Can you or someone else confirm this? I seriously doubt that’s the case, considering I grew up with access to an arcade owned by a family member during the beginning of that 30 year window. Capcom certainly didn’t ship SFI and SFII cabinets with square gates to USA operators (Same goes for NeoGeo cabinets). Now I will concede, that after the end run of the SFII cabinet variations that square gates may have started to become more common, but that’s not 30 years. I certainly didn’t see them on Alpha cabinets back in the day.
The USA generally like standup cabinets and SFII came with American parts so yeah it had a round gate back then, while Japan was all about candy cabs still that are from around the same time(early 90’s maybe even late 80’s) and had square gates, some maybe had circle too. As far as I remember back then the candy cabs we got here had square gates in the 90’s.
In the US and Canada, we had wooden-upright cabinets that used Happ parts (ie, circle gates).
In Japan, they’ve always used sit-down candy-cabs; as far as anyone can tell, the Japanese have never been one to adopt the stand-up woodies that us north-americans used. These candy cabs have always used Sanwa or Seimitsu parts, which both come standard with square gates.
As @Tensho mentioned, the trend now are Japanese fighters, and with that, mass-market retail Japanese-style arcade sticks to go with them.
JLF came with the square gate because it can be rotated for 4 direction use. JLW too. Seimitsu uses subgates to change the shape mostly. The reason for square is versatility.
I guess they could put the L1 and L2 buttons on the side of the arcade stick instead of on the face or something, but I just like having those buttons for the convenience of going through menus. It sucks when playing Hot Shots Golf when I accidentally select an Iron that is not for my purposes, but I can’t scroll back up on a 6 button stick because I don’t have an L1 or L2 so I’m stuck. It also makes choosing Titles in UNIEL and GGXrd a pain since I can only switch pages in a single direction.
Also I didn’t like the arcade sticks where you had 8 buttons, had a noir lay out, but the default buttons (Square, X, Triangle, Circle, R1, R2) were shifted to the right side of the stick and L1 and L2 were on the left side of the default buttons. So it made button config a pain, especially with list + scroll button config, and playing on default buttons felt like crap and hand to contort my hand outwards to the right to play. It’s only now that developers are generally putting button config on character select screen/pre-match and have “press button” config menus to make whatever button layouts not an issue to change buttons on in a tournament setting. Hell, just in a setting to play casuals and friends have different stick layouts and some are pad players and rotating takes time away cuz of inefficient button config.
I almost quit fighting games due to the JLF/square gate. Switching to the LS-56/Octagon literally saved the genre for me. I’ve been around the block since then and I’m not on a JLW with a square gate but had I not switched I’d most likely not be playing a lot of games I love.
-edit- I just read what @PresidentCamacho said and I agree with that recommendation. LS-56 is great with an octagon. I actually dremeled the teeth out and made my own circular which was fantastic. But then I moved on to the JLW which isn’t squishy like the JLF and much more responsive but not crazy sensitive like the LS-56 along with being simply made better. And it has a circle gate option.
I really stand by the recommendation of the ls 56/58 with octo, but to my hands korean sticks really remind me of happ sticks. There’s obviously some differences, but the combination of circle gate, battop and the throw that reminds me of them. Straight drop-in for a sanwa in most cases with the proper harness.
Funny you mention Korean Sticks, I don’t know the history, nor can I say my memory is reliable on the details, but in the early 90’s, Korean cabinets seemed to be more common than Japanese cabinets (especially with fighting games in them). I knew many Korean arcade owners in the 90’s, but don’t remember any Japanese arcade owners. Perhaps my belief about round-gates being common, even in foreign arcade cabinets, is based on running into more Korean cabinets back then.
Worth adding that only the 303-fk and the new one (can’t recall the model name off the top of my head) will drop in your Japanese parts stick. Regular Korean sticks require a very different mount and a wider hole to facilitate the tall grommet.
I just looked up the 303-FK and my memory is somewhat correct, I do remember sticks like these in Tekken and Soul Edge Cabinets (Namco System 11 and 12).
As much as I’d like to share info on restrictors regarding issues related to plastic type, the only issue really here in this thread is round restrictors vs other shapes.
-ease of play and special moves: it’s up to personal preferences but good technique adapted to one particular restrictor -whatevr the shape is- will make anyone a champ. I’ve seen some dudes score like crazy in the arcades although they played on battered poorly serviced cabs, many having round restrictors. If you are used to one and are well trained, it’s in the pocket.
production: round actuators are the simplest to make for the home machinist who doesn’t want to (or cannot) waste time calculating gradients, then come the octogonal then finally the square, from the easiest to hardest to design .
Why? simply because round actuators have the same exact throw in any direction, which means same stick angle when riding the gate anywhere on the restrictor. The angle is NOT the same for example in corners of a (rounded) square actuator and need gradual decrease in stick angle from corners to cartesian directions.
Also, when designing a custom hiomemade square restrictor you have to be careful when calculating the radii of the corners , so they are not smaller than the radius of the actuator, or else the design is faulty and you can jam the actuator ,hitting the corners won’t be possible as well.
Some octos are just round ones with minor adjustments, there are no real ocotogon sides but simply “bumps” (small protruding round parts) along a round restrictor(seimitsu) , whereas some others are true octagons (JLF) with flat sides then. So all octos cannot be put in the same bag.
in terms of wear (plastic type and finish put aside), any form of resctrictor other than purely circular will of course induce wear since there are “stops” in square and octo type restrictors which means more heat due to friction when riding the gate during an action that will lack in smoothness and cause interruptions in form of tactile feedback in the said corners.
So it comes down to personal preference and a small tradeoff that can be overcome by training and getting used to one type of restrictor :
cons:
restrictors with corners induce more wear for the actuator, slower speed and smooth motions are hindered unless the throw is small and or rounded corners have biggest possible radius. So for smoother action, you need more training than on a round one.
circle restrictors have lower rate of hitting diagonals (trivial…), you cannot rest in a diagonal position and often slip into another direction. Diagonals are missed when not riding the gate if it is too small (usually small restrictors are more precise but with round one, you need the biggest one possible to be sure to not miss the diagonals, so it’s up to the design, where the microswitches are placed and if the round restrictor is large enough to hit the diagonals without need to contact the gate). This latter problem with a round restrictor could be overcome by increasing the radius of the part of the actuator that contacts only the microswitches, but in the process, the engage distances become ridiculously smaller and would make the stick super sensitive .
pros:
-square and octo have higher rate of hitting diagonals compared to round and permit to rest in diagonal position without slipping (best with square type, octo comes after). Resting in diagonal position is rarely mentioned while very important when there is need for crouching. (Only the ability to hit two microswitches at the same time is mentioned on specialized sites that rate sticks). Some people base their entire gameplay in fighting games on the ability to remain firmly courched then springing up to dash or perform a special with great percision. the same thing with a round restrictor would need more training to remain firmly positioned in a back diagonal.
I completely agree with @Laban : square is best for resting in crouch then suddenly performing a move then coming back -with great ease and precision- to crouch for example. Tactile feedback for all eight directions when riding the gate with an octo for example.
-**round restrictors are smoother and custom ones can be made easily for beginner machinists and modders since you only need to measure the contact angle of the original part with a hinged protractor, then measure its thickness and it’s distance from the main body (crucial) ** . there will be less trial and error issues with a homemade round part.
If the subject were to compare all three types in depth, then we would need to mention the fact that:
octos can permit to rest in basic 4 directions (cartesian directions) whereas square only permits to rest in diagonals, since in up down left right siongle positions, you can eventually slip of you press too hard, once again proper training can overcome any of these difficulties.
octos with “smooth bumps” (seimitsu type) , or octo that is in fact a round restrictor with “circular portions removed” (depends how one sees it) are best of both world for some since there is a round motion and tactile feedback when brushing the 8 directions is “just enough”. Some others hate it and just go for pure round, avoiding completely any interruptions and tactile feedback alltogether .
@Momosgarage , everything you say concerning the production and maintenance of sticks with square restrictors is in fact related rather to sticks with round restrictors: round are easier to mass produce with less design behind them, round need less mainenance too, since the wear is generally uniform as opposed to square and octo who wear down actuators faster. See it this way: a round one can have an actuator slide uniformly in one smooth motion, against its surface, whereas there will be interruptions when riding a square or octo. Interruptions = more wear = spots that accumulate heat and will deform/wear parts easier.
Square is more common -today - due to worldwide player preferences shifting towards japanese standards . Still there are US and UE hardcore “round” motion fans (who look for Wico LEAF sticks for example)… as well as koreans who swear only by Crown, Fanta etc grommet sticks, which do not have a removable restrictor plate but whose main body has a central bore that limits the shaft movement to a square that has rounded corners with a radius so big that it almost feel like as if there were a circular restrictor inside.
Thanks for this recommendation, it worked. I put the Kowal and a 2 lbs spring, in a Sanwa JLF-TP-8Y-SK, then tried both the octo and square gates. With those parts installed, I was surprisingly able to use the square gate, just as well as the octo. I still can’t do any moves reliably without the Kowal and the 2 lbs spring installed. However, changing the throw, with a square gate, somehow makes a huge difference for me.
I am still on the fence about buying an LS-56. I think I’m going to give the Kowal and a 2 lbs spring a few months of thorough testing first.
The reduction in movement until engage makes things much easier, glad you’re liking it. I still really like the JLF with that configuration, I just like the LS-56 a bit more.
I wonder why this isn’t the stock configuration? A normal spring and stock actuator, to me, makes the JLF feel like a worn-out and broken arcade joystick. In the olden days, we would complain to the arcade manager/operators and have them switch those out, before we would put any money into the machine.
