I would be remiss in my writing to simply lash out against the Street Fighter IV series if I didn't write up my thoughts on the game that I feel is the best in the Street Fighter franchise to give people a perspective on what I think makes a great fighting game. And it should be kinda obvious which game that is just by the title. Yes, I am one of "those guys" who believes that when it comes to Street Fighter, it doesn't get any better than 3rd Strike. But rather than just say repeatedly that it's the best game, I figure I give a more in-depth perspective on what I really like about the game, and just talk about how the game works on a higher level in general.

The one thing that sticks out in everyone's mind when it comes to 3rd Strike is the parry mechanic. Likely most people have seen Evo moment #37 at this point and see that you could parry your way out of an entire super and take no damage at all. You gotta admit it's pretty cool to do that, but the parry is more than that. The parry represents an idea that 3rd Strike revolves around, and that is being able to take away any and all of your opponent's options at any given time. This is what truly differentiates this game from the rest of the franchise. All fighting games do embrace this idea to an extent, but not every game goes as far as giving you a way to deal with every single thing in the game. That's simply because the mechanics of the game will either allow you to or not. With parrying, you have a backup option to use at any given moment if your character doesn't have another way to counter an attack.

3rd Strike forces you to never fall into a pattern because at the very least you could get parried for it. You could be Ryu, for instance, and try to poke your opponent using a crouching medium kick cancelled into fireball. It's a pretty good tool to use at range to keep your opponent at bay. However, if you do it enough and your opponent is good they will red parry the fireball, leaving you open for a big punish. This cements the idea that nothing is ever truly safe in the game, and that you really need to be aware of your own actions at all times. 3rd Strike requires more creativity in that sense, and it goes rather deep. Not many fighting games will ever allow something as trivial as a jab be a potential opening for disaster, but this game does. The game has garnered scrutiny by some because of this, but I think it's a rather thrilling feeling to always be on your toes in the middle of a fight.

The game also mixes in a really strong high/low/throw mixup into the fold, as every character has at least one overhead in the form of the universal overhead. Granted these don't do much damage and may not leave you with much advantage, it still is something that needs to be respected and forces your opponent to make a decision on wakeup. Some characters can also utilize it at the right distance to link to a super. Once you add in baits for reversals and parries along with meaty attacks, you can see that there are a lot of options to choose from. A good offense requires you to make the right choices, forcing your opponent to make the choices you want them to. But as I stated earlier, everything carries an inherent risk. You could easily eat a reversal, get parried, or buffer a parry at the wrong time and give your opponent a chance to retaliate as a result of the small gap in your offense.

I could go on and on to really dive deep into the game, but I think that for the most part I've gotten the main ideas across that I wanted to. Perhaps something more in-depth and specific could come later on as a blog series. But what I hoped I demonstrated is how open-ended fights in this game can be because of the fact that there are a good number of options at any given time for both players. In some ways, 3rd Strike plays a bit more like a 3D fighter, mostly Tekken. This is because opening someone up and maintaining offense is a rather risky thing. But when it all comes together and you pull off a really good round, it surely does make you feel like you're on top of the world. I do like other games as well, but 3rd Strike will always have a special place with me.