"The worst game in the Zero series."

This is actually my first review on this site, so please forgive me if it is excessively long.

Graphics / Animation: 2

I basically added 1 point since this is true to the arcade version. The graphics in the Dreamcast conversion of SF Zero 3 are arcade perfect. All the vibrant colors present in the arcade version is here (you need not worry about the washed out, muddy, bland colors of the PSX version), as are all of the animation frames. Everything is intact. There are flashy effects in the background if you defeat your opponent with a Super or Custom Combo (different ISMs yield different background colors: defeating an opponent with a Super in X-ISM gives you a flashy red background, Z-ISM gives you a flashy green background, and V-ISM gives you a flashy blue background). New animation frames were added to every character, and the is no apparent slowdown and no loading times speak of.

However, compared to other 2D DC fighters, the graphics look incredibly dated and are an eyesore. The characters all have rigid and stiff movements and are incredibly small. It's not that there are missing frames, it's just that they move so slowly and have an ''ancient'' look to them. Don't expect any silky smooth movements like in Street Fighter III, Jo-Jo's Bizarre Adventure, or even Vampire (Darkstalkers). Special moves are anything but special, since you've seen nearly all of them before. Karin is somewhat fluid in her movements, but that's as far as it goes.

SFII purists will cry once they see how stiff and unnatural it looks when Dee Jay does a Dread Kick, Fei Long does a Rekka Ken, T.Hawk takes nearly 3 years to perform a crouching Roundhouse sweep, and Guile takes forever to throw a Sonic Boom. Cammy's Cannon Drill looks like she's trapped in molasses. *sobs*

The background stages are simply horrible. They are completely bland and void of creativity. The designers apparently ran out of inspiration and dumped any boring background they could think of into the game. For example, Cammy's stage in Greece is pathetic. The most excitement you'll see in that stage is the turning of a windmill. Yawn. Dee Jay's background is inferior compared to his SSFII background, which was much better and had more of a lively atmosphere. The locales you fight in are truly forgettable, from Karin's boat stage (with some dork as a lone spectator in the background), to Nash's (an incredibly boring and predictable jet fighter stage), to Dan (a playground. Wow. *sarcasm*I know he's a joke character, but honestly Capcom, put some effort). T.Hawk fights in the middle of a friggin' desert. Characters like M.Bison (boxer), Balrog (matador), and Sagat simply have pathetic rehashes of their classic Street Fighter II backgrounds, with a few minor variations. The only backgrounds that I recall as being halfway decent are Guy, Gen, Sakura, and Guile's stages. To sum it up, all the backgrounds were rushed and done as an afterthought. Gone are the days of SF Zero 2 and the SFII series, when a background stage reflected a character's personality , complete with lively animations, and a memorable appearance. An obscenity ridden, graffiti stained wall in a gas station bathroom is more lively than SF Zero 3's backgrounds. It seemed like Capcom was trying to replicate SNK's KOF style backgrounds, but they failed .

Another lowly aspect of the graphics is the new sprites for classic SFII characters. Old school SFII purists will notice that Dee Jay, T.Hawk, Guile, E.Honda, Fei Long, Blanka, and M.Bison look downright HORRIBLE compared to their SSFIIX incarnations. Blanka went from being a savage beast to being a hairy obese joke character. M.Bison went from a mean looking Mike Tyson parody to a buffoon that resembles a gorilla. E.Honda's sprite is just a joke (It looks like a cardboard cutout). Dee Jay looks incredibly ugly and simplistic, and T.Hawk looks like an overweight insult to his SSFIIX self. These characters just look BAD. There is no excuse for this type of shoddy BS. I always thought when you give a character's sprite a ''makeover'', that they are supposed to look *better*, not WORSE. Apparently, the designers just don't care..........

(Note: You may may have noticed that Capcom went out of their way to make Birdie uglier and even more stupid looking than before. Way to go Capcom! *sarcasm*)

Sound and Music: 1 (Announcer: -100)

As with the graphics and background stages, anything that was deemed good or high quality in SFII and Zero 2 was thrown out. Instead of remixes of classic character themes, you now have bland, generic techno that in no way matches the characters or stages. Everything is so hard to distinguish because it all seems to sound identical, and seems to have been done in a rush. This is the absolute WORST music I have heard in a Street Fighter game, and in a Capcom game to date. This is pure garbage, folks. I felt like plunging icepicks into both of my eardrums when hearing this trash. Capcom once again disses the old school SF players by giving us an audio torture session. The classic remixed tracks in SF Zero were infinitely better than this pile of feces. Again, it seemed like some dope fiend at Capcom was playing too much KOF and tried to replicate their style of music. Pathetic.

On the other hand, the sound effects are decent. Nothing to complain of here. The smacks and groans and battle cries are pretty much well done (for the most part). However, if you wish to preserve your mental state, turn the volume all the way down when playing as Cody, R.Mika, Sakura, Dan, Karin, Dee Jay, and Fei Long. Your nerves will go raw after repeated exposure to these incredibly annoying voice samples. You have been warned.

A note to old school SF purists: The voices have taken a turn for the worse, what else did you expect?

But the torture sesion doesn't end here, folks. The SF Zero 3 announcer is by far the absolute worst announcer in any Street Fighter game to date. If you old school cats thought that the less than masculine announcer from SSFII and SSFIIX was bad, you ain't heard nothin' yet. This flamboyant announcer is so corny, annoying, and idiotic that you'll yearn for the monotone (albeit legendary) announcer of SFII:WW. This guy is a complete airhead, and you'll wish that somebody at Capcom would gag and snuff him to prevent further damage to your ears. ''Go For Broke!!!''.......yeah, whatever man.

Controls: 10

The control is perfect. Capcom couldn't screw this up, no matter how hard they tried. Everything is perfect, specials can be executed on command, and supers are relatively easy to perform. No complaints.

Gameplay: 1

Capcom took anything that was good in SF Zero and SF Zero 2 and flushed it down the toilet.

Zero Counters (Alpha Counters) are now officially useless and serve no purpose at all. Capcom changed the motion and buttons to execute a Zero Counter, and, in addition, made it ridiculously weak to discourage you from using it.

Counter Hits occur when you interrupt your opponents normal or special attack with one of your own.If executed correctly, your opponent takes slightly more damage than usual and the action pauses for a brief second. This feature is quite annoying as it disrupts the overall ''flow'' and momentum of the game.

Another annoying feature that the clowns at Capcom thought was a good idea was to change the Rolling feature from a quarter circle motion to pressing two Kick buttons simultaneously as you're about to hit the ground. Really dumb.

Throws are now performed by pressing any two punch or kick buttons when you are close to your opponent. However, your character will now go into a missed throw animation when they are outside of throwing range. Just think of it as an extra taunt, as most characters look incredibly goofy in their missed throw animation (especially Blanka and M.Bison). It just comes off looking really cheesy and serves no real purpose at all. At least in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike you could get different combinations depending on which direction you entered, but in Zero 3, you get the same result regardless. There was really was no point in altering the throwing commands, but Capcom is trying to pound the idea into your head that this is a new game, and to get their point across, they've thrown out what works and made illogical changes out of spite. Absolutely craptacular.

Now, EVERY character has an air-throw. While back in the old days of SFII and SF Zero, certain characters would be considered unique for having the exclusive ability of throwing an opponent in the air. It opened strategies and gave those characters certain advantages over their opponents. Now that every character is armed with an air throw, individual character strategies are thrown out the window. here is no compelling reason to select Guile, Chun Li, or Balrog for having an air throw in their repertoire. On top of that, the mid-air throw animation looks incredibly stupid. Ryu looks flat out ridiculous performing a shoulder throw and a leg toss in mid air, and M.Bison looks ludicrous performing a mid-air headbutt. Sadly, this is the case for everyone.

However, the most annoying new feature that was implemented into SF Zero 3 is the ability to recover in mid air. This is performed by pressing two punch buttons simultaneously as your character is launched off the ground. If done correctly your character flash white for a split second and will automatically be repositioned right side up.While you are in the air you have several options at your disposal, such as utilizing the opportunity to attack while airborne, guard, or set up your next move.. You can recover as you are attacked in mid-air, or if you are launched off of the ground by a special move, such as Ryu's Shoryuken or Guile's Flash Kick. The problem I have with this is that it ruins the basic gameplay ''flow'' and tempo that was established in SFII and carried on to nearly every SF game afterwards. It's silly to be fighting and be distracted every few seconds because the characters are flashing , recovering, and counter attacking in midair. The way these characters float in the air for such long period of time, you would think that they have ingested large quantities of helium. To make matters worse, this leads to ridiculous juggle combos that can take place anywhere on screen. The number of times you can juggle an opponent with attacks is greatly exaggerated, almost as bad as it is in Marvel Vs Capcom. It's not difficult at all to get 15+ hits while juggling an airborne opponent. Recovering in midair while in the corner can actually lead to your demise, because your opponent can pound you repeatedly into submission with no real way to escape (and this actually leads to higher midair juggle combos, 25+ hits). Seeing it in action looks sloppy and and absurd, and has to be the single worst idea that Capcom has implemented into the SF Zero series.

Also, due to midair recoveries, the Dramatic Battle has become a lot less fun and almost pointless. What is the point of surrounding and trapping your opponent when they are recovering from your trap 90% percent of the time and evading you? The whole thing degenerates into a slapfest that doesn't require any real strategy. And because of the ridiculous juggle system, you could be kept in the air for a LONG time, and sometimes midair recovery can't help you. This what completely ruins the gameplay for me, and is the reason why I play SFII, SFIII, CVS, CVS2, SF Zero, SF Zero 2, Marvel Vs Capcom, hell, anything BUT SF Zero 3 because mid-air recoveries are so frustrating and annoying.

If you have the opportunity, I suggest you play the Dramatic Battle in Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha (aka SF Alpha 2 Gold). I guarantee that you will reap much more enjoyment and satisfaction from this version.

Overall, it seems like everything from Zero 1 and 2 was simplified or ''dumbed down'' for Zero 3. Capcom has lowered the bar for ANYONE to get into the game. You need not worry about complicated, finger twisting, memory wasting controller motions, as Capcom has taken the liberty in making things much easier for the lazy casual gamer who does not want to be bothered.

The only advantages I see to using X-ISM (a Super gauge based SSFIIX) are for grapplers (Zangief, Birdie, R.Mika, T.Hawk, etc) so they can inflict extra damage. Other than that it's almost useless.

Z-ISM (based on SF Zero) is the default ISM, holds several advantages over X-ISM, but it isn't as useful (or lethal) as V-ISM. And the damage the Supers inflict in Zero 3 are pitiful: Level 1 and 2 Supers are almost useless due to the minimum amount of damage they inflict and low priority, so that basically leaves you with Level 3 Supers.

To top it all off, V-ISM dominates the game, and a good V-ISM player using certian character will always crush you. 'Nuff said.

On the subject of characters, nearly EVERYONE has been weakened. Not balanced, mind you, but weakened. Compare the original SF Zero Vega (Bison) to the Zero 3 version of Vega to see what I mean. Characters like Guy, Birdie, Sodom, Adon, Sagat, Ken, and Chun Li were at their peak in SF Zero. Some of those characters may be be alright in Zero 3, but they are nowhere near as powerful as they used to be. About half of the cast is utterly useless or too weak to compete. Character balance is unheard of in this game. Capcom didn't even attempt to balance out this roster. Overpowered characters like V-ISM Gouki, Sakura, Dhalsim, and Ryu will crush about ANYONE. V-ISM basically breaks this game from the start so there really is no point. It's totally flawed.

World Tour Mode is slightly different from the PSX version, but at it's core it's the same. A few interesting additions were implemented, but overall nothing to write home about.

To sum it up; die hard, old school, anal SF purists will not like the sloppy and otherwise bastardized gameplay in Zero 3. To casual players not-so-diehard SF fans, and other people looking to have 20 minutes of mindless fun battling in Versus mode, you'll have no gripes with the gameplay.

Story: 0

I never consider story to be a significant factor in a fighting game. This may sound cliched, but if I'm looking for a good story, I'll play a role playing game. Or a survival horror game. Or read a book. Honestly, fighting game storylines usually suck, because other than the generic revenge, tournament, or Good Vs Evil plots, there never is a *really* good reason for everyone to be fighting each other or to take down the main boss (a lot of people say that the KOF series has an excellent storyline, but I disagree. I find it to be ridiculously overrated and pitiful compared to other genres of gaming. I guess I would consider to be the best storyline ever if all I ever played were fighting games, but I don't, so bleh). The somewhat decent story that the SF universe was clinging on to has been complately obliterated in SF Zero 3. Again, the designers seem to be jocking and idolizing SNK's King Of Fighter's series and thought it would be cool to have every fighter and their momma take on Vega as the final boss and destroy his absurd Psycho Drive. Needless to say, it doesn't work at all here.

Some people may say that SF Zero 3 fleshed out classic SF characters and gave them more depth. I call it a bunch of BS that Capcom pulled out of their collective butts at the last minute. In SF Zero I absolutely loved the idea of characters having different paths and different endbosses. For example Ryu's final boss would be Sagat, Ken's final boss would be Ryu, Nash's final challenge would be against Vega, Sodom would go against Guy, etc. Thankfully, SF Zero 2 retained this unique feature (even though they discarded the original endings). Now it's everybody versus Vega. The thing that annoys me is that more than half of the cast doesn't even have a legitimate reason to fight against Vega in the first place.

You also have hokey ill conceived characters such as Satsui No Hadou Ryu (Capcom must be getting pretty desperate if they are using characters from corny mangas) getting their own official ending. To further screw things up, Capcom thought it would be *interesting* to retroactively change storylines for well established characters. As a result, you have garbage like Satsui No Hadou Ryu (aka ''Evil'' Ryu, aka Orochi Ryu, aka PMS Ryu) being the one whom defeated and scarred Sagat in the first Street Fighter tournament. WTF?! ''But Satsui No Hadou Ryu didn't even exist in 1987 when the original Street Fighter was released'' you may wonder. And you are correct. I simply do not acknowledge this nonsense. Everybody knows that regular Ryu defeated and scarred Sagat in the first Street Fighter tournament. I don't what the Capcom employees were smoking when they thought of doing this, but it totally stinks.

And to top it all off, the endings for ALL the characters are incredibly silly. Call me anal, but I much preferred the endings in SF Zero. Although they were simple, they gave you a solid feeling that the character had resolved something after the final battle. The endings were credible and retained and reflected the more serious attitude and atmosphere of the SFII games. In Zero 3 the endings are over the top and poorly conceived. I find this to be incredibly insulting to the SF purist whom was satisfied with the more serious and somewhat darker endings of SFII, SF Zero, and Zero 2. To put it bluntly, the storyline and endings are a joke and really lame (and the poorly drawn illustrations don't help one bit).

Capcom tried ripping off of KOF's format, it backfired, and it ended up biting them in the ass.

Presentation: 1

All of the character illustrations in SF Zero 3 are really rotten, bottom of the barrel, inferior quality drawings. I don't know who the lead artist is, but whomever that person is, they should have never been hired. If you thought the illustrations in SF Zero 1 and 2 looked weird, you would think they were magnificent works of art compared to the pathetic drawings in Zero 3. Every illustration, from the character select screen, to the pic of your character in their bio, to the win quote screen, to the endings, looks DISGUSTING. I'm not exaggerating. Never have I seen such poor excuses for drawings. SFII fanatics will cringe and most likely vomit after seeing what Capcom dumped out. You would think that they despised their very own SF franchise and were trying to kill it off out of sheer hatred.

The intro screen is laughable. It focuses on Ryu and Vega, and shows random images of the other fighters in the game (all with that loathsome music blaring in the background), all drawn in the decrepit art style that I mentioned above. Every other SF game's intro is better than this one.

As for character design, it falls WAY below the standard. Apparently, the popularity of joke characters like Dan and Sakura paved the way for losers such as R.Mika and Karin. Okay, Karin isn't that bad but she looks totally out of place in a SF game and would be more at home in a game like Moero! Justice Gakuen. R.Mika is just a bum and perhaps one of the most hated SF characters of all time, and with good reason. I said it before and I'll repeat it again: someone at Capcom was playing too much KOF, and thought of introducing lame joke characters like R.Mika into the SF world. IT JUST DOESN'T WORK. The KOF series is known for having joke characters, oddballs, and weirdos in it's cast. R.Mika would look appropriate in a KOF game. SHE DOESN'T BELONG IN THE SF UNIVERSE. Karin would fit in well with the KOF cast (and like I mentioned above in Justice Gakuen as well). SHE DOESN'T FIT IN THE SF UNIVERSE. Capcom wanted to change SF Zero into a KOF atmosphere, with slapstick intros, lots of joke characters, meaningless midbosses, a grand tournament, etc.

Capcom also ruined classic characters like Cody by turning him into a jailbird (with an even lamer costume and voice). Let's get this strait: Cody is the All-American good guy vigilante who fights for justice, and is out to protect the innocent from the vile scum on the street. Yet the geniuses at Capcom thought it would be appropriate to transform him into a brutal, deranged, pea-brained derelict who ended up beating up people at random and wound up landing in jail? WTF?! So he basically ends up being the lowlife scum that he spent all his life fighting against? Some people think this 180 degree turn is an interesting twist on a classic and well established character, but I call it what it is: bastardization. I can never forgive the evil twerps at Capcom responsible for bastardizing one of my favorite characters of all time. There is much more but it is all too tiresome to list. Basically, what works for KOF doesn't work in SF.

Replay Value: 4

No doubt, if you just want to kick back with your friends, you'll be going back to play SF Zero 3. There is a rather large roster, and you could spend some time in the World Tour, Survival, and Dramatic Battle Modes until you grow weary of it (which won't take too long). However, the longer you playit will become that it is less appealing as you discover how superficial the ISMs are and how unbalanced the roster is, which unfortunately affects the replay value. Unfortunately, the shallow gameplay will eventually rear it's ugly head, and you'll find yourself playing other, more intricate (and more balanced) 2D fighters on the Dreamcast.

Note: To the staunch SF purists, substract 4 points from the score given for replay value. You'll utterly be frustrated in attempting to play as characters the way you remember them, and the broken gameplay, low quality music, and stale graphics will only repel you further. You would be better off playing actual SF games, such as Super Street Fighter II X, Street Fighter III: W Impact, and Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, games with better sound, graphics, gameplay, balance, and replay value.

Overall: 1

This is a sad, sad game. SF Zero 3 was done directly in response to the under popularity of the SF III series (which is a truly excellent series and is incredibly underrated). Players complained because they felt alienated due to the higher learning curve and lack of familiar characters, so Capcom threw the whining gamers a quick bone in the form of SF Zero 3, complete with simplified and dumbed down techniques. And you know what? It shows. Another reviewer on this site mentioned that SF Zero 3 is stagnant and I totally agree. Zero 3 is nothing more than SSFIIX with more characters (of questionable quality) and a lot more superficial bell and whistles. Remember the corny old joke back in SFII's heyday with all the adjectives, that poked fun at Capcom and said that they would eventually make Super-Duper-Street-Fighter-II-Champion-Turbo-Special-X-Deluxe-PRO-EX-Hyper-Mega-Delta-Black-Belt-Tournament-Edition? Well, sad to say, SF Zero 3 is that game. Peel away the aesthetics, superficial ISMs, and crappy presentation and story, and at the core you have a poor man's SSFIIX. It's sad to see the SF Zero series go out in such a terrible way, when it started with such promise. SF Zero put a new face on a classic series, but with each new installment the Zero series degenerated into garbage. Zero 3 is the kind of last ditch attempt that you would expect from a dying company that is going bankrupt, and they wanted to make a quick profit by exploiting one of it's most most popular franchises. Fortunately, Capcom wasn't in any financial troubles back in 1997, so there is absolutely no excuse for this type of rubbish. Zero 3 currently resides in the infamous pit of SF failures that have tarnished the reputation of the franchise, where Street Fighter: The Movie and the Street Fighter EX series lie in a rotten heap. Ironically, SNK is known for shamelessly ripping off and emulating Street Fighter, but at least it worked to their advantage. Capcom tried ripping off of the King Of Fighters series, but it only ended up ruining SF Zero 3.

To all the SF purists (and diehard Capcom fans), play Capcom Generations 5 (aka SF Collection 2), SF Zero and SF Zero 2 on your PSX. Play SF Zero 2 Alpha (aka SF Alpha 2 Gold) on your PC. Play SFIII: W Impact, SFIII: 3rd Strike, Vampire Chronicle, SSFIIX, Marvel Vs Capcom, MVSC2, Capcom Vs SNK, and CVS2. Avoid SF Zero 3 if you even remotely admire Capcom or the SF series. Trust me, I have wasted $150+ and many hours of my leisure time on PSX and Dreamcast ports of SF Zero 3. I deeply regret owning such an inferior piece of software, and I must live with this the remainder of my life. You have been warned.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 11/23/02, Updated 11/08/10

Game Release: Street Fighter Zero 3: Saikyooryuu Doujou (JP, 07/08/99)