Are the sticks broken or do I just need practice?

[Edmond Dantes]

I asked this at Shoryuken but figured a more general perspective might be helpful too.

Recently I've been trying to play some retro fighting games on either PS2 or Dreamcast, games like Street Fighter II or the original Marvel vs Capcom, and well... I've run into something.

Okay, I have two sticks: One was originally a Pelican Real Arcade which I gutted, replaced the PCB with an MC Cthulhu, replaced the stick and most of the buttons with Suzo-Happ parts, and took a wire from a PS2 controller for hooking it up to the system. The other stick I have is a straight out of the box, not-modded-at-all Tekken 5 Hori stick. I use a Total Control Plus whenever I want to use this for Dreamcast games, tho I own so many old compilations (SamSho Anthology, Fatal Fury Battle Archives, Capcom Classics etc) that I barely ever need to.

Anyway in my mind the litmus test for any stick is if you can perform all three of Ryu's SFII moves flawlessly on demand. So recently, I load up SFII Champion Edition (I don't have a version of Super Turbo that I trust--the CCC2 version is supposed to be buggy) and I find I can do them facing right, but facing left, the dragon punch rarely comes out right. This goes for both sticks. With Marvel vs. Capcom on Dreamcast I've found that in general I have trouble making moves come out at all with the Modded Pelican, but with the Hori I still have trouble with a left-facing Dragon Punch and even right-facing I often accidentally get a hadoken or a throw instead. One weird case is with the original Samurai Shodown, where I find moves easier to perform with the modded Pelican.

So at first--and partially because I really have had to do a lot of controller repairs recently (not on sticks tho)--I was like "guess its time to mod these sticks."

But then I took a step back and wondered if maybe I've just gotten rusty and need practice. I seem to remember I used to be able to perform shoryukens fine with both, but then I stopped playing fighters for awhile. And a poor craftsman blames his tools, after all.

But I wanted to know what the experts thought. Should I just keep practicing with these and see if I get better, or do you really think the problem might be the sticks? What's a good litmus test for this kind of thing?

Thank you in advance.

[celerystalker]

What kind of stick did you use on the modded one? Having a throw looseness and distance your hands like is a huge deal. If you've played on American bat-style Happ sticks your whole life and try using a shorter, looser Seimitsu or Sanwa stick, you'll likely overdo it on your circle motions. Similarly, if you're more used to those short throw Japanese sticks, but put it a Happ competition stick, you could be under-rotating in your motions.

Also, some sticks have 4-way spacers to limit diagonals, but may still do them if pressed hard if they aren't pure 4-way sticks. For a fighter, you'd obviously want a pure 8-way.

So, yeah, basically it's all about what your hands like for muscle memory. If you've been player 1 most of your life, you're probably better facing right than left...

[Koa Zo]

The other stick I have is a straight out of the box, not-modded-at-all Tekken 5 Hori stick.

I bought one of these brand new back in the day, and right out-of-the-box it was a peice of shit. The stick did not properly register to one of the diagonals (I don't recall which direction) and the buttons were low quality.

[Edmond Dantes]

That's odd, Koa Zo, because mine didn't have that problem and I've always heard high praise of anything made by Hori. At least I did back then. Nowadays I barely ever hear of them and its all about custom modded sticks (to be fair even back then people on SRK would suggest sticks as a base for modding, just Hori apparently was good enough to not require it out of the box).

Celery, the modded pelican is American-style, the Hori is Japanese-style. I've gotten used to both. Since posting this I've discovered basically what you said--it seems like the dragon punches weren't coming out because I was going too far back during the "down, down-forward" part, and had to adjust my muscle memory.

[Koa Zo]

That's odd, Koa Zo, because mine didn't have that problem and I've always heard high praise of anything made by Hori. At least I did back then. Nowadays I barely ever hear of them and its all about custom modded sticks (to be fair even back then people on SRK would suggest sticks as a base for modding, just Hori apparently was good enough to not require it out of the box).

Yes, Hori has always been one of the better accessory manufacturers. However high praise for anything made by Hori would be misleading at best. They make a range of products and quality levels. The Tekken 5 stick was not high quality components, it was cheaper components for the US market.

[BlastProcessing402]

the litmus test for any stick is if you can perform all three of Ryu's SFII moves flawlessly on demand.

Welp, nothing passes such a test for me. Thanks, dragon punch...

[Edmond Dantes]

Well, I mean, you DO still need to practice the move first and get some muscle memory for it (like I said my problem turned out to be I was overcompensating at the middle part). I actually got to a point where I could perform it on a pad.