Rating:

The price on this thing is great. I got it for $90. Considering that a new PS3 controller is about $60 this is a really good deal if you play a lot of fighters. I ordered it on thursday, shipped on Monday, and was here on Tuesday. Very quick, which made even more awesome.

The stick itself is a behemoth. It’s a bit daunting to look at something that big at first, but you sit down with it and use it, everything feels in place. The weight isn’t bad at all when it’s on your lap, and actually feels quite stable and secure on a table. The buttons are really responsive and react smoothly when pressed. The stick responds great. I can feel the square gate, but, since I’m still relearning, I don’t feel like I can give an opinion on it one way of the other. It’s an easy fix if you have some hex keys lying around though.

Overall, this was a great buy at $90. If you want a stick for a PS3 then this is the best deal you can get.

Rating:

First of all, the stick carries a good weight so there is no unnecessary movement while in the middle of a heated match against an opponent. It’s not as heavy as I predicted, but it is certainly heavy enough. Moreover, the arcade stick needs no upgrades or modifications. The Sanwa stick and buttons are regarded as the best choice amongst players throughout the world. The square gate (gates are typically square or hexagonal, they determine the area the stick can move, ultimately affecting how a player performs maneuvers) and ball-end stick turn out to be a much better alternative to the hexagonal gate and baseball bat style stick. Some American gamers are prefer the hexagonal gate, but the square gate is used in Street Fighter arcade cabinets and are pretty much ubiquitous in Japanese arcades. Japan is home to the greatest arcades and fighting game enthusiasts, so I would consider taking their opinions into account. The ball-end sticks allow for a larger variety of grips and comfort; whereas the baseball bat style stick reminds me of an old Atari controller, something probably not suited well for modern fighters.

I noticed on fighting game message boards that a lot of people fear transitioning from d-pads to arcade sticks. Like many others, I grew up far away from arcades and stuck to using d-pads when playing fighting games. I did this for probably 17 or 18 years, until I decided to purchase a quality arcade stick (this Hori stick). It took me a couple days to get used to the stick. In less than a few weeks, I feel much more comfortable on the stick than a controller. The key is learning the square gate and making sure you take the time in training mode to understand the motions necessary to execute moves. Also, deter from “riding the gates”. This means don’t rub the stick against the gates when performing maneuvers like shoryukens or dashes. Riding the gates can prematurely wear down sticks, and it isn’t an accurate way to perform maneuvers. Luckily with square gates, they require very little movement, so one can perform maneuvers easily without damaging the stick. Once you feel comfortable with the arcade stick, it feels a lot more intuitive than the D-pad—say goodbye to your thumb blisters!

The face buttons are set up much better than many arcade sticks and cabinets found at most American arcades. For example, hold your hand out with your fingers extended. Do your fingers vary in length? Obviously. However, many arcade sticks and cabinets seem to overlook this by placing all the face buttons in a perfectly horizontal plane. To me and many others, it feels really awkward. The nice feature about the face buttons on this HRAP 3-SA is that the buttons are placed in correspondence to your natural finger lengths. The middle button is a little higher on the faceplate, which ideally suits your middle finger. This is the layout used on SFIV arcade cabinets.

Having the face buttons placed correctly also offers an advantage to those who fear leaving the d-pad. Tekken 6 for example, has moves where one is required to press both triangle and circle. This is a near impossible task to perform with one thumb on a Sony controller. On this arcade stick, moves like throws and others moves that require multiple button presses are a breeze. It is an immediate advantage over the D-pad that takes almost no time to learn and utilize.

The stick also looks nice in it’s stock condition, although it would be easy to customize if one wanted to. Nonetheless, it looks better stock than sticks with tacky logos and designs thrown all over them (I feel a little strange looking at SF characters while playing Virtua Fighter, Metal Slug, etc).

The only complaint I have about the stick is the lack of wireless play. It’s honestly not a big issue, as the cord is pretty long. Also, I have read reviews by customers complaining about the Home, Turbo, R3 and L3 buttons being hard to differentiate. This is a really minor complaint that should be overlooked. With the exception of the Home button, I never use the other aforementioned buttons. It’s really not hard to remember the location of the Home button either.

If you really enjoy fighting games—or even 2D shooters and old arcade classics such as Mappy, Pacman or Donkey Kong, this stick is easily your best option and worth the price of $110.

For information about the new ($330) Hori arcade stick, google “joystiq hori march” and click on the first result. Amazon doesn’t seem to allow linking to other sites.

Rating:

PROS:

-Easy to use

-Very smooth (although sometimes too smooth)

-Fairly Heavy, (like 6 pounds?) and has rubber on the bottom to have a stable game

-Not your average stick, this baby can take punishment (rage gamers like me)

-Long Cord/Wire – USB

-Can take a beating

CONS:

-The Turbo, Home, R3, L3 Buttons are next to each other and its hard to see the labels for them

-Although all the parts are sanwa (which are the best IMO), if you want to swap the parts, It is much harder than say..The Tournament Edition MadCatz stick

-No Compartment for the long wire

-Pretty damn huge to put it on your lap leisurely

Conclusion:

I can honestly say I am very happy that I bought this. The 3-SA is probably one of the best arcade sticks you can buy without having to spend ludicrous amounts of money on. Street Fighter III 3rd Strike runs very well with this stick as well as Street Fighter IV. The white buttons are very nice on the eyes and it looks pretty sexy. I give this product, 5 stars. (^___^)

Rating:

First of all, if you naively expect (as I sort of did) to be good as soon as you start using it, you will be very disappointed. Again, I have never owned a joystick and I could barely pull off a quarter circle forward + punch (hadouken!) on SF2HDR. After playing for about four hours, I can now do them but it is still not natural to me. Point is, don’t give up on the joystick, you will have to completely relearn how to play the game which is frustrating when you were already decent on a directional pad (and now you suck again). However, judging how quickly I’m improving and as I expect everyone else will, it’s worth it.

Should you buy a fight stick? If you want to play fighting games how they are meant to be played, if you want to play considerably better (with time), if you will play fighting games for a long time, then yes. If you are worried about whether you will be good at using the joystick, you wont, let’s make that very clear. You will improve if you put in the time though, and your thumbs won’t hurt so that’s awesome. Should you buy this particular Hori RAP 3-SA stick? If you have the money, yes. If you don’t, consider another cheaper joystick since it’s all basically the same if you are a casual player. However, if you plan on using the stick for a long time, then invest in this one because it is made of the best parts and will last you a long time.

The actual stick is very nicely built. It is quite large and feels very good on your lap or table. Take a look at the dimensions so you can understand what I’m talking about. This size is nice because it lets your wrists rest on it. It is not flimsy at all and neither does it look that way, it’s made for heavy duty. The parts are all sanwa, which if you are a first time buyer like me, you have no idea what that means. However, pretty much every website says these are the best parts, and this is the main appeal of this stick. The buttons are extremely sensitive, so don’t plan on resting your fingers on them. The PS Home button and turbo function work well so you can expect everything to work perfectly. The joystick itself is also very sensitive, but I find it annoying that the ball-top rotates and is not securely in place. Also, the square gate needs getting used to. A square gate means that if you push the joystick as far as it goes and rotate, it makes a square. This makes quarter circle movements difficult, but “z movements” (forward, down, down+forward, like shoryukens) are a bit easier. This is the main obstacle in using a fight stick, but fear not, if you absolutely hate the square gate, you can buy a circle or octagon gate and swap it, as this fight stick is very good for modding (another of it’s main selling points).

The stick deserves five stars because it is basically perfect and made for top players. New players will suck using it, I guarantee it, but with time they will improve as I have, and improving on the best stick available is very nice so I definitely recommend it if you can afford it. If you are on the fence, take the dive as it is definitely worth it and the stick will last you far longer than something cheaper.

Rating:

I understand there’s been some concerns about the square gate the joystick uses. Let me just say that I have always been used to an octogonal gate when playing my fighting games. While I do admit it felt a bit awkward at first, I got used to it fairly quickly. The type of gate a joystick uses doesn’t affect the movement commands at all. Just keep using it and it will feel right in no time. However, if you continue to have trouble with it you can always buy an octogonal restrictor plate. (I highly recommend [see comments] for all you arcade part needs.) The stick is easy enough to mod, and I believe the plate is a snap-in-snap-out kind of deal.

P.S. ALL ARCADE FIGHT STICKS THAT COME WITH A SANWA JOYSTICK INCLUDES THE SAME SQUARE PLATE!

Conclusion: If you’re going for the best-of-the-best, I can’t recommend a better fight stick than this one. The only thing the Mad Catz Tournament Editon Stick really has over this is that compartment for the cord, which is admittedly cool. But with backwards compatibility and, at the time of this review, a $10 cheaper price tag, your arcade fight stick of choice should definately be the Hori Real Arcade Pro 3 SA. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to play more Marvel Vs. Capcom 2.

Rating:

I’ve read reviews of this being a “clunky” joystick, which was very surprising as it has Sanwa parts for the joystick unit (Sanwa is the premier arcade parts developer in the world). I suspected that these individuals had never been in an actual arcade. When I got the stick it was like I thought, because the stick is just like the arcades I grew up on. The buttons, however are not Sanwa buttons…to me though, I prefer the Hori buttons. Although Sanwa is reported to have better response, I can’t stand the clicking of their buttons (if you depress the button, it will click). For the hard core, you can buy the Sanwa buttons and install them if your at all technically savy (still making it cheaper than the TE by Mad Catz). And as for the reports of the RAP being defective, I’ve not had a problem at all with mine for over a month.

After a month of research, I concluded this was the arcade stick for me. I trust Hori, it wasn’t as expensive as the import version, and anything “better” was outrageously more expensive. Take it from an arcade rat from the 90′s, this is the right arcade stick for your fighting games. I’ve had five friends buy it and they all love it as well.

Rating:

Highly recommended.

Rating:

Believe it or not, this is my first real Arcade Stick. I’m 25 years old and am just now getting into fighters properly. Street Fighter IV was a factor but It’s also a genre I’ve always wanted to get into but never had enough confidence with my skill level nor had the neccessary tools.

So I’ve finally started to commit myself to develop the skill and understanding the rules for different titles as well as purchasing said tools!

This Arcade Stick is highly regarded for it’s build and quality. True as others have stated, it doesn’t have the infamous Sanwa Buttons that the special Japan Amazon Edition had or the upcoming (now sold out) SFIV Tournament Stick have, but this is irrelevant at this point to me. I’m just learning and the buttons here are more than good enough.

As listed, it’s is USB corded (not wireless), which is about 10ft in length. It’s fine for my household though I had to buy an additional USB extension cord for like $3 as I sit about 13ft away from my Tele.

The great thing about it is that it double as a PC stick, so you MAME enthusiasts out there are good to go! I’ve gone back and started playing the Street Fighter Alpha series as well as SFIII: 3rd Strike. Not to mention it’s fun to go and play around with ol’ Neo Geo classics like Metal Slug (it’s got a turbo function), KoF, Samurai Showdown, etc…

Whether it’s in your lap or sitting on a counter or table, it’s fantastic and comes highly recommended!

Rating:

For the average person, this stick will be more than fine, for the hardcore fighter, this stick will serve as a base for upgrading. Being a Japan stick, you get the ball type stick rather than the typical US baseball bat. WHen I first tried the ball type years ago, I didn’t like it. Then I got used to it and it offers a bit more speed and control when playing fighters. I refuse to use anything but the ball type now. Buttons are arranged in the Japan curved arcade cabinet style which again, I prefer now compared to the straight button layout. Add turbo functions for shmups and you’ve got yourself a fine stick for the price. I personally also have the Sega Virtua Stick High Grades (available only through Japan imported) and those are all Sanwa with a 6 instead of 8 button layout. SImply the best. Second is the Hori here, and about $50 cheaper.

THose looking at the upcoming Street Fighter IV Mad Catz ones…I’m a little weary as Mad Catz doesn’t exactly scream quality but supposedly they are all Sanwa Parts as well. I’d hold off until they are out. That and they are sixty dollars more than this. Avoid the cheaper SF IV ones, those are not made with arcade parts and your stick will most likely fail at some point.

Pros:

Curved button layout

Sanwa Japan style ball stick and convex style buttons

Hori quality

Upgradeable buttons

Price

Cons:

Hori Buttons (not a bad thing except for the most hardcore)

Limited availability