MadCatz Street Fighter IV Fightpad (Blanka)

MadCatz has had their Fightpads successfully running for quite a while, and with the release of Street Fighter IV earlier this year, they released a series of special edition fightpads. The only thing that differentiates the special edition pads from the standard ones is the Street Fighter IV character artwork on it. The one I am currently reviewing is the Blanka edition.

To begin with fightpads are created exclusively for Capcom-style fighting games, that require controller moves like down-forward, half-circle forward and other such moves that can be difficult to do on a standard Xbox 360 gamepad. Of course the best options for these games would be to use the arcade stick, but unfortunately not everyone has the space or budget for those units. Enter Fightpad - gives good control over fighting games and occupies just about the same space as a standard console controller.

Out of the box, the fightpad is slightly bigger and bulkier than a standard Xbox360 controller, which seemed a bit odd to hold. The buttons are bigger than a standard controller and the RB and RT buttons have been placed on the face of the pad instead of the right shoulder. Instead, the LB and LT have been placed on the left and right shoulders respectively. One thing that bothered me was that the controller was not wireless. The PS3 version of the controller sells as a wireless, and for the same price the Xbox 360 gets a wired controller?! How is that fair?

The D-pad which is the biggest selling point for this controller seemed a bit stiff at first, but after a little maneuvering, I realized how easily I could rotate it. The D-pad acts as a larger thumb-rest for an analog-stick, which makes it an ideal substitute for an arcade stick.

Gone are the traditional analog sticks, which were practically useless for Capcom-style classic games anyways. If you do need to use the analog sticks for any reason, there's a handy switch at the back of the controller that programs the D-pad into the left or the right analog stick, depending on your selection.

There's also a turbo button next to the back button on the middle of the controller, which you can program to execute quick button press commands at a single press of any button, or even slow ones. There are other options to program the turbo button as well, which should be useful for anyone who's into tournament fighting.

The odd shape and feel of the Fightpad starts to make perfect sense once you try playing a game on it. The large buttons felt robust and responded quickly to my commands. Placing the RB and RT on the gamepad allowed me to set them as Hard Punch and Hard Kick, just like in the arcade machines, giving me a better experience. Even the shoulder buttons were responsive, though they felt a bit cheap before I actually used them in games.

The controller didn't do much to improve my gameplay in Soul Calibur, but considering that it's based more on key-presses than directional maneuvers, even a standard Xbox controller worked well enough on that.

Once I started Street Fighter IV, the improvement in my game thanks to the more responsive controls was immediately noticeable. Executing Super-Hadokens, tapping away the punch button as Blanka, doing a hold back and immediate forward punch as Bison — all were a lot easier to pull off with the fight pad.

If you own a PS3, I doubt that the fightpad would do much to improve your gameplay as the stock controller itself has a pretty good D-pad. But playing Capcom fighting games for Xbox 360 users can be a hellish experience thanks to the stiff D-pad on the stock controller, which is where a purchase of Fightpad (Rs. 2800 approx) would prove valuable.

Unfortunately the Fightpad (Street Fighter IV edition as well as the normal one) is not available in India, and we had to purchase our unit from abroad for the sake of this review. If you're interested in picking it up, your best bet would be to do it here from Play-Asia while they still have it in stock.