Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike

"Shin...sho...ryuken!!!"

When Street Fighter II came out in arcades, it had to be THE 2 player game of it's time. Massive crowds and massive, neighborhood tournaments. Plus, it had stupendous graphics and amazing gameplay. About 10 years later, here we are with Street Fighter III (after about a million variations of Street Fighter II. Rainbow Fighting, anyone?). You might look at some screenies of this game in action and say ''Awww crap! Low-res sprites again! DARN YOU CAPCOM!!!'' and then go off and play more Guilty Gear X (for you laymen out there, the game with super-ultra-detailed-high-res sprites). No! Stop! Wait just a moment! Let's jump into

GRAPHICS: 9.5/10
Yep! These graphics may be low-res (and look UGLY AS HELL on high-res), but this is THE God of 2D animation in ALL fighting games, maybe even all 2D games (!!!). There might even be over 100,000 frames of animation (well, I don't know about that, but there is almost -TOO MUCH- animation (although that's not such a bad thing (;)). Some of the walking animations in Guilty Gear X are only 3 frames in animation!! Also, the stages are beautiful works of art (especially Yun and Yang's stages!). Some of the moves' effects are great too! (try finishing off an opponent with Akuma/Gouki's Raging Demon and you will be treated with a rather hellish win pose :). The only reason I didn't give the graphics score a 10/10 because Capcom NEEDS to switch to high-res.

Sound: 9/10
w00t! In Guilty Gear X (sorry, but I can't help comparing SF3:3s to GGX :), whenever you hit the other guy, sometimes you didn't even know if you made contact because of some poor sound-work. In SF3:3s there is a shotgun blast associated with every hit, and I like that. I like it a lot. Also, the music blends in with the fighting great. The voices are very well done, and very clear.

Gameplay: 10/10
This is where SF3:3s is expected to shine. And oh, it does. This is NOT a Vs. game... the game moves at a much slower pace. I'm not saying that games like Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 don't have strategy (which they do, by the buttload), but the SF games will always have more. You have to work a LOT harder to get out combos in THIS game, and by Jeebus they are an integral part of the game. Setting up super arts flawlessly, and executing them in the same way. Some fool trying some kind of gutsy jump-in on you, you're playing as Akuma, and you have 2 bars of super energy? Make him eat his new anti-air super art! (d,d,d+3P)
Too much gameplay to put in this review! Go look at one of the FAQs at this site, GameFAQs.com! (try KMegura's one, it's excellent).

Lasting Appeal: 7.5/10
There's really not very many secrets in this game. The last boss, Gill, kinda sucks, really. He's just a beefed up version of Urien. The only thing that saves this game is the raw 2 player value. If you've got a friend that is good at SF games and lives close by, you've got a large block of replay value right there. (That would be TOTALLY AWESOME if you could unlock the original fighters of all the SF2 versions, all the Alpha games, etc...)

Overall: 9/10

This game is one of the best (not THE best) Street Fighter games to date. If you are a fan of the genre, and have a dreamcast, there is no excuse not to own this game :). But, for God's sake, BUY AN ARCADE STICK!!! Even if it's the mediocre retail arcade stick, the enforcer! You NEED an arcade stick to play this game!!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/09/01, Updated 07/09/01