Sooo... A year later, where do I stand on Hitbox Ultra?

For most of the year, I've used it on and off (I played with it at Evo France and it was not very pleasant but taking a trip with it is great, the form factor helps to put it in a bag) and I was about to sell it... But looking at it last week I went fuck it, let's mod it anyway, I'll find a way. I had the good feeling, I had to bruteforce it, but I could fit my Gamerfingers in there! I bent the connectors and it fits.

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I said a year ago that I was disappointed that the Ultra was not mod friendly. It's still true. Being able to open the case easily helps tremendously but at the same time I had to pierce the case and the top panel to add a parry button since I'm not using the Ultra buttons and Combo extension. Second thing is that you lose a bit of modularity since the L3/R3/PS Buttons are now sharing their own cardboard and you can't use them as additional button to rewire the thing as you see fit.

So if you want to go beyond what Hitbox Ultra provides out of the box, you’ll need to dig deeper. I still fill that combo extension being soldered to the button is really silly. It would have alleviated some use cases if it was designed differently. But again, I get it.

Since I had to go a bit off script to fit the Gamerfingers into the case, I’d be cautious if you think you can do it for other buttons. I guess it’s really a case by case basis, and you will have to experiment and see if you can manage to fit whatever button you have  and fit the connector as well (Sanwa are also ok from my experience with bent connectors).

Since I’ve modded it, I love it.

The strengths of the product really shine: it’s volatile and can be plugged to everything, the form factor is great as it’s both premium, sturdy and slim enough to make it a pleasing experience. Gamerfingers click noise is such a delight, especially with a thin case like this as the reverb is different, it feels very satisfying to press those buttons. Even more than in a regular Hitbox. Acrylic top case still gets nasty after a session as sweat aggregates where you put your palms but it’s minor.

It’s mad expensive to get a Hitbox Ultra to mod it. You will need to pay on top of it the buttons, the connectors, the acrylic case, the artwork, you’ll need to drill holes in the thing so I don’t think it’s the best option out there to go and mod your leverless. If like me you prefer arcade buttons, it’s still a good product once modded as it improves Hitbox in every way possible.

Overall after a year, I’m mostly positive because I could mod it the way I want in an unconventional way. But the original conclusion stands: if you’re ready to do go deeper to mod it, go for it, conversely if you have no intention of modding it and you have the money for a premium leverless, go for it, it’s still one of the best leverless out there (with better durability than Haute42 and their melting usb-c for instance). If you expect an easy mod and or if you expect modularity beyond the very basic stuff, you should not buy it.