I assembled my new Street Fighter Alpha 2 XT cabinet by Iconicarcade yesterday night.. Here's my thoughts on it both good and bad..
I've not watched or read anyone else's reviews so I'm not at all influenced by anyone else's opinions.. all the opinions here are purely my own based on my experience with this, other home arcade cabs which this is my eighth over three years and also a lifetime of arcade gaming and pc/video gaming and emulator experience since the 90s.
I've been waiting on this cabinet along with everyone else who pre-ordered it early and I've been pining for it all year and finally it's here! I was happy even while assembling it knowing it's finally here and I can finally set it up..
I've actually always been more of a Mortal Kombat person but I've played quite a bit of the Street Fighter Alpha series every now and then along with X-Men vs Street Fighter.. and I could not resist this because it promised to be the biggest most authentic home arcade cabinet so far and it is but not without a few caveats which I'll go into..
Positives: It's the current biggest in terms of width and depth. The dimension that gives the most benefit is the width because it gives more space for two adult players to play together. 3/4 scale has always been noticibly narrow and is best reserved for single player cabs IMHO
The control deck is better than my previous large cabinet control deck (on the KI Pro) because it has more space below the bottom row of buttons a little more than 2 and 1/2 inches vs 2" which might not sound like much but it absolutely makes a difference in where my hands land combined with the angle of the deck. The other cab could do with a custom deck with everything moved up a little over half an inch to match but I digress..
I was surprised by how steep the deck is. It's currently the steepest deck I have and I couldn't tell from seeing it in 2D photos.. Its not a bad thing because again along with the deck layout it makes it comfy to play.. I actually prefer the feel of the texture on it over having my hands on plexiglass.
The volume pot is an improvement because it feels weighty and premium and unlike some of my previous cabs the function of it works independently of the power button or switch.
The finish of the kick plate is a nice matte finish which looks more authentic and matches the way I've been customizing my other fighting game cabs out of the box without me having to DIY which is a benefit.
I appreciate how the LED fixture for the marquee came with considerable diffusion which prevents the hot spots seen on my other largest cab..
Having USB ports on the front is pretty handy for connecting peripherals for advanced functions.
I knew I was going to like how the display is mounted and matted to keep the proper aspect ratio even though they used a widescreen monitor in this.
The artwork is very nice and gives the cabinet a sleek and professional look that I appreciate.. it's not overly designed and it's high quality. I kinda thought the sideart would be more high res than it is with finer details but it's very clean and detailed enough particularly standing at distance.
The dimensions of the cabinet ended up fitting quite well in the spot I chose for it in my current arrangement of my fighting game row and putting it on far right is the best place right now IMHO because it becomes the first impression entering the room from the outside and gives the impression that the rest of the cabs are like it when pulled forward to more or less line up with it. I had 9" of space left to the door jam after placing it there which surprised me!
The performance of the games including the more demanding ones seem quite good for the most part.
Now for "The Bad" which some things here might be but some of it is merely my personal preference and not necessarily bad and I know they have their reasons why they chose certain things.. it's nothing personal nor am I simply trying to be negative.
Currently the front end seems rather bare bones in terms of what it exposes none of the games exposes access to DIP switch settings or screen settings in the UI and the only actual settings options section seems to be for hooking up to the Wi-Fi.
I currently don't know how to change any visual settings like turning bilinear filtering on or off, basic scanlines or anything advanced like CRT shader, curvature, glow, etc. I do not like the default visual presentation of just bilinear.
After connecting a wireless keyboard I was able to access the MAME menus and also go into service settings which is a first in stock home arcade software for me which I appreciate but some games like Street Fighter Alpha 2 don't seem to save their DIP switch settings on exit which is a pain.
I like to set the game to silence the attract mode via the DIP on all my cabs and only have it play sounds while a game is being played. This is a personal preference so I can run them in the background while I watch videos in the adjoining room with the door open for air and still be able to walk up and start a game with sound without having to constantly adjust the volume.
I also don't like how start button simultaneously adds credits and starts a game and I never liked that on PAC cabinets either TBH
I prefer just simply having Free Play on instead although I think these cabinets could also benefit from having the coin eject buttons be rigged to be dedicated credit insert buttons because some games either don't have free play or it's buggy. But it should be an option for different tastes.. free play or inset credits via coin eject buttons.
KI Pro almost had that but the coin eject buttons essentially acted as duplicate start buttons and one could not turn off free play to use them as credit insertion buttons making them pointless functionally speaking.
I don't like the placement of the power switch on the speaker panel. For this cabinet it's okay because of its style but I'd prefer it to be on the top panel like some commercial arcade machines have especially because if this were a Midway style cabinet it would get in the way if I were to have a perforated steel speaker grill fabricated for it.
I did hear that for some people the control panel components like the joysticks and buttons are just fine but they are not to my tastes..
I can technically play with them but the joysticks are too clicky and not as smooth as iL eurosticks to me and the buttons are not clicky enough.. This is probably my decades in American arcades talking but I prefer iL/happ joysticks and buttons particularly for 90s fighting games.. I play better with those.
I was shocked to see that the control panel was lower than the one on my KI Pro and the height I've been making my other cabs with inline risers which is about 40"... this actually makes it seem smaller despite it being about the same height and deeper but I realize I'm in a niche when it comes to that because not everyone has the KI Pro and mods the height of their other cabs.
At the very least I'm rethinking the height I have my Street Fighter II CE Deluxe cab because it looks substantially taller than the XT cab because its control panel height is 42" after a 4" inline booster.
I'd like to at least even out the other three cabs other than the XT to make things look a bit better but I wouldn't put it past myself to boost the XT cab about three inches to line the front edge of the control panel up and bring the monitor up to the same height as the other three.. this is not really a criticism though because it's purely personal preference and I see it pretty much matches some commercial cabs in that dimension.
I'm not a fan of the edge banding. I appreciate how the white color looks because I chose the same color for my Street Fighter II CE Deluxe but it doesn't look the same because it's flat and not rounded and looks kinda cheap to me.
I think the sideart should have been matte too TBH for me that looks more professional..
The sound system underwhelmed me at first but sounds s bit better cranked up depending on game and I've felt some bass from it but I still think ot could probably use an additional bass module or subwoofer to give it more kick and thump
This last thing is not really a criticism but I noticed the faux coin eject button is more orange than the rest and I would have preferred it also to say Free Play like the rest and not 25 cents but I understand they wanted to make it look more "real".. I just like it to actually reflect what it actually costs the player for a game..
One thing along the same lines I almost forgot to mention is that the coin door is virtually identical to the faux coin doors from Arcade1UP and Basic Fun and it needs me to do detailing to it like those do.. The simplest being to hit the lock with black paint and wiping it off leaving paint in the crevices making it look more real. I'd also like to texture these because real ones tend to have more of a truck bed liner texture some time but I've experimented with changing the finish as well as color with spray paint before.
This cab does have me pondering things and I'm having to get used to a few things about it and would like some things to be changed or fixed and to customize it to make it my own. We'll see what I end up doing as I live with it for a while.
With every piece I've been adding to my home arcade I've been getting more and more of the look and feel of what I've been dreaming about my entire life and I'm in it for the long haul!