"I liked New Generation more but this game is still great."

The third and final game in the Street Fighter 3 series arrived in the arcades in 1999, and was a last ditch effort to generate interest in the series since both New Generation and 2nd Impact failed to attract players. However, even Third Strike couldn't generate a mass audience.

Graphically Third Strike is as great as any of the other 2 games in the Street Fighter 3 series, and I believe this was the last game to use Capcom's CPS 3 hardware. The sprites are all taken from 2nd Impact but they still look great with so much animation for each fighter.

However all the stages in this game are brand new, and to be honest, overall they are worse than before. A lot of stages are devoid of any background animation and I do not like the fact that there is stage sharing, something that was removed from 2nd Impact but put back in this game. That was rather lazy of Capcom to not give every character there own stage. Still, at least the stages are very colourful.

Sound is another disappointing part of this game. It's OK, but not as good as in either of the last 2 Street Fighter 3 games. Some characters have idiotic new voices (eg Dudley or Alex) whilst some have voices that were better than before (eg Ryu) The sound effects are rather good though, at least, and it really sounds like a move would hurt when it connects.

In terms of game play, things are almost the exact same as before. The main feature of the Street Fighter 3 series, parrying, is still present and you should all know how to do it by now. Parrying lets you have more time to hit the opponent back and you can parry almost anything. Other features from the older games, like super jumps and top downs are still present in the game.

Also the super art system is still present. Like in the previous games, each character has 3 super arts and you pick one after you choose your character. However some characters now have different super arts than they did before, such as Ibuki.

Third Strike has more characters than before, with every fighter from nd Impact returning. Akuma is also a standard playable character in this game. Then there are another 5 new characters. Chun Li is the main new character everyone cares about, and is certainly the best one who hasn't been in a Street Fighter 3 game before. The rest of the new characters are poor. Remy is a cheap Guile/Charlie knock off, Twelve is one freak too many, Q is OK ish but not a great design to me and Mokato is just a boring character. Ah well, at least there are some awesome characters like Alex and Ibuki still in there and of course everyone likes to play as Ryu, Ken and Akuma. Each character has many special attacks, including some new or changed ones to this game.

The controls are almost the same as any other Street Fighter game, with 3 punch buttons and 3 kick buttons with different strengths. However you now have to press the light punch and light kick buttons together with a direction to throw, which is kind of stupid to me, they should have just left it how it was in 2nd Impact. Top downs are now done by pressing medium punch and kick buttons together, which is a better choice of command. The controls in general are responsive but not as good as SNK fighters which have more responsive controls.

In the one player mode of 2nd Impact, there was a parrying bonus game. This returns in Third Strike, but there is also a new bonus game where you have to destroy a jeep, much like the destroy the car bonus stage in the earlier Street Fighter 2 games.

The one player mode has you fighting other CPU controlled characters until you get to the boss, who is always Gill for everyone unless you are playing as Gill. One aspect which is a good idea is that you can usually choose your opponent. Before each fight you are given a choice of two opponents to fight, and you can pick which one. This means that you don't always have to face harder characters like Akuma if you don't want to. Q is also available to fight if you do well enough in the one player mode. Beat the boss to see your fighter's ending.

Oh, the boss, I just have to have a few words on him. It's Gill still and he is as lame as ever. Now he is glowing all the time and has a total of 3 super arts, and this is where I get angry: He can use all 3 of them in a match! Nice going Capcom, that's really fair. His new super art can take off at least 25% even if you block it, which is fairly stupid. Gill is also too hard and takes off too much block damage. M.Bison is still the greatest Street Fighter boss.

With 2 players though you don't have to worry about Gill and Third Strike is another fun 2D fighter. However I still say that New Generation is the best in the Street Fighter 3 series and I would rather play that instead. Third Strike is still one of the best 2D fighters around though.

8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/01/05