Customer Reviews

Xbox 360 Street Fighter IV FightStick Tournament Edition

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I ordered this item in anticipation of the release of Street Fighter 4 and with the knowledge that the stick would be the very best stick ever released. Mad Katz--who has not historically been known for high-quality peripherals--did not fail to deliver on that promise.

As an owner of an Hori Real Arcade Pro 3 stick, I must say this stick is clearly superior out of the box. The buttons are of substantially higher grade, the panel is easily changeable (for custom art), the stick is ported directly from the arcade Street Fighter 4 cab.

The stick also features amenities that show it was made with a lot of love by people who play with arcade sticks. The housing for the USB cord is convenient, discrete and useful. The internals are easy to get to (simple removal of 6 screws on the top plate, allowing direct access to all parts), which is significantly faster than my HRAP3 (which requires removal of the bottom panel and a socket wrench to remove nuts inside the device in order to open the top panel. The top panel itself is large enough to allow for hands to rest comfortably. Turbos are cool.

There is more than can be said about how good this stick is, but the bottom line is this: For those looking for a stick that is by virtually all accounts PERFECT out of the box, your choice is clear.

If you can find this stick, don't hesitate.

I am a pretty frugal person and I hate wasting money on things, so I started off by playing Street Fighter 4 and Marvel vs Capcom 2 on my Xbox 360 controller. That did not work at all. I could beat single player, sure, but if you wanted any change at pulling off combos, it just wasn't going to work competitively. I then decided to invest money into the FightPad (gamepad).

The FightPad was a drastic improvement over the Xbox 360 controller. I was able to pull off combos a whole lot easier. The d-pad was just a ton better, and things were going very well. The problem came when you needed to use more than 1 button at a time. Like air dashing in MvC2, or doing the + moves where you use 2 buttons at a time in SF4. That was just a pain to effectively pull off everytime, because my thumb just doesn't angle in that manner. So I bit the bullet and I decided I was going to try out the FightStick.

I made the right decision.

If you are going to play a fighting game. This is the stick to get. The build is damn solid. I have played many, many hours on this, and I haven't had ANY problems. I am not knowledgeable at all these things like Sanwa, and Seimitsu, but this stick really holds up. The buttons never stick, and the joystick never sticks either. There are a few suggestions I have on maximizing your enjoyment on this product.

1. Get the octagonal restrictor plate (it's a few $ on lizardlick). The default restrictor plate is a square. That was kinda awkward for me because I am used to octagonal restrictors in the arcade. What I mean by square is that it locks in on the corners (upper left, right, lower left, right), but it doesn't have a solid feel for up down left right. This was annoying for me. With the octagonal restrictor, it locks in all 8 directions so it feels great.

2. I'm not used to using the Japanese style balls on the joystick. I picked up the joystick bat (costs a few dollars), (traditional US arcade machines), and you have to get some adapter to make sure it screws in okay (costs 50 cents).

With these 2 modifcations I have never been happier and I can't really ask for much more from a joystick. It is solid feel, heavy and doesn't move. The cord is really long and you can store the cord away into the stick. And... it works perfectly fine in Windows. I just plug it in and it works. I didn't have to find any special drivers. I tried it out for Windows Vista and Windows 7. I have it working on my PC to play all my ROMS.

I've been searching around for one of these since release, and haven't been able to find one. I'm so glad that I put in the effort and got one for myself, because it's really night and day with Street Fighter 4. It does have a bit of a learning curve, especially if you are used to using the Xbox Controller, but I have to say pulling off some of those challenge mode trials were near impossible without this.

I spent several hours trying to get some of the hard and even the later normal challenges done on the controller with no luck. Within about 10 minutes of using the controller I had already passed maybe half of the challenges I wasn't even close to completing before.

The button response is awesome, it's so crisp. My only gripe is I'm not a fan of the ball top joysticks, I like the bat, but that's just personal preference. Another thing, is the ball on top rotates rather loosely, so sometimes you think your joystick is somewhere it's not. However, I consider all that a part of getting used to something new, (and 100 times better). I haven't tried the fightpad, or the standard fightstick yet, but I can honestly say, that this is one controller I wouldn't miss if you really want to be able to fully enjoy Street Fighter 4.

Sizewise? It's huge, and it does NOT move at all. I was really jammin on the controller, and it didn't move from it's spot on the table once. It has a nice weight to it, not too heavy, but it doesn't feel like a tiny paperweight. The art is really nice, the buttons and joystick are top notch quality, (suprising considering its from Mad Catz), and the turbo function is really easy to program. I'm also more of a fan of the concave buttons, not the convex. (I like them to dip in, not bow out), but these have a really great feel. I understand these are top quality parts, but I can't help but feel like after pushing the jab button enough times it's going to stop working so well, so at some point down the road I'm going to get some nice(er) buttons, with the battop joystick.

I was a bit torn between this and the HRAP, and one of the things this has, that I don't believe the Hori has, is the fact you can switch between modes for the joystick. Whether you want it to act like the Left Stick, Right Stick or Dpad, that means you can use it for well... any game you want, without worry that it's not going to be compatible because you aren't controller the right directional pad.

Overall though 5/5, totally worth the money. Get it, got it, good.

I accidentally wrote the SE Stick in TE Stick section, thanks for the head up.

Anyway, I am an owner of both Madcatz Stand Edition (SE) and Tournament Edition (TE) Stick, and I gotta to say the TE stick is just simply amazing.

Comparing to the SE Stick, the TE stick is bigger and a little bit heavier. The bigger room on the stick allows my arm to rest while I am playing, and all the buttons are very sensitive. Before I couldn't pull out some moves such as Ken's light upper cut with ex-canceling follow by by the ultra become piece of cake(For those who plays SFIV I am pretty sure you know how difficult it can be with d-pad or SE stick).

Overall, I have no complains. I currently have 3500 BP + and with over 1000 games victories (80% winning), and thanks for the TE Stick I now have chance to go for 4000 BP or even 5000 BP if I work hard.

Some tips for those Madcatz SE Owner:
If you own the SE Stick, I suggest you purchase Sawyana's part online, and mod your stick, as the cheap part Madcatz uses on the SE Stick is just horrible. I have modded mine, and I gotta to tell you after I modded my SE Stick, no more sticky buttons, no more character crunch by itself, and all the combo become a lot easier to do. The only complains is I have no room to rest my arm.

I am using this fightstick on the PC running Vista and it works extremely well. I am able to execute moves in the game much better than with the XBOX 360 controller I used previously. Am still having trouble executing ultra combos but hope more practice will help. This product works beautifully, is of high quality materials, and I highly recommend it. It is relatively big and heavy - make sure you understand that before you buy, but I rest it comfortably on my lap.

This is a well built arcade stick. It has official Sanwa Denshi buttons and the Sanwa Denshi JLF stick with balltop. It can easily be opened and modified to your personal liking. I purchased it primarly for Street Fighter IV, but also use it for Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, Ultiamte Mortal Combat 3. My favorite part about the stick is the durability and weight. I also own a Hori Real Arcade Pro 3 and a Street Fighter IV Standard Edition fightstick and I would say that the Tournament Edition fightstick is my favorite. Starting off playing on a controller and fightpad I definitely find it easier to do moves on the fightstick. For casual players I probably would not recommend spending $150 for a fightstick. I would recommend purchasing a SFIV SE fightstick, Hori Fighting Stick 3, or a Hori Fighting Stick EX2 for the casual gamer.

This is an excellent arcade stick, arguably the best out right now. However, you should never buy one of these for more than retail. Mad Catz has stated that they will be releasing plenty of these sticks to make sure the demand is met. MSRP is $149.00. they are slated to release more sticks before the end of May, so hold out until they become available!

I have owned several MadCatz handheld controllers for the Playstation 2 in the past, and I wasn't very impressed. When I heard that arcade sticks were made for the Xbox 360, I did some browsing. It was either the MadCatz standard arcade controller, the MadCatz tournament stick, or the Hori arcade stick. Believe me I had a tough time deciding between the MadCatz and the Hori. Also I had no idea how to fix one if it broke or even modify it if I ever wanted to. I came close to buying the Hori, but after reading the reviews for the MadCatz tournament edition, and reading that the standard Madcatz arcade stick wasn't very durable, I went with the MadCatz tournament stick. Of course I was a bit skeptical about it, but I decided to get it. Well, i've had it almost 6 months now, and after about 500 hours of playing Tekken 6, Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe, Street Fighter 4, and Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, and hitting it out of frustration, I can honestly say that i'm impressed. The controls are easy to get used to, especially if you have played in an arcade, and the Japanese button layout takes no time to get used to. It also has a turbo button feature which I never use on a fighting game, but maybe I will on an RPG. There are also switches next to the Xbox button for locking your Xbox button if you accidentally press it during gameplay, and there is a switch for changing what you want your joystick to do. Its function is like on a handheld controller, you have the left analog stick and the right stick, but since you only have one stick on the MadCatz arcade stick, you can choose the function for it. You can also roll up your wire and store it into the back of the arcade stick which is pretty handy, but I don't take it anywhere outside of my house so I don't need to use the compartment. The controller is also well built, since i've taken my frustration out on it, and your hand or whatever you hit it with will break before the controller. Like I said, I had no experience fixing or modifying one, but after seeing a video on YouTube on how to modify a stick, it's easy. I changed the ball top to a bat top, and I stiffened the movement of the stick also. The buttons are easy to change also if you ever need to. I haven't played any other games with it, like RPG's, but i'm sure you can get used to it like I did. The price isn't bad considering how well built this stick is, and after writing this review, I will treat this arcade stick with more respect. Thanks MadCatz for a great product, now work on making your handheld controllers as good as this and I will start trusting your products again.

All I can say is what has already been said one hundred times before. This stick is a bit pricey but it's absolutely top notch. I've heard a lot of people say that they have trouble transitioning from a pad, but I found that after using this stick for less than two days that I was already executing moves with greater speed and precision than I ever did on a pad. Everything about this product is high quality, from the comfortable, accurate stick to the sensitive, well-spaced buttons to the way that the power cord is stored inside the case for easy transport. Even the packaging is very well done to the point that I refuse to throw it away.

The stick is nice. Buy one if you play street fighter. There are little nits about the stick that I hope I can adapt to, but the biggest challenge might be getting used to sitting down with the stick in your lap or in front of you. The way you hold the stick and press the buttons will definitely be different than standing in an arcade with the stick slightly tilted. I don't think the offset punch and kick buttons helps either. When I played SF2 in the arcades I could open my hand with fingers fully stretched and just hover over the buttons, easily executing combos without having to move my wrist very much. With the tilted buttons + the buttons being so close to the stick, the angles are off and I find I have to actually move my hand around to execute combos. It's like hunting and pecking on a keyboard as opposed to touch typing.

Pros:
Heavy, seems like quality construction
Easy setup

Cons:
Stick and buttons seem a little too close
Stick looser than expected (but I think I can swap this out)
Buttons are offset (nothing can be done about this unless i want to make a new face plate with the buttons aligned... hmmm that might be an idea).
Door to conceal cable is weak

Having said all the nit picky things above. The difference is night and day vs a standard xbox controller. I can execute the various combos in training mode now and I have no thumb fatigue.

Bring it on!