So the buttons and ball top that I ordered from Lizard Lick came in today. I went with them on my readings at SRK. After giving them a shot, I say check them out, my experience was totally ace.

With these buttons pulled out of the glorious USPS shipping box, I replaced the buttons on the arcade stick I just bought last week. A pretty simple process, and I only stripped one bolt in total!

After swapping them out, I jumped into a quick game or two of Street Fighter HD Remix, the difference in the feel of the buttons is insane! I must say that the buttons do feel much more true to an arcade experience. I still suck at the game of course, but come Street Fighter 4 next week, I’ll be playing the hell out of that.

First, it’s pretty awesome that Canada Post makes Saturday deliveries on priority packages. I wake up and I find out that they delivered the arcade stick I ordered on line from the folks at Arcade Shock. From the time  the order was submitted to the time I received it it took 5 business days, pretty impressed, and it was shipped USPS to boot! Will definitely order from them again.

Anyway, back to the stick. People who know about the Real Arcade Pro series by Hori know that it’s a solid arcade stick, and built to last. I’m not an expert when it comes to this stuff, but from the reading I’ve done at the SRK forums this was a pretty good stick to get.

Based on the hour or so I played with it, things I liked:

+ The joystick. It’s a Sanwa JLF, not much to say about that, it’s a solid stick.

+ The weight. The whole thing is pretty hefty, which I like. It won’t move around alot when you are playing.

Things I don’t like:

- Button layout. Not sure why they decided to lay it out like this. I’m guessing it’s because it’s the same button layout as the EX2 stick they released.

- The Buttons. They don’t feel quite right, probably because of the Hori-brand buttons in the stick. Not a big deal, since  I already have some Sanwa ones coming in the mail.

I’ll have more on this in a few days when I have put some time into it (and the new Sanwa buttons come in!).