Topic: The Hori Real Arcade Pro V is amazing, after modding that is.

As someone who sold there prized Dreamcast fighting collection to fund a Switch, I've been very happy with the fighters released so far on Switch. A lot of my collection has been released, a few more are coming and I'm preying that with more Capcom support I'll get thinks like Marvel VS Capcom 2, Capcom VS SNK 2, Street Fighter III 3rd Strike and maybe even a Darkstalkers game to help me rebuild my once prized collection.

But as good as the support has been on Switch, I was missing that arcade stick feel. And sure, the DC stick wasn't up to scratch compared to things like my TE2 but it was still great. Far better than that awful controller was for fighters.

So once the RAPV was announced, I immediately jumped on and ordered it. And I got it yesterday and I love it.

I nearly cut my fingers and thumbs to ribbons modding it as it is MUCH more difficult than a TE2, because it's very compact inside, it has very tight fittings and sharp plastic/metal is everywhere, so some force is needed (to shove the replacement buttons in) as well as some care. But then once I was done and once my hands had stopped hurting I set up to play with amazing results.

And incase you're wondering why my first thought was to mod the crap out of it. Well, as stock... It's not great. It has Hayabusa butons which are spongey, I hate square gates and sadly square is the standard stock gate on most if not all sticks and having the actual stick component set to DPAD doesn't give the best results for accuracy... Probably because the Joy Con have 4 buttons so the Switch probably counts all DPAD inputs as 4 buttons even when you're not using the Joy Con. I say this because the DPAD on the Pro and the 8 Bit Do SNES pads also aren't as accurate for fighters as I had hoped they would be. Obviously this is all speculation but that's my theory.

So modding was really the only way to go for me. So I switched the stick to left analogue mode with a simple switch flick as thankfully like most sticks you can change the input from DPAD to LS and RS. I've no idea why RS as I don't know any fighters than use the right analogue to move.

Then I ripped out the 8 main buttons (I'm ok with unimportant ones being Hayabusa) and shoved some Sanwa's in, I did it in the style of a SNES pad (So X is Blue etc...) but as Sanwa don't do Grey I went White for R/ZR buttons and Black for L/ZL.

Then lastly I ripped the square gate out and put in an Octagonal and I may, MAY one day rip the Hayabusa stick out and put a JLF in purely because this is my first Hayabusa stick and while Hayabusa sticks are considered better than JLF by many pro's, I'll be honest, I'm struggling to get used to it. But I will persist... At least until I have the spare cash to buy a JLF, lol.

But all in all it's still a well made piece of kit, once you put some work into it. If you're a huge fight fan then I can't recomend it to be used as stock, but most people who are huge fight fans and therefore buy these, tend to mod them as it's just something you can do to personalise it. Let alone to make it feel right for your play style, you want to make it look right too. But if you're really not a huge fight fan then you're either A not gonna bother buying the RAPV at all or B not gonna care that the buttons feel spongey compared to Sanwa. So if you have the spare cash and are interested, I recomend it.

Now I just hope that on top of the steady NeoGeo releases and Pokken, we get more games from OTHER genres that historically make good use of arcade sticks, because SHMUPS work great, the Namco collection plays amazing as they were originally arcade games and there's a few other games I can think of that will make great use of it.

Nice read and happy to see a positive reception. I'm still waiting for mine in the post. Maybe tomorrow...

Picture Please!

Nice I have been wanting to change some button colours, ball top and change my gate on my TES+ for a while, simple mods but finding a supplier in Canada or that ships to Canada without charging a mint is hard to find.

Most suppliers I found the shipping is almost the cost of the parts.

@LinkRinkyDink Would you play Pokken with the stick? I'd love to, but since the actual cabinet uses controllers with D-Pads, I would think a stick would be worse, not better? If it DOES play well with a stick, though I'll play the heck out of it with this thing

sigh all these folks that got their HRAPs.....where could mine be?

@LinkRinkyDink man your post makes me feel like a total fight stick noob.... 😓 Any chance you took pics of the break down, the build and the finished piece? It sounds awesome.

Might actually buy one, it would be my first stick ever as i don't normally play fighters beyond casual. But with all these arcade games on the Switch, i feel like this would be the perfect time to get one!

I know right! I'm kinda thinking the same.

@LinkRinkyDink Nice, any chance we can see the end result?

I just ordered the Hori Switch stick, since I don't have any experience with arcade sticks (apart from the occasional arcade machine abroad), I will leave it stock for now. I'm even tempted to buy a second one since I'm seeing them at a nice price new (120 euro).

Bought my Stick recently and had been having issues with consistently pulling off moves in STREET FIGHTER 30TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION. Thought it was just me, I'll try switching the stick settings from D-Pad to L-Analogue to see if it helps improve things.

Let us know. I’m curious about buying one of these fight sticks. Don’t know if I want to drop the money on the Hori or go another route.

Wow, great review. Definitely going to pick one up for the psikyo collections.

I just bought the RAP V as well and am REALLY interested in the octagonal restrictor plate but a little confused as to WHICH EXACT 1 i need. Next question would be will it bolt right up or is customizing gonna have to be done to install it?

Because many are subscribed to it, like me.

@DRIGGZ I'll look it up, I think I saw it mentioned on an arcade forum somewhere