Finds! - Hori Real Arcade Pro 3

In this entry of Finds!, I recently bought Hori's Real Arcade Pro 3 (HRAP3) arcade stick controller. Since the recent trend of new fighting games being released (e.g. Soul Calibur IV, Street Fighter IV, Blaz Blue, King of Fighters XII, and up and coming Tekken 6) and the ongoing slaughter of American arcades, emulating the arcade 'experience' at home has never been more important for the gaming enthusiast.

As someone who doesn't have a PS3 at the moment, it feels kind of silly to buy one at the moment only for it to collect dust until I buy a PS3 of my own; but taking into account how much time I've been oogling this stick, it's money well spent.

At the time, I bought it from VPGames for $84.85 + $1.85 (mandatory insurance) for a grand total of $86.70. VPGames currently offers free shipping on orders over $75, so I was able to save a lot on shipping costs.

Considering the very niche market for arcade sticks, I could not find any prices from local retailers. However, the main online retailers (Amazon, eBay, Play-Asia, etc.) currently do not offer a deal as good as the one I got. Prices range from $99.99-$149.99 for the HRAP3, so if you're in the market for a mid-range model arcade stick, take into consideration the price I bought it at.

I did encounter some problems with VPGames as they shipped my order in a box with very shoddy packaging; which resulted in this...

And This.

Thankfully the egg cartons inside of the Hori box preserved my stick.

It's in one piece thankfully.

I emailed their customer support shortly after seeing my horribly damaged order, they responded in a timely manner and were able to remedy my problem. Hopefully for future orders, this packaging problem won't be an issue. As of now, I am on the fence of whether to recommend from buying from them (only bought from them once before aside from this order).

About the Product:

I am fairly new to playing with arcade sticks, but have read up on most of the reviews for it. Here are some of the features of the stick courtesy of SDTekken:

• Sanwa JLF-TP-8Y-SK arcade stick


• Hori snap-in buttons


• Turbo button with three settings; Slow, Normal, Fast


• Stick lever can be set as digital, left analog, or right analog


• Quick disconnects on wiring for buttons


• USB wired for PC/PS3 combatability (works on Macs as well)


• PS/Home button navigation

Overall, the stick (square gate) and buttons and feel quite good, although the buttons may slide/wiggle around during gameplay. This may be normal, but in the future I plan to swap out the Hori buttons with Sanwa or Seimitsu buttons; I've done some research and heard that the HRAP3 is an easy stick to mod (buttons, stick, gate, etc). It's a very sturdy stick with some good weight to it and I'm extremely happy with my purchase, aside from the packaging problems. I would like to give more details, but I am fairly inexperienced with arcade sticks, I'll leave the detailed reviews to the experts.

Since buying my HRAP3 from VPGames, they have recently marked up the price to $89.85, yet the free shipping still coupon still applies. If you do order from them, and if you receive a damaged box as well, please comment or PM me so I can warn others not to buy from them.

Now all I need is a PS3...