass-production joystick (made be a decent company) that you regularly see in stores. Absolutely not worth modding and it breaks easily with extended play…
Well the worth factor is completely up to you… There are folks here that will mod ANYTHING just for the sake of modding… (this IS tech talk lol)
I really think you will be happy with a TE… You will like it even more when you decide you want your own custom art and buttons on it too to make it your own… It’s a slippery slope though… Before you know it, you may find yourself with a lot of sticks lol
Isn’t there a sticky in this section about the general description of the available sticks and general cost range?
Anyway, for some reason Hori didn’t bother to catch up with the times when releasing the Fighting Stick V3/VX. They still retain the same problems as the previous line-up(soldiering, major grinding to fit a custom stick, etc) for a small light stick whereas Madcatz’s SE stick can be easily modded but you’re still stuck with a small light stick.
Once you get over the $100 mark, generally all the sticks in that range will play the same being that they should all be Sanwa parts standard along with the same button layout(Vewlix for anything recently) whereas older Hori Real Arcade Pro sticks are Sega Astro City button layout.
TE Stick: Standardized arcade stick. Yes Madcatz has had a history of poor products and quality control but ever since they’re released their SE/TE/Fightpad series of equipment, their level of detail and quality has made them quite reputable. You shouldn’t have any problem.
HRAP V series: The original brand in trust worthy sticks. Weighing slightly lighter than the TE stick(probably 2 inches wider than the TE stick, my Q3 is just about the width of a TE stick), I prefer the wider form factor along with all all the buttons and notches on the face of the stick as well as the Start button being slightly to the right of the buttons(hate the start and select buttons on the back of the stick). These are a lot less lightly to have problems when compared to TE sticks(IMO).
Qanba Q(2, 3, EX and EMP) series: Lesser known company from China pumping out some serious sticks. For almost the same price of the TE or HRAP stick, you get much more than them;
-Sanwa standard parts
-easily modded
-wood case(weight is preference, I like heavier sticks)
-thick plexi-glass
Til this day after frequently using different sticks, I prefer my Qanba Q3 and VLX. I had a SE and HRAP V3, I only needed 2 sticks so I sold the SE and HRAP V3.
Of course, if you had a means to trial the TE and HRAP stick I would tell you to do that and go with whichever you feel more comfortable with. I would personally go with a HRAP V3(if I could do it again, I would get the VX because it would be dual modded like my two other sticks and it’s cleaner and cheaper to dual mod along with the mic jack).
twiddles thumbs That’s how my addiction started =(
But yeah, seriously. I swear by the TE, great piece of kit if you’re looking for something to last without the hassle of modding it.
Hori sticks make me want to kill with the modding ease in comparison.
i have a TE and an HRAP3 SA and i like the feel of the hrap3 only slightly more than the TE… buttons and stick feel exactly the same but the placement of the buttons are a little better on the hrap3 sa in my opinion… however the TE just looks a whole lot cooler (i have the mvc2 version)…
this is just my personal preference and the HRAP3 wins by a hair… i’m sure whichever one u choose to go with you’ll be happy with =)
I didn’t say the FS series was shitty! (Maybe implied it , but I’ve got a Hori Wii FS which is the same thing and I can tell you the unmodded version of it IS shit…)
Modding the Hori FS series is involved… not nearly as much plastic cutting as an Agetec case but the end result left me feeling it wasn’t worth it. The FS case is very tight on space and unless you buy a really small replacement PCB, you’ll be doing a bit of fancy of button contorsion (Sanwa or Seimitsu – they take up the same space below the faceplate) since there’s not a of room to put in Quick Disconnect lines. You have to bend the button terminals 90degrees to fit the QD’s well and resurface the inner face of the baseplate with the electrical tape so that if your original PCB doesn’t short if it touches.
Yeah, for me, the deal breaker is the marginal internal space in the FS case.
Agetec, TE, and HRAP cases have a lot more room for internal modifications.
The main reasons some people go ahead and mod FS cases are because they love the case style (I find it generic unless you get interesting faceplate art), OR because they hate lugging their TE’s and HRAP’s to fight cons.
Even manly men drag their Arcana Heart sticks to fight cons instead of their pee-wee sticks!
(Yes, that’s a joke.)
So you like the Qanba Q3? How does that compare to the Empire Arcadia I was looking at?
And just to be doubly sure, the Madcatz TE stick can be easily fitted with an Octagonal gate? My inputs are terrible for shoryuken movements on a 4 gate.
I’m very happy this thread is getting so much attention! Thank you so much guys!
Love the Q3! I just think of the EMP version as a revision over the Q3. Essentially they’re near identical except for:
-Added handle on the back of the back of the case
-Changed PCB, instead of wireless play, it’s a wired stick
-Buttons, ball top colors and graphic are different(EMP keeps a dark red theme whereas the Q3 imitates the Vewlix look).
Yes, TE sticks can be opened from the top panel via 6 (hex) screws. Just unclip the stock square gate and put your Octagonal gate on and then put you panel back on and boom complete. I’m sure that’s how Sanwa sticks work, I really just been playing around with Seimitsu parts so I’m rusty on how their sticks work.
, but I’ve got a Hori Wii FS which is the same thing and I can tell you the unmodded version of it IS shit…)
