Since buying the PSP on its American launch day, I had experienced enough frustration with the system's d-pad that there were certain games I no longer played. I bought Darkstalkers and Grand Theft Auto only to discover that the d-pad made them more irritating than fun. When Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max was announced, my initial reaction was "I'm not getting suckered into buying another PSP fighting game."
Shortly before Street Fighter Zero 3 Upper was released for the PSP in Japan, the clouds that the d-pad had cast over the PSP parted, and a ray of hopeful light shown down on the system. Capcom had received feedback from their customers that Darkstalkers was nearly unplayable because of Sony's wretched design, and Capcom had a solution. The first shipment of SFZ3U included the Street Fighter Game Pad. Similarly, orders for SFA3M direct from Capcom USA also include the SFGP for a limited time.
The Street Fighter Game Pad is a small piece of plastic in the shape of a d-pad. Mind you, it isn't in the shape of Sony's ridiculous idea of what a d-pad is, where the cross isn't connected, and there are no diagonals. It's not even in Nintendo's vision of a d-pad, where the cross connects, but the diagonals are empty. No, Capcom's Street Fighter Pad mimicks the only company to get d-pads perfect, Sega. It is round, with a connected cross and diagonals visible. It connects over top of Sony's abomination by way of four small stickers, one attaching to each direction.
http://images.capcom.com/games/sfalpha3max/sfapad.jpg
After cleaning the existing PSP d-pad with an alcohol and water mixture, the Street Fighter pad was afixed to my PSP. It was time for a test. I ripped open SFA3M's packaging, claimed the UMD, stuck it in my PSP, and fired the system up.
For the first time ever, Street Fighter was portable. It wasn't puke and black like on GameBoy. It wasn't played with too few buttons like on the GBA. This was the real deal. D, DF, F + punch produced Hadoukens. The control issues found in Darkstalkers were a distant memory. Pressing what felt like diagonally up and back actually made the character jump backwards.
Then a sobering thought dawned on me. I had read that Capcom had programmed SFA3M to be less stringent about the d-pad motions in order to account for Sony's error in design. What if this new found hope was on the software end and not in the SFGP? This called for a second test.
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories collected dust, with only 10% of the game completed on my Memory Stick. The control during the on-foot portions of the game was unplayable for me. I refuse to use the PSP's analog nub, and the d-pad was clearly design from Dr. Frankenstein. This would be a real test of the SFGP. For the first time since I have owned GTA:LCS, I made it from the save icon to the door in my apartment without running into a wall. Sometimes success is nuclear fission. Sometimes success is navigating around a corner.
Some further time with the PSP, and perhaps Darkstalkers, is needed, but already the Street Fighter Game Pad has proven itself as a valuable, and possibly necessary, accessory for the PSP. It has enabled real, portable Street Fighter. With that, who needs nuclear fission?
