Curious who all has had the chance to use any of the various fighting sticks available.
I love fighting games, and I've recently decided to start collecting a wide variety. Right now, I have copies of each Soul Calibur game (save for Soul Blade, each for a different console right now haha), Street Fighter Alpha 2, Virtua Fighter 5 Online, and DBZ: Burst Limit. I'm planning on collecting a large variety of them - including SFIV, SF2 HD, most of the Mortal Kombat franchise (particularly the ones playable from the 360), and a number of others.
I'm looking to buy myself two arcade fighting sticks. I was planning on getting a Hori Fighting Stick EX2, but I've since decided I'd like to have the two extra face buttons that the Hori Real Arcade Pro 3 and Madcatz FightStick offer.
However, I want to save money as much as possible, so I'd like to avoid shelling out the big bucks that'd be required to get the HRAP3. The Madcatz FightStick seems to have a really good reputation, though (contrary to most Madcatz material), and it has all the features I want (enough buttons to work like the four shoulder buttons + four face buttons).
Now, I'm curious who has experience with these (or other fightsticks), and what thoughts you've got about them. Is the Madcatz stick as good as I've heard? Is it worth paying a little more than a Hori Fighting Stick and close enough to the quality of the Hori Real Arcade Pro to be better given the cheaper price-point? Is there another solid stick that I should be considering?
Let's try and make this thread into a quality buyer's guide, eh? It'd be nice for there to be a solid source on the Internet for considering the differences here.
PS: Also, I'm planning on getting mine for the 360 (if that wasn't clear enough already), but they all work the same across each platform. Question is - can each one be used across platforms? I'd prefer to get last generation's Mortal Kombat games in the PS2 trilogy pack... but only if I can use my 360-compatible fighting stick with it. I'd prefer it to work out-of-the-box - pluggin' right into the PS2's USB ports, but if all that's required to work is a USB to PS2 adapter, that's acceptable. If that's no good though, then I'll get the Xbox editions of each one.
Also, I would like to be able to play Soul Blade, PS2's Soul Cal II, and Soul Cal III with a fighting stick, but again - not as big a deal if it can't be made compatible.
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