After playing some weeks I wondered how other joysticks would feel. The Mag Sticks are really not bad and although it is easy enough to switch from 4 to 8-way and back from the top I started to think it should be automated. My kids and guests don't understand the difference between 4 and 8-way. In fact they don't care. But they DO notice a game is unplayable if the stick is set wrong.
So I ordered an Ultra Stick 360 and a Sanwa JLF to get a feeling of the Japanese sticks. As I also wanted to see how a Neo Geo colored set of buttons looked on my CP I ordered some yellow and green buttons too.
I was curious how modular my joystick mount was. I already knew I did not take into account larger mounting plates unfortunately but at least the Sanwa has the same plate dimensions as the Mag Stick.
Original Mag Stick mount:
The Sanwa fits just fine but the connector is in the way of the mounting plate. So I removed it and soldered the wires directly on the PCB:
Placed the filler blocks again and remounted my custom plate:
Tada...
I swapped the buttons. My first impression was not that bad but I think it will look bad once the CP artwork is in place. We will see:
I programmed the iPac so the Sanwa stick and right buttons also control Player 1. I asked my test team to play some games:
Both my son and I were not very impressed by the Sanwa. The travel feels longer than the Mag Stick. It reacts fast but is is less restricted. We also both prefer the bat top over the ball top. I ordered an addition bat top for the Sanwa but still the Mag stick won. Now I'm even more curious about the Ultra Stick but I have to make another CP with larger undermount to also fit the Ultra stick (and maybe even a Servo Stick in the future). I want to get a CP setup which can hold pretty much every stick. I was close but not there yet ;-)