Hori Fighting Stick 3 Review

I’ve managed to get a hold of the Hori Fighting Stick for the PS3 to review. See how it fairs against the other controller and if it’s worth a buy. Through generations of gaming (especially in arcades) fighting sticks have always been welcomed and much more accustomed to when it comes to beat-em-up games. With the Playstation 3 platform having slightly an edge over its other counterparts in regards to controllers for this genre, it has never quite been close to the precision we’d get using an arcade stick. However although some may beg to differ, arguing the D-Pad is really much more comfortable to get to grips with, others would equally say to extend your potential you’d need to master the use of an arcade stick.

In comes the Hori Fighting Stick 3, made for the PS3. The Arcade stick has a Japanese arcade layout (my personal favourite) which means that it will be slightly slanted diagonally to the left. This of course is much more logical in terms of design because our fingers aren’t straight. However gamers of the west may find it a bit awkward as the arcade cabinets usually have buttons that are straight and coordinate with each other. And with an 8 button layout you can’t help but ask why they didn’t make the last two buttons on the right hand side straight like the Mad Catz fightsticks.

At the top of the stick is 6 buttons along with an adjuster for the turbo. From the right side to left it has the standard start, select and home button. The inclusion of L3 and R3 buttons are beyond me, but turbo is always a nice feat. I doubt anyone would need to use that turbo button because the stick itself is really responsive.

With the 8 buttons spanning the whole of the surface it gives little room for the stick to be separated from the buttons and can be a bit frustrating for gamers with big hands. This often affects missing the L2 button which is the button along with L1 closest to the stick. Yes, if you’re thinking it (the button placement), it’s quite bizarre. They made L1 and L2 the buttons closest to the stick when usually the most essential buttons are the controller face buttons for any fighting game. It would have been much more logical to place the square and x buttons first then the other face buttons ending with the shoulder ones. Although it could be quite confusing, most fighters allow customisable button changing.

Overall the arcade stick plays and feels well. The only downside I can think of really is how close the stick is to the buttons which can be really off-putting to some playing 2d fighters. A personal experience of mine would be trying to do the ultra with Ryu on SF4 in one side of the screen is easier than the other. The reason for this is that I have more room to pull it off on the side that I’m not directing it to the buttons. However with a price of around £40/$60 you can’t go wrong purchasing this