Need advice considering buying an arcade stick as a gift

Tech Talk
1

Hello fellow SRKers,

I would need advice from you, because I am considering to buy an arcade stick for my girlfriend

The thing is, I am not a stick player myself, I am a pad player, and thus don’t know much about how different sticks feel. Only stick I play is when I play on arcade, so I don’t even know which type of parts those are :-/

I tried reading all the threads on this board, but I am a little bit lost, so I’d like to ask to the stick users a couple of questions :

First of all, would you consider it a good idea, or is the feeling of a stick really too personal to be chosen by someone else? I hear there’s a wide variety of stifness and all… and ideally that would need to be a surprise.

I do know the stick she uses for now : it is the Madcatz WWE Brawl one.
I wanted to buy something a little bit “higher-end” for her, and I looked at the different stick suggested here.

I would like it to be :
-PS4 compatible (for SF5)
-PC compatible (but I guess for this, I can handle via an appropriate driver anyway)
-Sturdy, well-built, something she can keep for a long time.
-Somewhat similar to her current stick in feel, so a square gate, with same button layout (If I understood correctly, that is Vewlix?)
-Easily moddable : I would like to change the button color and customize the picture, so a plexi top would be ideal
-Available in Belgium easily, France otherwise. For some stick it seems like shipping here is not an option :-/ or did I not go to the right places?
-Budget is not really an issue, but if I can keep it below 300 €/340 US$…

For now, I’ve found this one :
http://eustore.madcatz.com/Categories-EU_2/fightsticks-category-EU/Mad-Catz-Arcade-FightStick-Tournament-Edition-2-for-PS4-PS3_2.html?whence=
Seems good enough, but not sure if easily moddable?

And this one
http://stores.horiusa.com/real-arcade-pro-4-premium-vlx-for-playstation-4/
But not sure if I can get one shipped to Belgium :-/
And is it worth the price tag?

Do you have any other stick I should look out for?

Ideally, I would like to have it ready for Christmas. How difficult you think it is for someone with no prior experience to customize the picture? For the buttons, I’ll let her handle that :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks for your help !

2

The TE2 sounds better if you want easier modification since you can open it with any allen keys and allows you to change the artwork by removing a few screws. It also seems to fit the other criteria as well.

3

I’ve got the TE2 and swear by it. Button swaps are pretty easy, and so are art swaps, either you can just print the art and use the existing plexi, or better yet order new plexi and art from arts hobbies (can be pricy sending to europe though) - once it arrives fitting it is easy as pie. The case opens up with the press of a button, so straight part swaps are very easy. Pretty sure MadCatz EU have the sticks in stock (could be wrong), is £180 for the stick in the UK, For my TE1 the artwork and plexi from arts hobbies came to about £35 - but I believe the postage cost went up a fair bit since then. A full set of buttons for my TE2 just set me back £30, though was slightly more expensive for the transparent buttons, straight up coloured ones would’ve been a few £ less.

I believe there is a french site that possibly does replacement plexi for the TE2, Someone mentioned it to me, but wasn’t much use to me as I need the NOIR layout which nowhere does yet.

4

Out of your choices the TE2 is the more feasible stick. There nothing wrong with the VLX per-say other than the high price tag ($ 299.99 US).
Hori USA because of their sales agreement with their parent company does not ship internationally.
Now Arcade Shock who also an authorized vender does with shipping internationally
http://arcadeshock.com/collections/hori-arcade-sticks/products/hori-hrap4-premium-vlx-kuro

5

IMO you should strongly consider the Venom PS4 arcade stick. Easy to mod and should be much cheaper than those MadCatz and Hori sticks.

6


Can put artwork under the plexi, doesn’t come with Sanwa/Hori parts but I’m sure you’ll probably want to get her different colored buttons and ball top so changing it isn’t any harder than a TE2 but changing the whole joystick out I think requires a bit more work than the TE2.

TE2 has an LED add-on that might be neat too if she’s into lights and stuff, and it’s slightly bigger and heavier than the Venom stick.

7

The Venom would be your cheapest option. They are relativity easy to mod but the stick is not a “easy open” stick like the TE2 or Atrox, you need a Phillips screw driver to remove the bottom panel.

8

You’re being very helpful there guys :slight_smile:

I had never heard of this Venom stick.

It really seems like a bargain ! Almost too good to believe in. It is so much cheaper than madcatz and Hori.
Why such a price difference? Are they really superior to the Venom, or is it just because of the brand and the stock parts being better?

Otherwise, if I understand well, if I take
-The Venom PS4 stick
-A bunch of 30mm Sanwa buttons like this : http://www.starcab.net/product_info.php?cPath=219_176&products_id=1233&osCsid=4223b58e8151fc93fe1
-A JLF-TP Sanwa Stick like this : http://www.starcab.net/product_info.php?cPath=219_242&products_id=110
-Some 5pcs Female to Female 5Pin Solderless Flexible JST XH Connector Cable

And with this this should have everything she needs to get a much better and neat looking stick than what she has right? Or Am I missing something?

Thanks for all your info

9

I hope she really loves fighting games and doesn’t just play them in order to spend time with you.
Because otherwise you just made a pretty selfish gift, lol.

10

haha, don’t worry bout that. She had been playing fighting games long before we met

Actually, we met by playing street fighter 4 online. And as I mentioned, I don’t play on stick at all, so I wouldn’t know what to do with it anyway :smiley:
I’m the one who’s getting forced into SF4. I’d rather play smash, but hey I like SF4 almost as much so, not much of a sacrifice :peace:

11

Ther

That list is correct. 8 buttons, a JLF, and that JST connector will have you ready to go- swap them out and you’ll have the same parts that the Madcatz TE2 has.

12

qanba q4

take a look at my easy build let me know what do you think