Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike is a video game that consists of 7 releases
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In 1999, following the release of Street Fighter Alpha 3 for the arcades, Capcom released their third and final iteration of the Street Fighter III series titled Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike — Fight for the Future. 3rd Strike brought back Chun-Li from Street Fighter II, along with four new characters. 3rd Strike differs from the first two games as it features a soundtrack composed by Lockdown Entertainment featuring Hip-Hop, Jungle and Drum and Bass tunes, It also has updated design, some new stages and new ending sequences. 3rd Strike is still the arcade game of choice when it comes to competitive play. It is considered by many one of the most balanced fighting games, even though extreme levels of competitive play have shown the dominance of certain characters over others.
Parrying is a significant technical addition to the games (referred in the Japanese version as "blocking"; in Japan blocking an attack is referred as "guarding") such that the player performing a successful parry has no "block stun". After parrying an attack, the defending player enters a brief period of block stun where they cannot immediately react with any hostile actions. However, as a defensive action, a "Red Parry" (a parry executed during block stun) can be attempted should the attacker continue their barrage of attacks.
Parrying defends against the block damage normally inflicted when blocking opponent's special attacks and Super Arts. Although reduced from its normal damage, a blocked special move or Super Art causes minuscule but noticeable block damage, allowing attackers the opportunity to at least partially punish the overly defensive player who chooses to simply block all incoming attacks, thus motivating a player to attempt a parry.
Parrying's inclusion in the fighting genre allows both players to instantly wrest control of the fight's momentum, moving it away from excessive "sitting in the corner and blocking" and "attacking relentlessly" that hinders most fighting games' restrictive combat flow. The lure of a parry's potential success or failure, offers the attacking and defending players myriad options for mind games, since at any time the player's attack can be used against the player.
Due to parrying's open ended nature, the player is enabled to freely decide the appropriate response to the parried attack given the situation. This differs from the "Just Defend" system of Garou: Mark of the Wolves, which only shortens the amount of time the player is left in block stun.
3rd Strike broadened the time-span in which a player can successfully execute a parry. As players skillfully learn to parry commonly used attacks, such as quick "pokes" (attacks with fast execution, high priority, good range and safe recovery), varying attack vectors comes into focus, as abusing the same tactics makes for predictable patterns.
The Air Block, which was introduced in the Alpha series, was removed in order to keep with the differing rhythm of the game, and to limit defensive options while airborne.
The Super Arts system is similar to the Super Combos in Super Turbo and the Alpha series, where attacks inflicting damage and those that miss completely, allow the player to build enough meter until it is full. However, in Street Fighter III, the player selects one of three Super Arts before a match starts, this causes for a more specific direction to be taken with how players plan to play their character. Each Super Art has its own meter length, and amount of "stocks" it can hold. Other Street Fighter games tend to have one static meter length to equate that enough meter has been acquired to use any of the multiple "Supers" available to that combatant. While this may seem less restricted due to the larger amount of attack options this opens up, enabling too many moves actually confines a defending player due to their increased vulnerability. While some Super Arts take a longer time to charge up, and can only be stocked once, some accumulate stocks quickly and allow for up to as many as three consecutive executions of that Super Art.
Additionally, the Super Art meter can be partially spent to execute "EX Moves" (a.k.a. extra specials, similar to the "Enhanced Specials" introduced in Darkstalkers), which are powered up versions of character's special moves. Although not as strong as a Super Art, a portion of the Super Art meter is consumed when using an EX Move. The acknowledged upside to an EX Moves lies in their utility to further attack variability when coupled by alternating strength of special moves, as all of which are performed to varying degrees of fierceness, using the three levels of attack buttons present in every Street Fighter game. For example, when performing Ken's Rising Dragon Punch, pressing "Jab", the fastest attack button, executes a version of the special move which: covers less distance, does less damage, but executes more quickly than a "Strong" or "Fierce". The EX move version travels the farthest distance, does the most damage and causes additional hits.
A regular special move can be turned into an EX by pressing two punch or kick buttons simultaneously, while performing the same directional motions the move requires normally. EX Moves allow the player to choose between Super Art conservation for sudden, devastating Super Arts (such as Chun-Li's infamous Houyoku Sen) or a barrage of EX attacks.
Taunting, or "Personal Action", is only available in 2nd Impact and 3rd Strike. Each character's taunt is also accompanied by an additional benefit if completed successfully; for example, Ryu's taunt will lower his stun gauge, whereas Q's taunt raises his maximum stamina.
Third Strike also has rival intros at the beginning of a fight. For example, the classic fist bump between Ryu & Ken appears in Third Strike. Another one is from Alex & Hugo, where they have a bit of a stand-off with each other before Hugo bumps Alex a foot away from him--that rival intro is a bit of a nod to the Hulk Hogan VS Andre the Giant fight from WrestleMania III.
Third Strike features two bonus stage in the "Arcade mode" in the game. The classic car smashing bonus stage that was feature in Final Fight and Street Fighter II returns in Third Strike; the bonus stage appears after the first three fights in the "Arcade mode". The other bonus stage is "Parry the Ball" that was feature in the other two Street Fighter III games. The stage is set up with Sean throwing a number of basketballs at your character and it's your job to parry them. There are five difficulty levels for the stage, depending on how well you do in the "Arcade mode" will determent the level of the difficulty of the stage.
Soundtrack List
First appeared in SF2 Series
First appeared in SF3: Double Impact
Third Strike is the final version of Capcom's Street Fighter 3, including several new characters and a wealth of gameplay revisions over its predecessor, Double Impact.
The arcade version.Overview
In 1999, following the release of Street Fighter Alpha 3 for the arcades, Capcom released their third and final iteration of the Street Fighter III series titled Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike — Fight for the Future. 3rd Strike brought back Chun-Li from Street Fighter II, along with four new characters. 3rd Strike differs from the first two games as it features a soundtrack composed by Lockdown Entertainment featuring Hip-Hop, Jungle and Drum and Bass tunes, It also has updated design, some new stages and new ending sequences. 3rd Strike is still the arcade game of choice when it comes to competitive play. It is considered by many one of the most balanced fighting games, even though extreme levels of competitive play have shown the dominance of certain characters over others.
The arcade version.
Gameplay
3rd Strike obviously maintained every innovation in gameplay that the previous Street Fighter 3's had introduced, however, it broadened the time-span in which a player could successfully execute a parry. This allowed even the less expert players to be able to use the parry effectively and counter the abuse of repeated tactics (which are predictable and consequentially easy to parry and punish).Parrying is a significant technical addition to the games (referred in the Japanese version as "blocking"; in Japan blocking an attack is referred as "guarding") such that the player performing a successful parry has no "block stun". After parrying an attack, the defending player enters a brief period of block stun where they cannot immediately react with any hostile actions. However, as a defensive action, a "Red Parry" (a parry executed during block stun) can be attempted should the attacker continue their barrage of attacks.
Parrying defends against the block damage normally inflicted when blocking opponent's special attacks and Super Arts. Although reduced from its normal damage, a blocked special move or Super Art causes minuscule but noticeable block damage, allowing attackers the opportunity to at least partially punish the overly defensive player who chooses to simply block all incoming attacks, thus motivating a player to attempt a parry.
Parrying's inclusion in the fighting genre allows both players to instantly wrest control of the fight's momentum, moving it away from excessive "sitting in the corner and blocking" and "attacking relentlessly" that hinders most fighting games' restrictive combat flow. The lure of a parry's potential success or failure, offers the attacking and defending players myriad options for mind games, since at any time the player's attack can be used against the player.
Due to parrying's open ended nature, the player is enabled to freely decide the appropriate response to the parried attack given the situation. This differs from the "Just Defend" system of Garou: Mark of the Wolves, which only shortens the amount of time the player is left in block stun.
3rd Strike broadened the time-span in which a player can successfully execute a parry. As players skillfully learn to parry commonly used attacks, such as quick "pokes" (attacks with fast execution, high priority, good range and safe recovery), varying attack vectors comes into focus, as abusing the same tactics makes for predictable patterns.
The Air Block, which was introduced in the Alpha series, was removed in order to keep with the differing rhythm of the game, and to limit defensive options while airborne.
The Super Arts system is similar to the Super Combos in Super Turbo and the Alpha series, where attacks inflicting damage and those that miss completely, allow the player to build enough meter until it is full. However, in Street Fighter III, the player selects one of three Super Arts before a match starts, this causes for a more specific direction to be taken with how players plan to play their character. Each Super Art has its own meter length, and amount of "stocks" it can hold. Other Street Fighter games tend to have one static meter length to equate that enough meter has been acquired to use any of the multiple "Supers" available to that combatant. While this may seem less restricted due to the larger amount of attack options this opens up, enabling too many moves actually confines a defending player due to their increased vulnerability. While some Super Arts take a longer time to charge up, and can only be stocked once, some accumulate stocks quickly and allow for up to as many as three consecutive executions of that Super Art.
Additionally, the Super Art meter can be partially spent to execute "EX Moves" (a.k.a. extra specials, similar to the "Enhanced Specials" introduced in Darkstalkers), which are powered up versions of character's special moves. Although not as strong as a Super Art, a portion of the Super Art meter is consumed when using an EX Move. The acknowledged upside to an EX Moves lies in their utility to further attack variability when coupled by alternating strength of special moves, as all of which are performed to varying degrees of fierceness, using the three levels of attack buttons present in every Street Fighter game. For example, when performing Ken's Rising Dragon Punch, pressing "Jab", the fastest attack button, executes a version of the special move which: covers less distance, does less damage, but executes more quickly than a "Strong" or "Fierce". The EX move version travels the farthest distance, does the most damage and causes additional hits.
A regular special move can be turned into an EX by pressing two punch or kick buttons simultaneously, while performing the same directional motions the move requires normally. EX Moves allow the player to choose between Super Art conservation for sudden, devastating Super Arts (such as Chun-Li's infamous Houyoku Sen) or a barrage of EX attacks.
Taunting, or "Personal Action", is only available in 2nd Impact and 3rd Strike. Each character's taunt is also accompanied by an additional benefit if completed successfully; for example, Ryu's taunt will lower his stun gauge, whereas Q's taunt raises his maximum stamina.
Third Strike also has rival intros at the beginning of a fight. For example, the classic fist bump between Ryu & Ken appears in Third Strike. Another one is from Alex & Hugo, where they have a bit of a stand-off with each other before Hugo bumps Alex a foot away from him--that rival intro is a bit of a nod to the Hulk Hogan VS Andre the Giant fight from WrestleMania III.
Third Strike features two bonus stage in the "Arcade mode" in the game. The classic car smashing bonus stage that was feature in Final Fight and Street Fighter II returns in Third Strike; the bonus stage appears after the first three fights in the "Arcade mode". The other bonus stage is "Parry the Ball" that was feature in the other two Street Fighter III games. The stage is set up with Sean throwing a number of basketballs at your character and it's your job to parry them. There are five difficulty levels for the stage, depending on how well you do in the "Arcade mode" will determent the level of the difficulty of the stage.
The Soundtrack CD.
- Alex & Ken's stage, "Jazzy NYC'99"
- Necro & Twelve's stage, "Snowland"
- Hugo's stage, "The Circuit"
- Chun-Li's stage, "China Vox"
- Ryu's stage, "Kobu"
- Ibuki's stage, "Twilight"
- Makoto's stage, "Spunky"
- Akuma's stage, "Killing Moon"
- Elena's stage, "Beat in my Head"
- Sean & Oro's stage, "The Longshorehan"
- Dudley's stage, "You Blow my Mind"
- Yun & Yang's stage, "Crowded Street"
- Remy's stage, "The Beep"
- Q's theme, "Q"
- Urien's stage, "Crazy Chili Dog"
- Gill's stage, "Psych Out"
Characters
Third Strike features 19 regular playable characters, as well as one boss character, Gill.First appeared in SF2 Series
First appeared in SF3: New Generation
- Alex
Street fighter roster
First appeared in SF3: Double Impact
First appearing in SF3: Third Strike
Useful links
- Official website (Japanese)
- TheShend @ Youtube - Featuring a ton of match-, combo- and tutorial videos.
Trivia
- The arcade version of third strike runs in a native 384x224 pixel resolution at 60 Hz
- It is noted that the Xbox version included in the 15th Street Fighter Anniversary Collection runs a little bit faster, with the ps2 version running a bit slower. The Dreamcast edition is the only known perfect port outside of emulation.
| Game Name | Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike |
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| Original US Release |
May 12, 1999
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| Original US Release |
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| Aliases |
Street Fighter III: Third Strike, Street Fighter III: Third Strike - Fight for the Future Third Strike |
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