"Great game at start"

Regardless if people want to go back to old school street fighter or stay with capcom's Crazy vs series (mvc2, mvc), street fighter 3rd strike is definitely one of the highest quality fighting games today around.

Graphics 9/10
Why don't some people see the quality of the frames? They are excellent, the animation is incredible. If anyone's ever recorded a fight with a VCR, they'll notice that a simple pose or taunt has 4-6 frames of animation, a lot of games today don't have that. The graphics are very sided with the collision detection. Also different color cloths are offered to the fighters depending on which button you press on your dreamcast. Picking different colors will give you some enjoyment when your playing the same character over and over again. Since this is a 2d game it does not break any graphics borders anymore then from a cartoonish point of view.

Sound 8/10
The sound has been greatly improved from the previous street fighter 3 series. Have you ever heard the sound from 2nd impact or the first SF3?? The sounds were horrible so was the voice acting. 3rd strike improved over the voices a lot so that we now can finally figure what they are saying when they do a move. The sounds can get addictive as you hit hard with a fierce punch and kick, it gives away a satisfying sound that screams '' YOU DID MAJOR DAMAGE!!'' makes you want to do it again. Each character has their own unique voices and catch phrases. However, the music can get very repetive, the selection menu always have the same rap song playing and after a while with on a stage, the music just gets down right annoying.

Gameplay 6/10
The gameplay is very good for those who want to go back to back basic fighting without the crazy air combos and 40-60 hit combos or switching teammates or annoying assist that come and go. The game is challenging at first but I wouldn't recommend anyone playing alone. Single player don't last long and it can get repetive. Even on MAX difficulty the computer still is a joke for the first 2-4 fights until it gets a little bit harder at the end but not a lot. For some reason the arcade AI hasn't been added into the dreamcast version as you can tell sometimes when you play in the arcade, the computer tend to be a little smarter, fakes more moves, more aggressive, and be unpredictable. For the DC version however, the computer rarely do the moves they do in the arcade. Now if you have a friend that's a different story, versus mode can be darn right fun and even get addictive at times. Hell I remember playing SF3 for 5 hours at my friend's house.. it was just 1 big psychology game. If your a decent or pro player in SF3 you'll notice that this game in versus mode with your friends is a big psychology game. You'll probably back off at times to be strategic on what you might want to do next that'll be unexpected which is fun. This is a lot better then in MVC2 series you just rush in regardless head over heals get an air combo out on somebody. No thinking involved! Parrying can be a complete pain, it nearly takes no skills to parry fireballs which is a great move that most characters can do. The parrying system leaves fireballs completely useless from a distance, only things you can do are linking them with combos where they can't parry it. Of course there are these better players who don't do anything but stand there and parry your moves all day which is completely bazaar and annoying. What's even more annoying is figure out how they can't block in the air but they can parry... And most annoying is when they parry entire supers.. How on earth can you parry an entire super!?? To me capcom went too far with the parrying, I don't think supers should be able to be parried it's just wrong.

Controls 6/10

OK this can be a little bit down right disappointing, most of the time the moves come out but sometimes on some occasions it does not!! The moves are sometimes a pain to do like 360's which require you to jump if your not an expert at it. The player gets rewarded after doing 2 360's with a jab punch or a strong punch anything but a super. Also the simpler supers are annoying to link to combo's sometimes as Ryu will do a fireball or a dragon punch instead of a super since all the supers require a double fireball motion, don't press the punches too quick now!! Also the most annoying if all is perhaps to the L button.. It is VERY VERY difficult to link this button with a combo as it is behind control pad and is extremely difficult to press after you just did a motion on the D-Pad. Usually when my friends play they just put a short kick on L and NEVER use it.. Of course that's not the game's fault, it's just how SEGA designed their final system.. Also capcom should have added in a survival mode which will give the game for more replay value instead of beating the game over and over again when the difficulty remains the same. No one new at this type of game will get their moves out when they want to, capcom designed the control system to be a complete pain for the new-comers as they'll have difficult times if they want to button mash.. I am saying there should be some characters that should allow button mashing but all of them require control.. I most of all hate the grabing system, it was good before when you pressed 1 button to grab, however capcom thought it'd be cheesy to grab by accident so they made it a 2 button grab.

Overall 7/10

At the end this proves to be a high quality fighting game that is fun to play at first but will be disappointing after you discover some of the flaws. Graphics is be the best 2d fighting in any capcom game. Sounds is good, but when it all comes down to it, it's just a few fatal mistakes like the parry system or the controls that bough down the game. You can still have a great challenge however with a friend and learn the combo system which will prove to be fun.

Overall it's worth a rental if you are new to the ''old school'' street fighter system. If you are capcom's other game ''MVC2'' fan however, you might not like this game. If your a big fan of 2nd impact or the first 1 you'll feel right at home here and this game will be worth your every dollar..

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/14/03, Updated 02/14/03