It’s a well known fact that fighting games aren’t too great with an analogue stick. There’s a reason the Sega Saturn controller was so revered for fighting games for so many years – it was the last official controller that was really, really high quality for fighters.
With the advent of a fighting game revival thanks to Capcom’s Street Fighter IV and the newly released Super Street Fighter IV, Mad Catz have put out a few solutions for those suffering with trying to play the game on the 360 or PS3 controllers – and the cheapest, least hardcore of the bunch is the FightPad.
Compared to the arcade sticks which’ll set you back three figures digits, the FightPads will only set you back around 40 dollars (or 35 pounds, exchange rate be damned) a piece. They’ll look familiar in shape to Sega Saturn fans, resembling that pad that is so revered by fighting game fans very closely.
The pad sports an eight-way floating D-Pad that is nice and mushy, offering a smooth movement that’s the polar opposite of the stiff D-Pads on the official controllers. The D-Pad actually seems to function in style closer to an actual fighting stick than a regular D-Pad, adn this works well, as sticks have always been the best for fighters.
The fact Mad Catz have quite deliberately made the D-Pad oversized was clearly a very wise decision, as your thumb can then slip about the pad easily and in more exaggerated movements, making many moves that are sometimes difficult easier to use.
Like the FightSticks from the same range, the function of the D-Pad can be edited to be the Left or Right analogue stick or the D-Pad itself, allowing you to choose just in case the game you want to use it for uses the stick for menus and the D-Pad for gameplay. This makes sure the pad is compatible with a wide range of non-fighting games, including 2D classics on Game Room and Xbox Live Arcade.
The fightstick features six face buttons and two shoulder buttons in the now traditional layout, and in most fighting games this amounts to the top three buttons being Heavy, Medium and Light kick while the bottom three are the same for punch. In Street Fighter the shoulder buttons serve as a combination of all three punches or all three kicks for activating ultras, but in different games they might have a different function.
I found the pad suitable for other fighters like Dead or Alive or Soul Calibur with some tweaking of the control options for the games, and the D-Pad and the buttons remained just as responsive outside of the Street Fighter games they were designed for. The only real complaint I can level at the buttons themselves is that they are a little too loose in my pad and are prone to a bit of rattle.
In addition to the standard features as controller, the FightPad also includes a turbo feature. It does what it says on the tin, allowing you to double or triple-up button presses, with a little light blinking on the front of the pad to let you know that turbo is being used. I didn’t have much use for this feature myself, but it’s handy to have.
The controller is a comfortable build, with a smooth plastic that’s adorned with artwork of a Street Fighter IV character with the sides of the pad having a harder plastic. Where your fingers will come to rest on the underside is covered in a softer grip which helps you keep a grip on the pad.
To be blunt, the glossy top isn’t always ideal if you’re playing in a hot room – the last thing you need is to slip on the D-Pad during a vital move because the controller’s starting to get a little sweaty, but overall the quality of the FightPad build is superb. It’s comfy to hold and use and Mad Catz have picked out some great Street Fighter IV artwork to decorate the pads.
The Xbox 360 version of the pad is wireless, which eliminates the fuss of batteries but adds the inconvenience of a wire lying across the floor. The PS3 is the opposite, wireless but requiring power. Both pads serve competently and without lag, and that’s all that matters in the end.
For the bargain price – comparable to that of a normal controller – the FightPad offers a specific solution for fighting games as well as enough versatility to be an ideal controller for retro Xbox Live Arcade and Game Room titles.
It’s a tiny bit light and flimsy feeling, but it’s so far managed to survive hours of intense Street Fighter play, so they’re clearly pretty robustly built. If you’re looking to improve your Street Fighter game and get rid of that rubbish analogue stick without shelling out over a hundred bones for a stick, this is definitely the solution.
