street fighter iii: third strike (****) (abdnm #7)
a review of
Street Fighter III Third Strike: Fight for the Future
a videogame by Capcom
published by Capcom
text by Heather Campbell
score: 
(out of four)
selected as #7 on the action button manifesto: a list of the 25 best games of all-time
I may have a Ryu fetish. It started when I watched the Street Fighter anime — a terrible movie, really; don’t watch it unless you’ve got a VHS copy and it’s 1996. And you’re 17, and you haven’t realized there’s more to the world than the Midwest. There’s this long sequence of Ryu standing on top of a mountain, sweating. Patient and focused on a distant bird or something, he performs a SHO-RYU-KEN for no reason other than to satisfy himself, as a kind of combat masturbation. (Before I go any further, I’d like to linger on that idea. How awesome would it be if that was a form of martial art? Masturbatetsu. Jerk-keen-do. C’mon, guys! Two dudes struggling to grab each other’s junk while defending their own. Points are awarded for forcing erections on your opponent. Hey, look at that! I’ve officially written an Action Button review.) Anyway, Ryu does this SHO-RYU-KEN because he can. Nobody’s watching. I mean, we are, but Ryu doesn’t know that. That sort of disregard for an audience? That’s some big sexy, right there. You know, maybe Ryu’s whole character is a masturbation metaphor. Ken goes off and gets married, but Ryu? He doesn’t mind doing it with himself, forever. He’s a combat otaku, satisfied only by his own search.
My Ryu fetish wasn’t confirmed, though, until I saw him put down his bag right before a fight in the alternate round-opening animation sequence of Street Fighter III. He’s just on his way through. He’s got a bag of his stuff. Again, that disregard. Women like assholes, and we’ll never know why. Maybe it’s a caveman thing; being attracted to a jerk means that he probably won’t be around to screw up (or kill) the baby. You can raise it with the other cave-girls. Maybe make out with them. And that’s how society was started.
Wait, no, I know the moment I fell in love with Ryu. It was the first time I performed an E.X. JOUDAN-SOKUTOU-GERI (that’s the kick where Ryu takes a full step into it, and extends his leg into the air, nearly behind him — the force of that kick would knock the paste out of your lungs), and then I followed up with a juggled SHO-RYU-KEN. The guy you hit with that kick? He bounces off an invisible wall, and comes tumbling back at you, and you jump into the air and punch him. That’s pretty satisfying, and extraordinarily simple. Man, that kick. Ryu’s not even looking at the guy he’s hitting. What a jerk. How can you not adore him?
I’m joking of course. You know. About all this. I fell in love with Ryu because he’s in the best video-game I’ve ever played. There are better games, but this one is the best.
Street Fighter III Third Strike: Fight for the Future is the perfect fighting game. The fact that Capcom never made any money off it may have been the first, shrill warning that ten years later the industry would be standing on bathroom scales with fat fists full of mini-games. We’d be sticking cheap toy tennis rackets on the ends of our controllers, and waving our hands through the air with exactly one white woman, one Asian, one black guy, and one ethnically mixed child cheering us on from the couch. Grandma would be watching too, and her mouth would be frozen in the shape of a perfect, euphoric “O.” The mainstream rejection of Street Fighter III should have warned us that ten years on, Miyamoto would press a thick white stick of plastic butter up to his face, twiddle his fingers in a clownish imitation of a musician, and introduce the first video game you didn’t have to pay attention to in order to play. But maybe, most of all, Street Fighter III taught us that there weren’t enough gamers in the industry to support gaming. Crafting the finest, most precise fighting game of all time would not result in the adoration of crowds, nor would it merit an unrivaled financial success. Instead, it would be met with confusion, apathy, and empty disappointment.
Turns out, Street Fighter II was not being played for the right reasons.
The kids who crowded around those cabinets at Pizza Hut or 7-11 liked Street Fighter II because of the big, bright characters, the ridiculous cultural stereotypes, the silly and indecipherable sounds of “sho-ryu-ken” and “ha-do-ken.” They liked waggling the controller, and pushing a few big plastic buttons. Maybe they didn’t realize that beneath that superficial, action-figure finish was a thoroughly compelling combo system, built on a programming oversight. No, instead, they liked making Blanka flash, or Chun-Li kick. (Dude, you could see her panties!) Whatever it was, they were not being careful with their game-playing. They were being casual. Congratulations, Street Fighter II crowd. You can play Street Fighter II on your cell phones. And WiiMusic should be right up your alley.
The developers of Street Fighter III mistakenly assumed that everyone was playing its prequel consciously. They looked at what worked, and improved on it, expounding the combo system with frame-specific accuracy. The game was slowed down, so that each decision had gravity. The lightweight rave tapping of the Alpha series was replaced with lurching, substantial blows, like men playing baseball with slabs of steak. Street Fighter III took the brave path of using hand-drawn art in a time when gaudy, popular, three-dimensional brawlers were hitting home systems half-finished, their visual aesthetic aging instantaneously like the Nazi at the end of The Last Crusade. Capcom made choices based on the game’s ultimate longevity. And then, they took the one element of passivity — that is, pulling away to guard — and gave players an active defensive choice. And that was why Street Fighter III failed.
Street Fighter III failed because you have to be good at video games in order to enjoy it. You can’t get better at it with peripherals. There are no walk-throughs on Gamefaqs — only character move lists and strategies. No amount of money will allow you to beat the guy who is better than you; the quarters will split open the cabinet’s belly and pool around your feet before you’ll be able to take the guy who can follow up a poke attack with a surprise super, or patiently and consistently combo a aerial cross up with a low forward into a fireball, without ever, ever making a mistake. The only way you can get better at Street Fighter III is practice. Street Fighter III is a game of relentless attention, constant flow, and immediate response. It failed because the majority of gamers want to play games about as much as most weekend sailors want to perfect Bosuneering rope-work. We’re moving towards an automatic world, people. Everyone wants everything to happen for them. Street Fighter III demands you take responsibility for every second.
But most of all, Street Fighter III failed because of the parry. Parrying was introduced to Street Fighter III to punish defensive chip damage and, as a result, give players an additional tool in cheap matches. The tiny amount of energy that you lose when you block a fireball? Parrying gets rid of that. You press your joystick toward your opponent during that small window of time when your character makes contact with an attack, and as a reward, you deflect it. You drop your block to do so, and risk taking total damage … but only if you’re not skilled enough to time the action correctly. The Parry presents an opportunity for a counter-attack. But more than that, it represents a deep flowchart of choices, a endlessly branching tree of possibilities that rise out of each moment. You don’t have to parry every attack, but you can. So can your opponent. Parrying means that everything in Street Fighter III is active, even the act of defense. Now, you have to ask yourself: Is it safe to move in for the attack? Do you expect your opponent to know that you’re about to attack? Do you expect them to counter, parry, or block? Can you predict their response to your initiation, and counter their reaction, preemptively? Do you feign an attack, assuming the opponent will parry, and play defensively, to lure your opponent into the same set of choices?
A Street Fighter III match is constant game. It is unceasing physical input coupled with cool-headed, relentless strategy. The game has no audacious, character-killing automatic combos, nor is anything in the game impossible to counter. And the reasons it failed at the bank are the reasons it succeeds as a game. It’s timeless. The art is handsome and lush; the only thing that has aged is the resolution. Coming up on a decade later, the cabinet is still being played at arcades around the world — a sure sign that something went right, somewhere. Does anyone still play Tekken 3? Battle Arena Toshinden? No. And definitely no.
Look, what I’m saying is that Street Fighter III is fun like a Sunday afternoon of basketball. People who have only played Nerf Cubicle Hoopz aren’t going to enjoy a real jump-shot, because they’re not familiar with the weight of the ball, the size of the rim, the way sweat makes it hard to grip the leather. But Capcom looked at the basics of that Nerf game, and said, “Man, this could really be something.” I bet when they finished Street Fighter III Third Strike, they ran around the office, punching each other on the ass and screaming, “Good game!” But do you know what the audience said? I’m too lazy. Gimmie back my foam.
Street Fighter III is the most fun I’ve ever had at an arcade. I’ve put in my time. But as good as I am at it — and, quite frankly, I was probably the best American female Street Fighter III player at one point, and hell, maybe I still am — still, there are so many actions on this machine that I’m not skilled enough to pull off that it will forever be more of a game than I am a gamer. I can understand my shortcomings, and know which gestures I seem unable to carve into my playing rhythm. But I keep practicing, because there’s still more game there. After ten years! Man, I have seen people play this game like they’re inside the damn thing. I’m not talking about exploiting the machine, I’m talking about balanced, nuanced, incredible play. It’s subtlety. Think about that. Street Fighter III is so deep it can be subtle.
But no. Street Fighter II players weren’t interested. The character designs were unfamiliar to everyone. How could people get behind these guys if they weren’t some vague stereotype of a foreign country? Right? There wasn’t any laughter left in a match – just the brutal demand of unwavering concentration. Like Bullet Hell, but all punches and no patterns. The two-dimensional playing field wasn’t false three-deee enough. The music was a little more complicated. You had to choose a super, which meant making choices, which meant that people had to make choices, and nobody wants to make choices. So now we’ve got Wii Music. Nobody has to do anything ever again.
***
Post Script: Street Fighter IV is a good game. It’s a little unbalanced, the moves are too powerful at times, and the roster is a disappointing retread … right now. There’s not a lot of subtlety in it, but I don’t blame Capcom. They’re a company, trying to make a buck. They tried following the game inside Street Fighter II, but discovered that everyone likes the cover more than the content. Fine. I’ll play Street Fighter IV, and I’ll enjoy myself. But every time I hear someone yell, “Damn, Blankaaaaaaa!!!” I’ll hate myself a little for buckling. But only for a little while. I mean, it’s not like I’m going to be playing IV for a decade. Sometime in 2018, I’ll be back at the Street Fighter III machine, tending to my Ryu fetish.
Post Post Script: Anyone who plays Street Fighter III with an Xbox Controller is an idiot.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1818
At first I was like “A GIRL, writing for ABDN?!” Not because I’m a chauvinist or anything, but because I don’t expect girls to talk about balls and dicks and jerking off in video game reviews, and that’s kind of what I come to ABDN for.
I see now how foolish I was.
August 22nd, 2008 at 2101
This is a really weighty review.
But!
The central conceit is flawed. Street Fighter 2 is just as deep and, really, far more unforgiving. Millions of people didn’t play it because it was lazy or automatic, they played it because it was new. And it was something new they could play with their friends and with the people they hated. Even then, if we weren’t still in the tail end of the days of the arcade as a hang out spot, it still would have failed. Right game, right time. When Street Fighter III came out, it was no longer new. Being 2D, it was positively old, in fact! The arcade scene was dead. The time had passed. Circumstance. That’s it. Were the game released three years earlier, or even ten years later, it’d have done better.
August 23rd, 2008 at 039
Hey, she wrote the review for Twilight Princess, don’t you remember? She didn’t like it.
Street Fighter III is an N64-like cling to a format that the world didn’t want anymore, but it’s an enduring improvement over SF2. It dilutes the flaws of the previous game’s strategy. It has an action-movie rhythm, the animation showcases believable force and weight, and best of all, you don’t get KO’d in three throws!
I think Heather meant that III was neglected because most players were turned off by increasing depth, and were more interested in simpler thrills. I admit that I’m guilty of this kind of thinking: recent King of Fighters games, with all the moves they employ, scare the hell out of me, and while Third Strike was still in arcades, I spent my money on Marvel vs. Capcom because it had Mega Man and Venom in it. I guess I’d better hurry on board the Axiom with the rest of the gamers!
August 23rd, 2008 at 041
Way to stick in a 2nd impact shot for the 3s review attention to detail people
August 23rd, 2008 at 330
StompStomp:
That was my call.
I was wondering if someone would notice it!!
I believe you are now owed two prizes.
Man, we really have to get some prizes.
It was also my doing to put the Winning Eleven 8 box in the Winning Eleven 7 review. I guess that was too obvious.
August 23rd, 2008 at 333
too obvious because of the gigantic “8″
see i barely even glanced at the screenshot in this review
August 23rd, 2008 at 930
This is why I don’t play fighting games! I like the aesthetic. I like the idea of two guys beating each other up. But I don’t like the idea that its basically impossible to enjoy the game if you don’t have a high enough skill level.
When I play Devil May Cry or Viewtiful Joe or Spartan i can ease into the game. I know that somewhere there is a level of high level play and maybe I will spend time to learn and understand them. Or I can beat on demons. its all good.
This dosen’t sound like basketball. Basketball is fun for all skill levels. I am utterly shit at basketball. Hell, I don’t even play sports. But I can have fun tossing a ball in a hoop or playing with a few friends. I don’t need to play at NBA levels
Most fighting games look inviting but eventually you realize that unless you work really hard at them you can’t even do basic movements!
When Treasure made the Bleach fighting games they put the special moves on the DS screen. The strategy of when to use them was still present but the punishing memorization of physical commands was absent.
Also, Smash Brothers. I’m not a REAL GAMER or something, maybe. I like a game where pressing the A button throws a fireball and B kicks and later there is high level strategy
Every other review in this series has made me either want to play a game or replay a game I have already played. This makes me want to avoid fighting games.
However, I think the intention is that people like me do not play this game
August 23rd, 2008 at 1523
just to clarify mr. tlon, is your post saying you have trouble with quarter circles forward and dragon punch motions and raising storm pretzels, that kinda stuff?
August 24th, 2008 at 218
Tlon> Almost all fighting games, once you get past a certain point, are about using specific, repetitive strategies, and being able to do some technical, difficult controller movements. To be honest, Smash might be easier to pick up and play, but the high level play might even require more technical ability than 3rd Strike.
I don’t think the message one should get from the article is, “It’s hard to pick up and play, so you might not like it.” I think the message is, “Hey, a fighting game where you’re actually rewarded for getting better.” I’ve got plenty of friends that don’t play 3rd Strike that much, but they can still play it with jump kicks and sweeps, a la SF2. But, the practice someone else puts in is actually rewarded, since those simple strategies won’t work once you learn the system.
It’s like your basketball analogy. You don’t like having to learn the game… okay! Then you can still pick up and play with your friends who feel the same way. But, play against a practiced player (basketball or 3S), and you’ll lose. And that’s how it should be. Would basketball be better if it wasn’t a humiliating, soul crushing experience to play against a pro? I don’t think so.
August 24th, 2008 at 244
Yeah as much as I love SFIII, if I haven’t played in awhile, it takes an extra hour or two to adjust to it again, as opposed to Spartan, where I can pick it up anytime and know exactly how to do what I want to do.
August 24th, 2008 at 408
Tion, one of the things that makes Street Fighter III appealing to me is that you don’t need to play any good at it to enjoy it. In terms of actual playing, it’s instantly accessible to everyone!
I do think a big reason for the game’s commercial failure is that players were turned off by the fact that they didn’t recognise any of the characters. Instead of the eight or so iconic, markedly different characters that made a brand, you’ve got like a huge mess of dudes including 8 karate/kung fu/ninjitsu guys and maybe three who just don’t make sense. Even if you pick good ol’ Ryu the chances are you’re going to get him in a purple suit or some shit.
It’s like turning on the new series of Scooby Doo and finding the gang has been replaced by like 20 dudes, six of whom are just Freddy with different colored neckerchiefs and haircuts, and one of whom is just a plate of breakfast arranged into a face floating in the air. Also Scooby Doo isn’t in it. It’s pretty much guaranteed to alienate anyone who ever liked Scooby Doo. They’re still solving mysteries and getting up to antics, though! I would watch it, but it’s pretty obvious why most people won’t!
August 24th, 2008 at 524
Holy fuckstick that was excellent. Great work.
All of the greatest feats in art/music/film/games/bla are universally neglected. It’s the way things are, and that’s how it should be. Third Strike doesn’t care about you. It doesn’t need you, it’s the other way around.
My name is Alex and I’m a Ryuaholic.
August 24th, 2008 at 835
So you’re saying no SFIII is better than playing it with an Xbox pad?
Also, these reviews have screenshots? …
August 24th, 2008 at 947
Street Fighter II wasn’t being played for the right reasons? Or was it just not being played for YOUR reasons? Look, I get what you’re saying. It’s like hearing a group of girls talk about how hot Brad Pitt was in Fight Club. Thing is, Fight Club had some message it was trying to convey and, I’m sorry, the Street Fighter series doesn’t. They teamed up with the X-Men for Christ’s sake! You can say that you enjoy the game on a deeper level, and I’d likely agree with you on that, but let it go already! There’s no reason why casual gamers and their insipid casual games should impede on your enjoyment of so-called hardcore games. They certainly don’t give a damn about what we think of THEIR games. And they shouldn’t. You don’t see soccer players getting all pissy that their sport of choice isn’t as popular as basketball, do you? Actually, I don’t know if they do or not. I’ve never actually met a soccer player before. My point is, getting upset that people aren’t having fun in the “correct” way is pretty damn snobby! And don’t worry – Ryu may whore himself around town to any floozy with some spare change, but you’ll always be his one true love.
August 24th, 2008 at 1026
I thought of another terrible analogy for Street Fighter III’s commercial failure.
I think it is comparable to when Prince released like 200 dumb-ass albums in the 90′s. After maybe the first hundred medocre albums, people had kind of given up on buying Prince records by the time he actually released a half-decent one. Similarly, Streetfighter’s mainstream audience had grown tired of the franchise due to all the countless interations of Alpha Hyper Turbo EX whatever. In giving every iteration of the game a home release, they flooded the market and confused most casual consumers.
August 24th, 2008 at 1028
Also, Bludhead, I think you will find Soccer is considerably more popular than Basketball!
August 24th, 2008 at 1042
harveyjames: You’re probably right, but not here in the U.S. of A!
August 24th, 2008 at 1446
Street Fighter III is to Street Fighter II as Blu-Ray is to DVD? Certainly that’s the case with CPS-3 versus CPS-2 as mentioned in the other thread. And why the hell did Capcom only use the widescreen feature of the CPS-3 in double impact? Did the engineers who implemented the high resolution mode neglect to tell the game designers?
Anyways, my first analogy stems from the fact that Street Fighter II looked goddamn amazing when it came out and Street Fighter III looked like a prettier Street Fighter II. Who knows.
This is like trying to guess why the Dreamcast failed, or why it’s a strecth to make a genre-spanning top 25 but it’s ok to apply Nietzschean Ethics to a Street Fighter III review.
Also interesting to see the system-tweaking feature of the home ports bombed, as evidenced by the lack of mention in the two reviews and comments. An acute case of too few constraints?
August 24th, 2008 at 1521
“just to clarify mr. tlon, is your post saying you have trouble with quarter circles forward and dragon punch motions and raising storm pretzels, that kinda stuff?”
Yep. I’m really bad at that sort of thing. I can button mash at fighting games and I can occasionally pull them off in games like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night but I’m bad at both pulling off the motions and remembering them
Its funny ’cause there are always SFII machines around and since i’m a ‘gamer’ you’d expect me to be able to play them and I always get humiliated
My problem is with how abtuse the controls are, basically. I understand that most ‘deep’ games get more rewarding the more time you put into them but most don’t require you to memorize 30 button combinations
Or: I’m good at pinball. If you put me against somebody who has never played pinball I will probably win. But all I am doing is pushing flipper buttons and sometimes bumping the machine. Or something like Doom – sure, a high level player would slaughter me. But he’s still moving, shooting, and strafing
August 24th, 2008 at 1616
ok thanks sir tlon
i can really sympathise with you on that one! (and yes, i can do all that stuff perfectly well myself.) but, and this is going to sound jerky but really, i do sympathise with you and i really don’t want to be a jerk, complaining about that is missing the point of fighting games in general.
i understand dude. really. no bullshit here. my dear sister button mashes and complains about that stuff too. (she’s, incidentally, 12, and only plays fighting games when visiting me.) i can understand if you don’t want to make the effort to learn fighting games because they’ve turned you off, but if you ever do, all i can say is play them more often than my sister does and less often than i do, and if you’re doing console ports, use a stick for god’s sake unless you’re even more broke than i am, which doesn’t seem mathematically possible.
man, i feel like a huge asshole after typing that. i only hope you can forgive me.
August 25th, 2008 at 655
tion, you keep saying stuff i want to say!
i’m pretty street fighter 2 already has a proper casual sequel: it’s marvel vs. capcom. look at all the familar characters! plus other familiar characters from comic books we like! plus MEGA EXPLOSIONS!
street fighter 3 was made specifically for the hardcore sfII crowd who appreciated every little nuiance.
i don’t feel it failed at all. it seems to enjoy great success in it’s own little “street fighter sport” market. i think capcom is full of classy, sexy individuals who know their audiences and what they like. so they make street fighter III for people who have lengthy discussions of hit boxes, and distance, while making street fighter vs. marvel vs. capcom vs. everyone to satisfy…well…everyone else.
that seems fair, right?
August 25th, 2008 at 707
It met with success in the hard-core market, but did not make money for Capcom.
August 25th, 2008 at 828
Well, in America at least, the hardcore shied away from SFIII for quite a long time as well.
August 25th, 2008 at 857
also tlon what about cvs2: easy operation
August 25th, 2008 at 858
Capcom needs to do another Marvel Vs Capcom with Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe and Okami characters added in. and Ultimate versions of the Marvel chars, i guess. BUT (and this will piss some of you off) they should take a lesson from Smash Brothers. Attack button. Block button. Special move.
hell make it like the Ultimate line – a fighting game for people who aren’t good at fighting games. through in perfect Capcom controls, nice sprite art and SEXY DANTE IS MY BISHI OMFG and you’ve got a winner
August 25th, 2008 at 935
“My point is, getting upset that people aren’t having fun in the “correct” way is pretty damn snobby! ”
I’m not sure you were really paying much attention to this review. Her point was that it turned out Street Fighter 2′s overall success and cultural impact was based on a more fragile premise than Capcom or maybe anyone else bothered to realize at the time. When Street Fighter III failed commercially this became abundantly clear, and it’s all the more disappointing for it.
(But then, to be honest–as much as this review hits home with me (the game’s a depressing topic, I get the frustration!)–I think Heather’s aware that there’s a decent chunk of fighting game freaks that still don’t really agree with what SF3 does. Particularly with parries. So it’s not just the alienation thing, but god damn if it didn’t drive in that stake in just deep enough to let nature do the rest. I like that the part of my comment in parentheses is longer than the part that isn’t. I hope you like it too!)
August 25th, 2008 at 1241
Did you guys like my Prince and Scooby-Doo metaphors
August 25th, 2008 at 1248
I liked Prince’s Batman soundtrack.
:_ (
August 25th, 2008 at 1443
it didn’t make any money for capcom…which is why they had street fighter vs. xmen/ marvel vs. capcom? which did make a lot of money?
nobinobita:
BAT
DAAAAANNNNNNNCCCEE!
August 25th, 2008 at 2148
analogosagnos: I agree with the historiography of Street Fighter discussed in this review. The thing is, Heather goes one step further and says that not only was SF2 successful for different reasons than we or the creators might have thought, but that these reasons are somehow inferior or wrong. Clearly much of what’s written on this site is done so with tongue planted firmly in cheek. Even so, I think a lot of hardcore gamers have a misplaced bitterness towards the recent success of Nintendo and casual games, and I think that’s a shame.
August 25th, 2008 at 2204
But that’s the thing. I don’t really think it is “misplaced” bitterness. It’s based on a fairly valid frustration. And that’s really all it is. It’s not so much a Judgment On Human Beings as it is disappointment in them re: Street Fighter III failing.
August 26th, 2008 at 733
If that’s the case, then I can understand where you’re/she’s coming from, and I even agree to a point. Still, I can feel the hurts-so-good hatred surging through Heather’s veins as she spits out the word “casual” and sneers about WiiMusic. In a review of the Zelda series, it makes sense. When talking about the Street Fighter series, I do think it’s a bit misplaced. After all, not all underappreciated games can be traced back to Miyamoto’s wife! Don’t get me wrong – I share a lot of the same disappointment, but I don’t think the “us vs. them” mentality that Heather (not you) seems to have is valid in this particular case.
August 26th, 2008 at 846
Yes! This is the only review where I felt excluded. The other reviews on this list seemed to be championing games that everyone would like if they had a chance. There are lots of games that are universally beloved and others like, well, Spartan. I keep coming back to it ’cause i read the review and it matched up with my expectations. This is the first review that pretty much says ‘if you are not Uber this is not FOR YOU’. Compare it to Doom, where pretty much Anybody Can Be A Champion
August 26th, 2008 at 1124
I think anyone can enjoy Third Strike, just as anyone can enjoy sailing a boat.
Both of them take a little education, though.
August 26th, 2008 at 1158
>>Yes! This is the only review where I felt excluded… This is the first review that pretty much says ‘if you are not Uber this is not FOR YOU’.
I believe the author was trying to say that you get as much as you give for fighting games, and it’s unfortunate that so many people ignored SFIII without really giving it a good try.
I’ve noticed that most people under 25 who play 2d fighters tend to have older siblings or friends that taught them how to play. To really enjoy a fighting game it’s crucial that you have at least one other person (who you like being around) to play with. It also vastly improves the experience if you have someone patient to explain the underlying mechanics to you.
If you are even the slightest bit interested in picking up Street Fighter I can’t recommend it enough. Playing Street Fighter is like having a great Starcraft/Chess match condensed into 30 beautiful seconds. Just make sure that you have some good friends to play with. And if one of those friends is significantly better at the game, ask them to teach you how to play better. I think most fighting game players will be happy to help out.
If they refuse to help you out and make you feel alienated for your lack of skills, then feel free to punch them in the face because those are the people who killed the fighting game scene.
August 27th, 2008 at 146
I agree with the guy who said some shit about fighting games being like learning a whole other useless language. Still, reading these reviews make me want to lock myself in a room and train for a year, before setting out across the country going from one arcade to the next, challenging the local champeens, recieving food and shelter from admirers. I tell you, if I would have just stuck with fighting games back in SF2 time, I could have been a real contender, no kidding.
August 27th, 2008 at 847
I’m really bad at both chess and Starcraft! I like games to follow the ‘easy to learn, hard to faster’ theory – layers and layers and layers of skill
August 27th, 2008 at 1457
Even though I’ve been a gamer since I was 4 years old, I could never get into fighting games. They were either too fast, or the learning curve was ridiculous to a point where I’d rather just spend time playing a platformer or RPG. Generally, they were pretty ugly looking things, and all I’d read about them was how good X character was or how cheap Y character was. Ultimately, it seemed to me like fighting games were an already predetermined chess match, where, depending on the match up, either both sides’ pieces were the same, or one side’s pieces crumbles as soon as they touched the board.
Then came Third Strike. I’d never even heard of the game until it hit our arcade. And I played music games anyway, so chances were really small that I’d even look at it. Then I decided one day to watch a few people try it out and lo and behold, I was amazed that it wasn’t just one guy crouched in a corner while the other one ran some stupid nigh-inescapable chain of chip-damage. In fact, people were doing this crazy stuff and flashing blue and red all over the place and entirely negating attacks. Better yet, it wasn’t so fast that I couldn’t follow it. Reading Vega’s movelist in an SFII manual completely stumped me.
Anyway, I immediately started trying 3s out, and found that I loved everything about it. The combos were intricate, but not obscenely difficult or overpowered. The only difficulty in chaining together attacks most of the time was your opponent’s ability to prevent them with a well placed parry. I got pretty decent parrying pretty quickly simply watching other people do it, which is something I’d never been able to do with a fighting game before. It amazed me how well I was able to pick up the game and advance my skill level in it so quickly.
The game is fast-paced, but heavy handed and smooth-flowing. A heavy hit FEELS like a heavy hit. You see your character cringe and almost feel that chunk of your life bar ripped out of them while the camera zooms in so you can see their pixelated painful expressions, and there’s almost no cut-corners on animation that are readily detectable. I completely agree with the author’s note on Guilty Gear’s “choppiness”. Sure, the game looks nice, but character frames reset so quickly (between transitions not including roman cancels) that it’s often a wonder the game has any animation at all, save the beautifully sculpted win poses and still-animations. Almost any combo in the game looks less like a smoothly-running stream of techniques, and more like a trail of sliding still-frames chock full of lens-flares when you compare it to Third Strike’s fluidity. It’s like a stylish viscous mess that seems to follow the pattern of one guy getting caught up in the other guy’s combo until he bursts, and then catching the other guy in his own combo until the other guy bursts. Flashy and fun to look at in a Dragonball Z-ish kind of way, but like most anime, easily becomes boring when you realize how glossed over the actual animations are.
Not to rip so heavily on GG, but every time I play a true 2-D fighting game, no matter what it is, I always end up saying “Man, why can’t this game be more like Third Strike?”.
August 27th, 2008 at 2345
An addendum, even though I read both articles and prefer this one, I think I referenced the wrong author in my previous post with regards to Guilty Gear’s choppiness. Oops.
September 3rd, 2008 at 1856
interestingly enough, many of the SF scene’s top players abhor the parry system for making the game much more shallow than previous installments.
September 4th, 2008 at 842
So, no one thinks it was a good call? Nobody? (crickets)
September 6th, 2008 at 944
Well, if it helps, I’m now officially interested in the game, and glad to know it’s a game that *can* be learned, where previously I played fighting games exclusively for the casual factor you describe (not because I wasn’t aware of the depth, but because I suck at them; let’s be honest here).
Unfortunately I have no idea where the nearest arcade, ANY arcade let alone SF3, is (probably hundreds of miles away), and no one I know, and I believe no one anyone I know knows, knows anything about fighting games. Never really caught on in these parts. Also can’t remember the last time I saw a real stick controller in a shop.
So the one person you definitely convinced is, basically, a hermit from the depths of Sahara. Not quite sure what that says about me, or maybe you, or maybe the game itself.
September 6th, 2008 at 1329
Awesome review, one of the best writings I’ve read related to Third Strike or even fighting in general. Good points made, and the intro humor about masturbation was also hilarious. Writing style was a breath of fresh air for Action Button. I didn’t have a “favorite article” on this site before, but now I do.
I also thought the comments were a good read as well, though I saw too much whining from certain corners.
Good job!
September 29th, 2008 at 1813
Street Fighter III is actually more complicated than Real Life Kung Fu.
August 25th, 2010 at 638
Let’s resurrect this dead thread.
I LOVE 3rd Strike, my absolute favorite fighting game, and this article echoes lots of sentiments I hold. I wish this evolution of SF caught on, as SSFIV is starting to get really boring.
Parrying.
Parry makes the game! And it didn’t destroy the footsie strat (I think that’s the primary argument among detractors), it evolved it! It’s still there and way more brutal, as one lucky poke can 2-in-1 into a phat super! Or the poke can be parried into the opponents OWN super! Mind games, friends! They play a larger roll in 3rd Strike!
You’re predictable? YOU DIE!
Such emphatic love for this game! I’m waiting impatiently for 3S:O, but until then, GGPO is my savior.