Thoughts on the Hori Real Arcade Pro V3 SA

Recently, I posted a thread about looking for a good Sanwa arcade stick for the PS3 and after consideration and just really being impressed by the quality of the Hori HRAP Orange Amazon Edition, I decided to stick with Hori (plus I’m still a little offput by Mad Catz’s spotty reliability). So for about a week, I’ve really been breaking in the Hori HRAP V3 SA and after much use, here are some of my impressions of the stick:

-The Sanwa balltop stick really feels more precise and smoother to get motions off or move around that that of my previous stick. Circle motions feel like they register now much more versus when I used the Amazon Edition and it felt like Hadoken motions would get “caught” on the edges of the stick. To test the stick out, I used it with three games: Super Street Fighter 4, King of Fighters 95 and Real Bout Fatal Fury 2. I can report all passed my tests very well. Kyo’s Serpant Wave DM came out real smooth and precise and Rick’s HP>LP.LP>HP>EX Shooting Star>Hellion combo finally came out consistently. When I would use the Amazon Edition, either the EX SS or Hellion would get stuck and not register. Overall, I felt a real improvement in performance.

-This is my first time using Sanwa buttons and they really are a step up from the stock Hori buttons which really aren’t that bad (compared to cheap American sticks that plagued the market before arcade stick quality started improving).

-Besides fighters, I tested the stick with some great arcade games and some of the great shooters on the Japanese PSN like:

-Raystorm
-Gradius
-Twinbee
-Space Invaders
-Final Fight
-Pac-Man

After testing them, it feels easier to shoot or punch because with the Amazon Edition, my fingers would get tired from having to press the buttons hard to register a command whereas with the HRAP V3, the buttons are more sensitive and more responsive.

Overall so far, its a excellent stick and I can say it was worth the money. Based on my own impressions, I can highly recommend the Hori HRAP V3 when it comes out in October.

HRAP Amazon Edition and HRAP V3 SA both use Sanwa JLF.

Your Joystick probably just needs cleaning.
Or just new Microswitch and lubricate.
That HRAP is old after all.

Yeah,

There should be no difference in the feel of Sanwa components between sticks.

People usually have problems if, like JDM said, joysticks are older and used.

Other contributing factors to the diffference in “feel” are
a) year of manufacture of parts – although I think Sanwa is more consistent than Seimitsu is;
b) who put together the joystickin the first place! A line work might have screwed something in the wrong way…
c) any mods performed on the joystick by previous owners if it’s a resold/used item.

Keep those points in mind.

If parts are from the same year of manufacture between two sticks, there should be no difference in feel!