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Every genre in video gaming has its ‘top dog’, the title by which every other game hopes and wishes to emulate. The First Person Shooter has Half Life; the RPG genre has a title called Final Fantasy etc, etc… And when it comes to 2D beat-em-ups, Street Fighter III is quite simply the absolute pinnacle of this overcrowded genre.
After a number of years, and plenty of spin-offs to Street Fighter II, Capcom finally caved in and decided to make a true, full on sequel to the much loved classic fighter. And it’s no easy task considering one series of Street Fighter that emerged before Street Fighter III was Alpha. It is even considered by many the best line of titles in the series. Which makes it even more of an incredible achievement bearing in mind that SFIII completely surpasses Alpha with the utmost ease.

The most noteworthy difference in Third Strike compared to others is the glorious animation, quite simply some of the best you will ever see in a videogame. To describe the animation as a thing of pure beauty would not be farfetched in the slightest. Packing in more frames per second than ever before, it gives Street Fighter a whole new feel to the combat, everything is so smooth. Ryu’s headband will sway about; Ken’s clothes will ripple as he bounces up and down. It makes all the difference, and will ruin you for every other 2d beat-em-up out there as a result. Everything else will feel, lazy and sketchy by comparison.

As far as visuals are concerned, they are a decent enough and don’t really deliver anything we haven’t already seen. You feel that this genre has reached its limits in the graphical department, but seeing it in motion will set it apart thanks once again to the brilliant animation. The backgrounds are functional, but at times look washed out. And the characters for the most part are well designed, although you feel Capcom got a bit lazy when designing some of the new fighters.

Which brings me to my next point, the roster. Capcom haven’t been scared to axe some of the Street Fighters we’ve come so accustomed to over the past decade. In fact only 4 survive the transition (Ryu, Ken, Chun Li and Akuma). But that doesn’t mean it isn’t Street Fighter, in every new fighter you are reminded of those golden oldies. For example, Remmy will immediately remind veterans of Guile. Whereas the strange entity that is Twelve is clearly the spiritual successor to Dhalsim. And the British boxer Dudley is inspired by Balrog, the man that ran Shadowloo into the ground. And so on, and so on.

A lot of the new characters will be used only a few times, and you may find yourself reverting back to the safe picks of Ryu and Ken. However, some of the new fighters such as Makato and Yun will become fan favorites, as they are fantastic to use, as well as original with completely new styles of combat. And I reiterate, wonderfully animated.

And I feel the new line-up was a right move by Capcom, with new gameplay changes should bring new characters. So that the new strategy that comes from the gameplay tweaks isn’t quickly forgotten as players soon revert back to the tactics of old.

Matches are no longer played out with an ‘all out attack’ mind set, you must consider defense which when done right can be just as effective as offense. And one way in which you can use counter attacking effectively is the introduction of the parry.

The parry is probably the biggest change in the way the game plays, it is very simple to grasp but an absolute nightmare to even get half right let alone mastering the technique. As an attack comes towards you, players must push forward towards the attack just at the point of impact to parry the move, the benefits of this means that you no longer suffer ‘chip damage’ from blocking the 50^th hadoken in a row from Ryu and it leaves the opponent vulnerable for a short period of time.

Of course it will take a lot of practice and mainly persistence to get this technique down, some moves ask you to parry a technique multiple times in the space of a few seconds. Thankfully, there is parrying training.

Among Training you also get your Arcade and versus mode. Exactly what you expect from this type of game, no surprised there then…

Another addition to Third Strike is the systems direction page at the main menu. What it enables you to do is set the game to how you want it for example, instead of complaining about having air blocks you can turn it off. And it is very detailed, going on for a massive 10 pages of complete customization. If you wanted, you could have it back to the ways of Street Fighter II.

The soundtrack in all honesty is absolute trash. The main menu has some kind of Jay Z sound-a-like singing about how its Street Fighter III going on, and on, and on and on. The music during battle is also forgettable, and from what I’ve seen you can’t turn it off. But the soundtrack is merely a blemish on this fine game.

Sure it’s another Street Fighter game, and sure 2d fighters can’t match the likes of Soul Calibur and Tekken for technical brawn, and countless cash-in after countless cash-in has left a bad impression on a once perfect series. But Street Fighter III Third Strike brings it home in fine style, taking it back to a no nonsense highly tactical affair and it is all the better for it. I will mention it again but the animations will have you weeping sweet tears of utter joy. Third Strike is quite simply the greatest 2d beat-em-up of all time, and possibly the best beat-em-up ever period.

Only a totally unbalanced and spine wrenchingly unfair boss stops this from reaching perfection.

[9]

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