Street Fighter III 3rd Strike Review

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(More customer reviews)Finally, after over half a decade, it has arrived: the much awaited third Street Fighter game. As usual, Capcom keeps releasing updated versions to perfect their product. This is the third revision - hence the subtitle 3rd Strike. If you're not familiar with Street Figter III, you're in for a shock: Capcom axed all existing characters!!!
The only ones left are the Shotokan guys: Ryu, Ken and the powerful Akuma. Add to this another one, Sean - a young Brazillian kid who wants Ken to train him. But no worries - most of these characters resemble the old ones. Like Necro, who is a lot like Dhalsim. And Hugo could be Zangief's stronger German brother. New characters have also been added in Third Strike. You've got the Guile-esque Remy, Twelve, Q, a playable Akuma and the karate girl Makato. This game also marks the return of 32-year old Chun Li, who has been changed drastically yet again. She plays/handles different and is not as easily accessible as she used to be.
Are you tired of all the crazy VS and Alpha games lately? Capcom pressed on the reset button and started all over again with Street Fighter III. No air blocking, no alpha counters and only one super art you choose to perform in battle. This is old skool Street Fighter. It's all about skill - not flair. Anyone could go through Marvel vs Capcom 2 and win by mashing all the buttons at once. Those players don't stand a chance in this game. The key to winning here is having skill & strategy and adjusting it accordingly to your opponent's fighting style. So basically, you really have to know every timing and frame of your character. This already indicates that 3rd Strike isn't for newbies - only for the hardcore fans.
SFIII also introduced parrying - which is a new way of blocking incoming attacks. Instead of just pressing backwards and down, you time your parry right and press forward or down at the moment you are about to get hit. When you do this, you'll recover much quicker (since you parry in a fighting stance with fists ready) and freeze your opponent for a short instant to counter attack immediately. But to master this, you will have to practice A LOT!!! I've spent months of practice to perfect it. Now I can parry every Shinkuu-Hadoken or Hurricane Kick Ryu throws at me. And mastering this technique gives you the winning edge. But it's not easy - you have to sustain your timing correctly to properly perform a parry.
Other new features include; leap attacks (which punishes turtles), the return of bonus rounds (smash the SUV and parry basketballs), a grading system that gives you a grade for your fighting skills after each character you defeat, and finally, the Progressive Hit Frame System - a nifty pixel precise targeting system that determines the amount of damage your apponent receives depending on the spot you hit them (i.e. Air-kicking in the gut will detract more energy than in the shin)
The thing you'll notice right away when you load up the disc is the excellent presentation. The intro shows flashes and zooms of rough sketches of the game's characters. Add to this a Street Fighter rap tune (yes!! Rapping in Street Fighter!!) and you've got one of the most impressive intros ever done in a Street Fighter game. The character animations are incredible! They're very smooth and packed with frames of fluidity. It's like wacthing an animated Manga movie. The art also has a comic book style to it. Excellent vibrant colouring!!
The biggest change over the previous versions of Street Fighter III, is attitude. This revision is all about it. The voices have been changed; They are more aggrevise and show much more character. Another amazing aspect of the game is the music. It's a mixture of acid jazz, hiphop and techno. Like I said before, there are a few Street Fighter raps included, done by the well established Canadian hiphop artist Infinite. My favourite tunes are the ones in the NYC stage (acid jazzy) and Ibuki's, Akuma's and Necro's stage. These are all excellent drum 'n bass songs. No whole soundtrack can ever replace the memoriable tracks from Street Fighter II, but the piano tune after completing the game is really soothing. The ability to listen to all these tracks in the menu is a great addition.
So if you like 100% 2D fighting games and want to discover your true Street Fighter skills, I urge you to get yourself this wicked old skool fighting game. No Capcom/Street Fighter fan should be without it!

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