With each bi-yearly installment of the Street Fighter franchise, Capcom adds a ton of features. While some are obvious, other tweaks are only detectable by that scary Korean kid who hangs out in the arcade and destroys everyone with his undefeatable Ryu. Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike’s notable additions include bunches of fresh characters, a refined interface, and tons of new backgrounds and music tracks.
In terms of gameplay – well – it’s Street Fighter, and you can’t go wrong with that. Just like Street Fighter III: Double Impact, 3rd Strike is a skills-based alternative to the over-the-top insanity of Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Matches are comparatively chesslike, and there’s no way some punk Wolverine button-masher can wipe out an experienced arcade jockey with dumb luck.
The game flows along like any other Street Fighter game, though the interface screens show off some really lovely hand-drawn art – and you can choose between two opponents before a round. Fortunately, there are some new exercises to do between fights - 3rd Strike marks the illustrious return of the “Beat the ever-loving crap out of a car” mini-game, and you get to completely total one of those gas-guzzling SUVs. The subject-verb-agreement-defying “Let’s Blocking!” exercise is also here, and teaches you the art of parrying as Sean lobs basketballs at you.
Existing in this fine entity we call the Internet, there are plenty of folks who curse Capcom for removing the ability to parry-reverse Ken’s Shoryuken at Level 3 within a 32 frame limit from a corner using only an EX breaker whatchamacalit, but only while using Ibuki or playing on Yang’s stage with the remixed music because the memory locations for the audio or animation data conflict with 32-frame key input. Or something. For these Zen masters of all things Street Fighter, 3rd Strike includes System Direction Mode. This lets you tweak almost every aspect of gameplay – you can activate dozens of development-level variables that let you make your very own 3rd Strike. Just don’t blame Capcom when your friend chews you out for removing guard-cancelable midair chain combos.
But you guys know the real draw of 3rd Strike -- it’s the inclusion of the thunder-thighed Chun Li! Yow! The original fighting game hottie is back, but she’s a little worse for wear – let’s just say that everyone’s first virtual crush looks uncharacteristically freaky. She’s not animated that well, and her legs are all gross and vein-y. I cringe whenever I think about it. What have you done to our Chinese goddesses, Capcom? The rest of the new fighters range dramatically in terms of coolness. Makoto is an over-the-top macho karate chick who grits her teeth menacingly with every attack, while Remy is just some lame French poofter in a leather shirt. “Twelve” is oddly reminiscent of Glacius from Killer Instict, and “Q” is obviously Destro from G.I. Joe. At least none of the 3rd Strike crew are as bad as Arika’s hideous designs in the Street Fighter EX series (I cannot believe Capcom approved such ridiculously stupid characters as “Doctrine Dark” and – oh God – “Skullomania”).
All of the characters have been brought to life with thousands of frames of animation, and 3rd Strike features some of the most fluid hand-animated motion you’ll ever see. Despite the obscene amount of 2D character animation, load times are almost nonexistent, as the game spools data at the character selection screens. Neat. Sadly, things are still stuck in low-res, and the graphics are noticeably chunk-o-riffic when you use a VGA box. Capcom: assume the Lotus Position, and repeat after me: hiiighhh ressoollluuuuutiiiooonn.
So there you have it. More guys, more backgrounds, and lots of crap to tweak when you get bored beating up more guys on more backgrounds. Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike is your standard Capcom upgrade: if you’re an SF nut, you’ll eat it up; the rest of you who got bored of such 2D nonsense won’t find anything particularly new or exciting here.