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[Naked Lunch]

Nope. Street fighter Alpha 3 is their best fighting game

The gameplay of Alpha 3 is just not as fun and the music sucks - Alpha 3 is not even as good as Alpha 2.

All this time later, playing the full Street Fighter catalogue against real people in person and online consistently over the years - SF3 is the richest version with the most depth, it aged like fine wine. The classic SF2 is still the purest, simplest, and most accessible version - but SF3 is for the fighting game headcore heads.

 

[nkarafo]

I wish the CPS3 would live a longer life... AFAIK, it's still the most powerful dedicated 2D hardware. It would be awesome if more games would be released for it that weren't VS fighters.

 

[Northeastmonk]

Our Family Fun arcade had a whole area devoted to fighting cabinets. Third Strike had like 3-4 cabinets (Japanese versions), multiple MvC2 cabinets, CvS2, and so forth. You could tell the machines that drew in a crowd. Often times Guilty Gear #R had all the staff playing it. I remember seeing an Alpha 2 and 3 cabinet over the years, but they weren’t ever crowded with players. Tekken was big at that time and Soul Calibur stood out. Aladdin’s Castle was/is owned by Namco, so it made sense that 2D fighters were never that big there. Tekken 3 and Tekken Tag were such great games and I always had people to play against. My exposure to Street Fighter at that time period was at home and all the VS games at various arcades.

Leading up to that I had not seen a Non-Third Strike machine. Third Strike was the only cabinet I saw. I use to play the SF Anniversary Edition on Xbox. You could play a lot of good players on there. I made friends with a few in Quebec at the time. It was an awesome experience. I was just recently playing SF3 NG and 2nd Impact on the 30th Anniversary. I really like the levels they had for the characters. That’s about the only thing that really stands out. Third Strike is still the best. Even the announcer’s voice is one of the most iconic voices in fighting games. I don’t mind the new cast except Remy. I think that was a pour choice over Guile. I can see why it didn’t sell as well. Street Fighter IV was like reliving the whole experience of Street Fighter II all over again.

 

[yurinka]

False, Alpha 3 hit arcades the year after Street Fighter 3 and was immensely popular. The reason? It had the recognizable roster with characters people mained and they didn't need to learn new strange fighters.

Alpha 3 was also released when arcades were dying and also got bashed by the gaming media when ported to consoles because many people was getting tired of 2D sprites games and 2D fighting games, and players were leaving arcades to play on console instead. Unlike SF3 it was successful, but a moderate one. It wasn't a big hit. Same happened with the home versions.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

How big was CvS2 in arcade? Or was it even released there?

In my country, I don't remember ever seeing it there. But I liked a lot because I used to play it religiously on my ps2

CvS2 got a NAOMI port IIRC. But my initial experience with it was on Gamecube (lol Easy Operation, tho TBH I think that'd work better for simplifying newer fighters today vs. some of the things modern fighters are doing now), then on PS2. Had some great times with friends there.

I wish the CPS3 would live a longer life... AFAIK, it's still the most powerful dedicated 2D hardware. It would be awesome if more games would be released for it that weren't VS fighters.

Yeah, it's still the most powerful dedicated 2D hardware around, seems like. At the time CPS3 came out you still needed dedicated 2D hardware since pulling off comparable 2D with 3D hardware had a lot of overhead associated with it. However even by the time of NAOMI you got 3D hardware that could do 2D visuals comparable or superior to CPS3, at least in theory. Memory would've been a bigger hindrance in some cases especially when combined with the access speeds of DVDs compared to ROM boards and cartridges.

But, Capcom simply had to abandon CPS3 because it was a money pit, pure and simple. They sold few CPS3 systems as-is, and the games weren't big revenue generators. They couldn't justify it any longer than they did.

Alpha 3 was also released when arcades were dying and also got bashed by the gaming media when ported to consoles because many people was getting tired of 2D sprites games and 2D fighting games, and players were leaving arcades to play on console instead. Unlike SF3 it was successful, but a moderate one. It wasn't a big hit. Same happened with the home versions.

I remember the PS1 port of Zero/Alpha 3 getting pretty good reviews actually. Great ones, even. Many praised its World Tour mode in particular, and I think the Japanese version had PocketStation support/compatibility.

 

[nkarafo]

However even by the time of NAOMI you got 3D hardware that could do 2D visuals comparable or superior to CPS3, at least in theory. Memory would've been a bigger hindrance in some cases especially when combined with the access speeds of DVDs compared to ROM boards and cartridges.

ROMs speed was essential when the RAM was low.

The Dreamcast had tons of RAM though, 4X the PS1/SAT and 2X the N64. It had enough RAM to load all the necessary assets from the slow disk, with only the initial loading. They didn't need to cut animation frames like they did for many games ported to the PS1 or Saturn. The Dreamcast was the first optical disk system with enough RAM to be able to support CPS3 and later Neo-Geo games without cuts.

Still though, the CPS3 was a beast. Much more capable than the Neo-Geo but it died before it. I would love to see it being squeezed like the later. I mean, the first few generations of Neo-Geo games look nothing like the later games such as Metal Slug 3 or current NG.DEV.Team stuff. I wonder what the CPS3 could do if it had more years of service. I wanted to see some Run & Gun and Shmup games.

 

[V4skunk]

Hmm, is it? Like I have a hard time choosing between even 3S and 2I for different reasons, 3S might be more competitive-friendly and the FGC side obviously prefer it, but I think 2I is better balanced with some core mechanics and the OST is better, let alone the backgrounds.

I know SFV gets a lot of flack and most deservedly so, but the game has a great roster, better balance than 3S and animations at least as good as that game. Plus, a smorgasbord of sexy females

3rd Strike is the best game by far, its the entire package including music.

 

[RAIDEN1]

So am I correct in thinking the Street fighter 3s in the Anniversary collection are better than the 360/PS3 editions?

 

[yurinka]

How big was CvS2 in arcade? Or was it even released there?

In my country, I don't remember ever seeing it there. But I liked a lot because I used to play it religiously on my ps2

CvS2 got a NAOMI port IIRC. But my initial experience with it was on Gamecube (lol Easy Operation, tho TBH I think that'd work better for simplifying newer fighters today vs. some of the things modern fighters are doing now), then on PS2. Had some great times with friends there.

Yes, the game was originally released on arcade using a Naomi board and later for Dreamcast, which got the best home port. Later there were GC, Xbox and PS2 versions that as I remember weren't as good as the DC ones. It was an awesome game.

It didn't sell well on console, and I assume in arcades had the same luck since Capcom stopped making 2d fighting games for a while soon after it.

Yeah, it's still the most powerful dedicated 2D hardware around, seems like. At the time CPS3 came out you still needed dedicated 2D hardware since pulling off comparable 2D with 3D hardware had a lot of overhead associated with it. However even by the time of NAOMI you got 3D hardware that could do 2D visuals comparable or superior to CPS3, at least in theory. Memory would've been a bigger hindrance in some cases especially when combined with the access speeds of DVDs compared to ROM boards and cartridges. But, Capcom simply had to abandon CPS3 because it was a money pit, pure and simple. They sold few CPS3 systems as-is, and the games weren't big revenue generators. They couldn't justify it any longer than they did.

Naomi was more powerful by all means and had the perk of the easy Dreamcast ports, since Dreamcast in terms of hardware basically was a Naomi with less ram. Naomi also was way cheaper and had powerful 3D capabilities. Back then the arcade business became too small for Capcom, so it would make sense for them to make their own hardware.

In fact they even released on Naomi Street Fighter Zero 3 Upper, the updated version of Alpha 3 (a CPS2 game) or did choose Naomi for Marvel vs Capcom 2 instead of using the CPS2 of the original one, or using CPS3 instead.

I remember the PS1 port of Zero/Alpha 3 getting pretty good reviews actually. Great ones, even. Many praised its World Tour mode in particular, and I think the Japanese version had PocketStation support/compatibility.

As I remember at least here in Spain it got mid or low eighties in the gaming magazines, which for them meant to be an ok/average game, not the masterpiece it was.

 

[SkylineRKR]

So am I correct in thinking the Street fighter 3s in the Anniversary collection are better than the 360/PS3 editions?

I hated the Iron Galaxy version. The changes they made to the front end, the pop up of objectives all the time which you could disable though. There was no intro either. I believe it was tied to Gamespy too.

I think the best one is on the anniversary. Its the most pure port as its just the CPS3 rom, which is for better or worse as the console versions were more meaty. There is a training mode, which likely just uses save states. The online is probably dead now, but at launch I actually had good lag free games on it.

 

[Red Crayon Aristocrat]

Only trouble with Street Fighter III is it's lacking in sexy girls, yeah Elena is pretty good and they latter added Chun Li (who really should have been there from the start) but there's no Cammy, Ibuki and Motoko are more cute than sexy, it's just lacking in a real fanservice heavy character though Elena comes the closest, but I'll be blunt... her bottom is not a thong (save for the KO screen), why are the only characters wearing thongs male ones? I mean they shouldn't have been to surprised the games didn't do so hot initially lmao.

I wish the CPS3 would live a longer life... AFAIK, it's still the most powerful dedicated 2D hardware. It would be awesome if more games would be released for it that weren't VS fighters.

I've often felt like there should have been an extra 2D generation, skipping the PS1 and N64 and going straight to GameCube/PS2/Xbox for 3D, with super advanced 2D consoles in between those and the SNES/Genesis.

Imagine a Mario game with CPS3 level graphics.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Yes, the game was originally released on arcade using a Naomi board and later for Dreamcast, which got the best home port. Later there were GC, Xbox and PS2 versions that as I remember weren't as good as the DC ones. It was an awesome game.

It didn't sell well on console, and I assume in arcades had the same luck since Capcom stopped making 2d fighting games for a while soon after it.

Never checked out the DC version of CvS2 but I'm inclined to now. My experience is with the Gamecube version, which was really fun all things considered. Would've been nice if they had a menu option to disable EO though (or maybe they did?).

Naomi was more powerful by all means and had the perk of the easy Dreamcast ports, since Dreamcast in terms of hardware basically was a Naomi with less ram. Naomi also was way cheaper and had powerful 3D capabilities. Back then the arcade business became too small for Capcom, so it would make sense for them to make their own hardware.

In fact they even released on Naomi Street Fighter Zero 3 Upper, the updated version of Alpha 3 (a CPS2 game) or did choose Naomi for Marvel vs Capcom 2 instead of using the CPS2 of the original one, or using CPS3 instead.

Oh I know NAOMI was magnitudes more capable than CPS3 in 2D and obviously 3D. But just talking in terms of hardware purely dedicated to 2D graphics (and no 3D), CPS3 is still the best from the looks of things.

It might be a quirky distinction considering we don't need to compromise on 3D hardware for 2D features like pre-NAOMI/Dreamcast, but it's a distinction nonetheless.

As I remember at least here in Spain it got mid or low eighties in the gaming magazines, which for them meant to be an ok/average game, not the masterpiece it was.

Well, on MetaCritic the PS1 version has a 93 Critics score and 8.5 User score. Granted, some of those (especially the user reviews) are recent but a lot of the critic reviews are from magazines like GamePro and GMR which would've reviewed the game at release or shortly after, and it got 90+ from both.

Then again, it could've been a regional thing. I just remember a lot of American magazines reviewing the PS1 and Dreamcast versions quite well.

Only trouble with Street Fighter III is it's lacking in sexy girls, yeah Elena is pretty good and they latter added Chun Li (who really should have been there from the start) but there's no Cammy, Ibuki and Motoko are more cute than sexy, it's just lacking in a real fanservice heavy character though Elena comes the closest, but I'll be blunt... her bottom is not a thong (save for the KO screen), why are the only characters wearing thongs male ones? I mean they shouldn't have been to surprised the games didn't do so hot initially lmao.

Dunno man, Ibuki's got a thicc behind in those pants looking at some of the frame .

Overall I agree I'd of liked more female chars in the game especially sexy ones, but it's pretty decent as-is with Chun-Li (t h i g h s), Elena, Ibuki and while not playable, Poison. That said SFV completely destroys SFIII in this area handily, and I hope SF6 continues the trend (while hopefully bringing back Elena, C.Viper and Maki (from CvS2)).

And hey, they can bring some beefcake too for the people into that side of fanservice, equality for all

I've often felt like there should have been an extra 2D generation, skipping the PS1 and N64 and going straight to GameCube/PS2/Xbox for 3D, with super advanced 2D consoles in between those and the SNES/Genesis.

Imagine a Mario game with CPS3 level graphics.

That's basically what Sega wanted to do with the Saturn, but the market of that era was no longer interested in 2D primarily. They wanted 3D, so Saturn's design had to be adjusted to match.

Can only imagine what a pure 2D Saturn with the budget of the system we actually got would've been capable of, probably ports of games like Red Earth and SFIII without any compromises.

 

[RAIDEN1]

Never checked out the DC version of CvS2 but I'm inclined to now. My experience is with the Gamecube version, which was really fun all things considered. Would've been nice if they had a menu option to disable EO though (or maybe they did?).



Oh I know NAOMI was magnitudes more capable than CPS3 in 2D and obviously 3D. But just talking in terms of hardware purely dedicated to 2D graphics (and no 3D), CPS3 is still the best from the looks of things.

It might be a quirky distinction considering we don't need to compromise on 3D hardware for 2D features like pre-NAOMI/Dreamcast, but it's a distinction nonetheless.



Well, on MetaCritic the PS1 version has a 93 Critics score and 8.5 User score. Granted, some of those (especially the user reviews) are recent but a lot of the critic reviews are from magazines like GamePro and GMR which would've reviewed the game at release or shortly after, and it got 90+ from both.

Then again, it could've been a regional thing. I just remember a lot of American magazines reviewing the PS1 and Dreamcast versions quite well.



Dunno man, Ibuki's got a thicc behind in those pants looking at some of the frame .

Overall I agree I'd of liked more female chars in the game especially sexy ones, but it's pretty decent as-is with Chun-Li (t h i g h s), Elena, Ibuki and while not playable, Poison. That said SFV completely destroys SFIII in this area handily, and I hope SF6 continues the trend (while hopefully bringing back Elena, C.Viper and Maki (from CvS2)).

And hey, they can bring some beefcake too for the people into that side of fanservice, equality for all



That's basically what Sega wanted to do with the Saturn, but the market of that era was no longer interested in 2D primarily. They wanted 3D, so Saturn's design had to be adjusted to match.

Can only imagine what a pure 2D Saturn with the budget of the system we actually got would've been capable of, probably ports of games like Red Earth and SFIII without any compromises.

Yeah but the Saturn was already a powerhouse on the 2d front anyway....it could handle 2d games in its sleep, it was the era of 3d it struggled with, with its mesh shadows, and pop-up problems, Daytona left a lot to be desired and nothing on the Saturn could compete with Mario 64.....the irony is that it was Virtua Fighter a Sega developed game that turned everything on its head, Sony saw that and decided to make their machine a 3d power-house going forward, had Virtua Fighter not happened then Sony's machine may have been built differently.....when the Saturn was on the drawing board in 1992.....2d gaming was still in vogue.so to speak....1995 however you are looking at a completley different landscape....(a texture mapped one at that..)

 

[SkylineRKR]

CPS3 was actually trash.

Its drive was unreliable, the hardware was expensive and it would eventually, inevitably, die. I believe games had to load the disc into the memory first, and that failed a lot. That Capcom chose Naomi made 100% sense, it was actually good at doing 2D while being cost effective and allowed stress free ports.

 

[Unk Adams]

Being a 2d fighter in a 3d fighter world most likely didn't help it set the world on fire like its predecessor.

Yep, people don't remember this but back then it was considered "lame" to still play 2D games. You could literally find NES and SNES games in dollar bins and trash cans back then because by that point no one wanted them. 2D games were for niche audiences. I even seem to recall that there were policies for the new 3D systems that 2D games were not allowed at all on the platforms unless they were part of some sort of compilation because it would make the platform look bad. This sounds crazy now but that's how it was back then.

 

[InfiniteCombo]

Hot take: of the Street Fighter III trilogy, 3rd Strike might be the *worst* game:

- Most refined mechanics of the three, yet broken ass tier list, certainly way more broken than Second Impact and arguably more than New Generation
- Good soundtrack but a step down from New Generation and (especially) Second Impact
- Worse presentation than the previous two games (presentation peaked with New Generation and went downhill with each entry)

Even more hot takes:
- It's a pity that the new cast was so poorly received, I actually really liked them when the game first came out and like them all even more today. It's the last time Capcom got so experimental with its fighting roster, which is why every subsequent Street Fighter game can't let go of the Street Fighter II cast
- As a couple of people already wrote in this thread, Third Strike is overrated as hell. It doesn't matter how many EVO Moment #37's or how many videos Maximilian Dood releases praising the game, it's far from being "best fighting game of all time." It's not the best fighting game; it's not the best Street Fighter game; hell, it's not even the best Street Fighter III game!

Don't want to leave in a negative note, so I'll say that playing as Urien or Makoto in Third Strike is pretty damn fun.

 

[Griffon]

Garou was just better.

 

[RAIDEN1]

Hot take: of the Street Fighter III trilogy, 3rd Strike might be the *worst* game:

- Most refined mechanics of the three, yet broken ass tier list, certainly way more broken than Second Impact and arguably more than New Generation
- Good soundtrack but a step down from New Generation and (especially) Second Impact
- Worse presentation than the previous two games (presentation peaked with New Generation and went downhill with each entry)

Even more hot takes:
- It's a pity that the new cast was so poorly received, I actually really liked them when the game first came out and like them all even more today. It's the last time Capcom got so experimental with its fighting roster, which is why every subsequent Street Fighter game can't let go of the Street Fighter II cast
- As a couple of people already wrote in this thread, Third Strike is overrated as hell. It doesn't matter how many EVO Moment #37's or how many videos Maximilian Dood releases praising the game, it's far from being "best fighting game of all time." It's not the best fighting game; it's not the best Street Fighter game; hell, it's not even the best Street Fighter III game!

Don't want to leave in a negative note, so I'll say that playing as Urien or Makoto in Third Strike is pretty damn fun.

So what is the king of street fighter games?

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Yeah but the Saturn was already a powerhouse on the 2d front anyway....it could handle 2d games in its sleep, it was the era of 3d it struggled with, with its mesh shadows, and pop-up problems, Daytona left a lot to be desired and nothing on the Saturn could compete with Mario 64.....the irony is that it was Virtua Fighter a Sega developed game that turned everything on its head, Sony saw that and decided to make their machine a 3d power-house going forward, had Virtua Fighter not happened then Sony's machine may have been built differently.....when the Saturn was on the drawing board in 1992.....2d gaming was still in vogue.so to speak....1995 however you are looking at a completley different landscape....(a texture mapped one at that..)

I think Sega's experience with 3D in arcades at the time, probably tinted their viewpoint on what they considered "good enough" 3D for the home, which influenced the Saturn's initial design. They were always going to have some form of 3D in the system, but it'd of been closer to Model 1 (tho interesting note; Model 1 can push a bit more polygons than Model 2) in design. It seems like Sega thought 3D in a home console wouldn't of been good enough as a main feature until 6th-gen and, well, they were somewhat right about that considering how much the 3D in a lot of 5th-gen games has aged poorly on a technical level.

But because they were ingrained in that mindset (plus the infighting distracting the company from a unified focus), they underestimated the demand of 3D in a home console, and probably didn't want to encroach too much on the arcade side of the business for a bit. Sony as a platform holder were the outsider at that time and IMO that afforded them a unique perspective to get a bit different read of the room. And, it turned out to be a very successful one.

CPS3 was actually trash.

Its drive was unreliable, the hardware was expensive and it would eventually, inevitably, die. I believe games had to load the disc into the memory first, and that failed a lot. That Capcom chose Naomi made 100% sense, it was actually good at doing 2D while being cost effective and allowed stress free ports.

Did the CPS3 have the built-in "battery bomb" feature of CPS2 boards? I remember seeing some vids on that; man Capcom's dedication to stopping piracy was wild at the time! IIRC, specific code for the game was stored on battery-backed RAM and the battery was set to expire after a few years. Once it did, the data would be lost and the game no longer bootable.

Hot take: of the Street Fighter III trilogy, 3rd Strike might be the *worst* game:

- Most refined mechanics of the three, yet broken ass tier list, certainly way more broken than Second Impact and arguably more than New Generation

I've heard that SI has a few issues balance-wise as well but they never felt as severe as 3S, probably because of the way 2I handles certain systems in comparison.

- Good soundtrack but a step down from New Generation and (especially) Second Impact

Yeah, hard agree on this. I used to favor 3S's OST but over the years came to appreciate a greater range of gaming OSTs and ended up preferring 2I's by quite a margin. There are some 3S songs that still stand out to me, but those are mainly Akuma and Makoto's themes. 2I's soundtrack has songs on par with those and quite a lot more of them to boot, plus the OST seems more consistent.

- Worse presentation than the previous two games (presentation peaked with New Generation and went downhill with each entry)

Hmm, there are some 2I stages I prefer over NG's, but there are a lot of great NG stages that never came back. Hard for me to pick between them on that but, they both beat 3S in terms of backgrounds. I do prefer parts of 3S's UI over those games' ones, but NG and 2I had cool character win/lose graphics completely missing in 3S.

Even more hot takes:
- It's a pity that the new cast was so poorly received, I actually really liked them when the game first came out and like them all even more today. It's the last time Capcom got so experimental with its fighting roster, which is why every subsequent Street Fighter game can't let go of the Street Fighter II cast

The new cast had a lot of variety as well, even if a lot of them stuck to established archetypes. Collectively I think their designs have aged much better than IV's, tho IV had a better breakout character in Juri. It took a while for me to really think of her as a "Street Fighter" design though. There was a great article series way back (like over a decade ago IIRC) on 1Up from this dude named BigMex that went into SF character design and why they didn't feel the SFIV designs (or even some of the SF3 designs) matched up with the SFII-era designs, I'd love to find it again to read.

SFV's new designs over all are better than IV's, I mean Laura/Fang/Menat/Zeku/Falke etc. beat the shit out of Abel/El Fuerte/Rufus, are arguably better than Hakan, and compare very well with C.Viper and Juri, so I'm hoping SF6 builds off of those and also brings all or most of them back with further touch-ups on parts of their design. Almost all of the new SFV character designs could work well against the SF3 and SF2 cast IMO aesthetic-wise.

- As a couple of people already wrote in this thread, Third Strike is overrated as hell. It doesn't matter how many EVO Moment #37's or how many videos Maximilian Dood releases praising the game, it's far from being "best fighting game of all time." It's not the best fighting game; it's not the best Street Fighter game; hell, it's not even the best Street Fighter III game!

I agree 3S is definitely overrated, but I still think it's among the upper echelon of fighters in the genre. And a lot of the things I could knock against it, at least some of them come down to subjective taste, not really outright technical or structural failings on the game's part.

Outright calling it the "best" tho just never sat well with me because it asks what criteria people go by. Graphics (technical, art design)? Character designs? Roster size? Game mechanics? OSTs? Background art? Extras? Storyline? Netcode? Roster synergy? Story cinematics? Too many different criteria. IMO, for the era SF3 exists in, the overall best full-package fighter was the PS1 port of Tekken 3. Perfect mix of almost all of the things I mentioned above, only missing on netcode because well online play wasn't a thing back then for most fighters. Still my favorite Tekken game to boot, though Tekken 5: DR is about within striking distance of it.

 

[Red Crayon Aristocrat]

Dunno man, Ibuki's got a thicc behind in those pants looking at some of the frame .

She shouldn't have been wearing pants at all, like a Street Fighter version of Mai.

Overall I agree I'd of liked more female chars in the game especially sexy ones, but it's pretty decent as-is with Chun-Li (t h i g h s), Elena, Ibuki and while not playable, Poison. That said SFV completely destroys SFIII in this area handily, and I hope SF6 continues the trend (while hopefully bringing back Elena, C.Viper and Maki (from CvS2)).

Yes, V really knew how to do it.

And hey, they can bring some beefcake too for the people into that side of fanservice, equality for all

For the record, I have no problem with it having male characters in thongs, just ONLY male characters in thongs, nothing wrong with some beefcake, but it needed a little more cheesecake.

That's basically what Sega wanted to do with the Saturn, but the market of that era was no longer interested in 2D primarily. They wanted 3D, so Saturn's design had to be adjusted to match.

Can only imagine what a pure 2D Saturn with the budget of the system we actually got would've been capable of, probably ports of games like Red Earth and SFIII without any compromises.

So much of early 3D looks so terrible today, whereas 2D was really hitting it's stride.

I don't meant to complain too much since we got Ocarina of Time and Metal Gear Solid, but it would have been cool to see what an extra 2D generation would have been like.

Hot take: of the Street Fighter III trilogy, 3rd Strike might be the *worst* game:

- Most refined mechanics of the three, yet broken ass tier list, certainly way more broken than Second Impact and arguably more than New Generation
- Good soundtrack but a step down from New Generation and (especially) Second Impact
- Worse presentation than the previous two games (presentation peaked with New Generation and went downhill with each entry)

Even more hot takes:
- It's a pity that the new cast was so poorly received, I actually really liked them when the game first came out and like them all even more today. It's the last time Capcom got so experimental with its fighting roster, which is why every subsequent Street Fighter game can't let go of the Street Fighter II cast
- As a couple of people already wrote in this thread, Third Strike is overrated as hell. It doesn't matter how many EVO Moment #37's or how many videos Maximilian Dood releases praising the game, it's far from being "best fighting game of all time." It's not the best fighting game; it's not the best Street Fighter game; hell, it's not even the best Street Fighter III game!

Don't want to leave in a negative note, so I'll say that playing as Urien or Makoto in Third Strike is pretty damn fun.

Only thing that bothers me about 3rd Strike is some of the level backgrounds are CG renders, which hasn't aged as well as New Generation's all pixel art 2D.

So what is the king of street fighter games?

Super Street Fighter II and Alpha 3 are my favs.

 

[InfiniteCombo]

Really amazing post all-around, thicc_girls_are_teh_best !

I've heard that SI has a few issues balance-wise as well but they never felt as severe as 3S, probably because of the way 2I handles certain systems in comparison.

You're correct and 2I does have balance issues. But 2I doesn't have an outright massively broken character like 3S Chun.

Yeah, hard agree on this. I used to favor 3S's OST but over the years came to appreciate a greater range of gaming OSTs and ended up preferring 2I's by quite a margin. There are some 3S songs that still stand out to me, but those are mainly Akuma and Makoto's themes. 2I's soundtrack has songs on par with those and quite a lot more of them to boot, plus the OST seems more consistent.

It's not a knock on 3S's soundtrack, which admittedly is really good. It's just that I prefer 2I's for the reasons you said.

Hmm, there are some 2I stages I prefer over NG's, but there are a lot of great NG stages that never came back. Hard for me to pick between them on that but, they both beat 3S in terms of backgrounds. I do prefer parts of 3S's UI over those games' ones, but NG and 2I had cool character win/lose graphics completely missing in 3S.

The main reason I prefer NG's stages is because of the "stage change" feature. So quite often you'd end up getting either two or even as many as THREE (!!!!) phases of the stage per character, which is a feature that (as far as I'm aware) was removed from 2I altogether.

The new cast had a lot of variety as well, even if a lot of them stuck to established archetypes. Collectively I think their designs have aged much better than IV's, tho IV had a better breakout character in Juri. It took a while for me to really think of her as a "Street Fighter" design though. There was a great article series way back (like over a decade ago IIRC) on 1Up from this dude named BigMex that went into SF character design and why they didn't feel the SFIV designs (or even some of the SF3 designs) matched up with the SFII-era designs, I'd love to find it again to read.

SFV's new designs over all are better than IV's, I mean Laura/Fang/Menat/Zeku/Falke etc. beat the shit out of Abel/El Fuerte/Rufus, are arguably better than Hakan, and compare very well with C.Viper and Juri, so I'm hoping SF6 builds off of those and also brings all or most of them back with further touch-ups on parts of their design. Almost all of the new SFV character designs could work well against the SF3 and SF2 cast IMO aesthetic-wise.

Agree on all fronts. Do you think SFV's new character designs fare better than SFIII's new character designs?

I agree 3S is definitely overrated, but I still think it's among the upper echelon of fighters in the genre. And a lot of the things I could knock against it, at least some of them come down to subjective taste, not really outright technical or structural failings on the game's part.

Outright calling it the "best" tho just never sat well with me because it asks what criteria people go by. Graphics (technical, art design)? Character designs? Roster size? Game mechanics? OSTs? Background art? Extras? Storyline? Netcode? Roster synergy? Story cinematics? Too many different criteria. IMO, for the era SF3 exists in, the overall best full-package fighter was the PS1 port of Tekken 3. Perfect mix of almost all of the things I mentioned above, only missing on netcode because well online play wasn't a thing back then for most fighters. Still my favorite Tekken game to boot, though Tekken 5: DR is about within striking distance of it.

I came in a bit too harsh on 3rd Strike in my initial post, but I think the lack of character balance really rubs me the wrong way; there are so many fun and cool characters to play as, but in competitive play, practically no character has a chance against Chun-Li. (Well there's a bit of a "triumvirate" going on between Chun, Ken, and Yun, but it's still Chun's kingdom). Which is a pity because again, I love to see characters like Urien and Makoto in action. (Those Urien "Aegis Reflector" traps are -- *chef's kiss*). I mean 3rd Strike is up there with me among the worst balanced tournament fighting games, the other notable one being Tekken 4 -- no one has a chance against Jin. Well maybe Bryan, but you'd have to be an exceptionally good Bryan player to beat Jin.

I won't argue against T3 being thought of as the best full-package deal (I myself am a huge T3 fan and I own a PS1 copy to this very day). But I personally prefer the Tekken Tag (PS2) and especially Soulcalibur (DC) as arguably the absolutely best packages in fighting games; I had never seen anything like those before and have yet to see such complete packages since.

 

[AutumnLeaves]

Most overrated FG of all time.

Probably the stupidest thing I've heard this year.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

For the record, I have no problem with it having male characters in thongs, just ONLY male characters in thongs, nothing wrong with some beefcake, but it needed a little more cheesecake.

Agreed. I was pretty miffed about them censoring Mika's buttslap, as silly as that may sound. Not because it was the end of the world of anything, but because they gave in to demands from people who weren't even really fans of the game or the scene. They also don't seem to understand that it's generally just in good fun, I highly doubt anyone was looking at Mika's buttslap and going out IRL and slapping butts of random women in public going like "Smash my face with it!!"

It's just the same tired "video games perpetuate real-world violence" debate again, only this time using sexuality and misogyny, IMO.

You're correct and 2I does have balance issues. But 2I doesn't have an outright massively broken character like 3S Chun.

As someone who has Chun-Li as their favorite female fighting game character, it hurts to see how utterly broken she is in 3S. It's almost laughable, and if I play with her there it's only for screwing around. Kinda feel like Capcom got shook that they'd end up with something similar in V but they might've gone too far and gimped her too hard, she could stand with a few buffs. I've seen Chun mains say similar.

It's not a knock on 3S's soundtrack, which admittedly is really good. It's just that I prefer 2I's for the reasons you said.


The main reason I prefer NG's stages is because of the "stage change" feature. So quite often you'd end up getting either two or even as many as THREE (!!!!) phases of the stage per character, which is a feature that (as far as I'm aware) was removed from 2I altogether.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that! It's been forever since I touched NG so that just went forgotten by me. Kind of wild that each successive version of SFIII removed features when it came to the stages

Agree on all fronts. Do you think SFV's new character designs fare better than SFIII's new character designs?

Ooh...that's tough to answer right now. Partly because V's designs are a lot more recent, so they haven't had as much time to settle in as III's. I think III's designs follow the "simpler" template of II more closely than V's overall (as in, they're less "busy" with visual noise, tho that's not to say V suffers from that too much outside of maybe a couple specific characters like (IMO) Luke), but that doesn't say too much right now.

We probably have to wait until we start seeing SF6's new characters before having enough time to have the V chars "sit" long enough so the relative newness wears off and they can be judged against the III designs more fairly.

I came in a bit too harsh on 3rd Strike in my initial post, but I think the lack of character balance really rubs me the wrong way; there are so many fun and cool characters to play as, but in competitive play, practically no character has a chance against Chun-Li. (Well there's a bit of a "triumvirate" going on between Chun, Ken, and Yun, but it's still Chun's kingdom). Which is a pity because again, I love to see characters like Urien and Makoto in action. (Those Urien "Aegis Reflector" traps are -- *chef's kiss*). I mean 3rd Strike is up there with me among the worst balanced tournament fighting games, the other notable one being Tekken 4 -- no one has a chance against Jin. Well maybe Bryan, but you'd have to be an exceptionally good Bryan player to beat Jin.

Man, Tekken 4 was a bit of a disaster in multiple ways, tho they did try the uneven stages which was nice (VF3 did as well and while it also hurt that game somewhat, it wasn't as bad as with Tekken 4).

3S for me is something right on the cusp of unquestionable greatness...if only it had a bit more time to bake for balance reasons. Maybe a final revision would've done it. As-is, it's a game with great fighting game mechanics, a pretty good OST, nice backgrounds and interesting roster of characters with arguably the best 2D animation in a fighter (and likely in any 2D game really, though some of this might be subjective). But I feel you when it comes to the roster balance holding it back.

Too many tournaments, particularly non-Japanese ones, it always comes down to the same five or so chars over and over. Chun, Yun, Ken, Urien, (maybe he was lower-tier in the past but he seems more popular these days with some of the tournaments. Tho as one of the high-tier chars, he's arguably the most complex to learn alongside maybe Yun) etc. Meanwhile the bottom-tier chars have more or less stayed the same over the years. Hugo, Sean, Q, Remy (one of my mains, I'd say he's in the upper range of bottom tier) etc.

I won't argue against T3 being thought of as the best full-package deal (I myself am a huge T3 fan and I own a PS1 copy to this very day). But I personally prefer the Tekken Tag (PS2) and especially Soulcalibur (DC) as arguably the absolutely best packages in fighting games; I had never seen anything like those before and have yet to see such complete packages since.

Don't have any personal experience with Soul Calibur myself, but from what I've seen and read it indeed is stuffed with a lot of content and the package just seems to feel complete. Whole atmosphere is there, its world feels like its own and what-have-you. Something really neat about both Soul Calibur and Tekken Tag was how much of a massive step-up they were from their arcade versions.

Easily two of the best arcade-to-home port upgrades of all time, we simply don't see upgrades of games between generations with that type of scale & impact today. Tho I think things like Demon's Souls Remake fit the bill.

 

[SkylineRKR]

CPS3 had the same suicide feature but was worse than CPS2. It had other components that could stop working like the drive or the RAM. When changing game you'll needed to load the entire disc into the memory which could take a lot of time. Game cartridges will suicide after approx 5 years and it used to be hard to revive them, but ofcourse some people can do it.

Third Strike is, as I said before, an excellent game. But a lot of its characters are way off, which makes it for an uphill battle unless you are very adept. I felt in SF2 most characters had useful tools and they were more iconic anyway. A relatively unexperienced player could pick it up and do at least something good. When I fired it up, I mostly picked the same few characters.

Urien is really good btw. Even I could do decent with him. He has rather absurd range and great normals. You can generally do sweeps, the odd charge and some ex fireballs. His dash and launcher was very good too, if you could buffer some charges you could eat quite a bit of HP away. I wasn't good enough to properly abuse aegis shield like tournament players do but with that he's broken.

 

[Scotty W]

Is there something special about cps3? I see this game all the time in Japanese arcades, albeit in a cabinet that has about 20 other games.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Is there something special about cps3? I see this game all the time in Japanese arcades, albeit in a cabinet that has about 20 other games.

There are only a handful of CPS3 games around.

And most of them have been ported. JoJo had 2 games, with the second being an updated version. SF3 had 3 games. And there is Red Earth, which is the only one thats never ported over.

Come to think of it, Dreamcast had them all bar Red Earth. JoJo featured both games. SF3 Double Impact had NG and SI. Third Strike was released seperately.

 

[Mess]

So what is the king of street fighter games?

Vampire Savior

Edit: somehow managed to misread a single sentence but eh since there's no better SF game than 3S... Despite the horrendous balance no SF game feels that tight to play. Gaming bliss.