VG Review - Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike

Let's get it on now with our final VG Review for this chapter... And what better way than to conclude it with, what I think, is arguably the best installment of the series to date, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike! Ah, yes, I remember Capcoms own glory days of the 80s, where they just came out and looked great, then the 90s, which was when the company was so high on its A-game, many people followed, and into the early '00s, where they did just fine on their own (except for Megaman X7, and we all saw that comin'!), later landing ship on the mid '00s, where it's not as memorable as the 90s or early '00s, but still decent, and then the late '00s started to ruin half of the Capcom fanbase with Street Fighter IV (disturbing character models, way too dramatic Ultra Combos can describe it... not a bad game, and I'd play this over the Movie game), and now... the early '10s, where Capcom is halfway trying to troll again with the reboot of Devil May Cry (Not that I hate emos, but my God, did they screw up with Dante's design... But it's an origin, so I can somewhat forgive), Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (The music is not original and some of the characters we came to know aren't getting much spotlight, here... Still a great title, I admit), and the long-awaited Street Fighter X Tekken '(Not promising due to the disturbing characters looking slightly worse/better, and the life-bars seem too generic... But hell, it's not finished, yet!)... Moving on.

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike was originally released in Japan on May 12, 1999 as an arcade port, handled by the CP System III, which worked on other titles such as Red Earth and the two previous Street Fighter III installments, New Generation and 2nd Impact... Following that original release, 3rd Strike has been later ported for the Sega Dreamcast in 2000 for the Japanese, North American, and European countries, the Sony Playstation 2 in Japan on July 22, 2004, the Microsoft Xbox on October 28, 2004 for Japan, February 22, 2005 for North America, and October 29, 2004 for Europe, but the most recent release the majority of us will see is the Online Edition version scheduled for Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network late this Summer of 2011... I think these were pretty up-to-date release schedules, and Capcom wanted a shitload of copies to not go to waste!

3rd Strike does include all the characters from 2nd Impact, minus Shin Akuma, who was a computer-controlled opponent with more powerful techniques (a code still works, though... Just gotta know it like a fuckin' nerd!), but it also adds five new characters: Chun-Li (who was missing in the past Street Fighter III titles), Makoto (many considered her to be almost Ryu's sibling, but no luck... And there are some other guys who consider they're gay for Makoto, and yet they don't realize she's actually a woman... Stupid morons who play Dead or Alive), Remy (Who #1. Borrows most moves from Charlie/Nash and Guile, and #2. Looks more as if he were to belong to SNK due to the similar 'Omega' symbol that even Iori Yagami bears), Twelve (a shapeshifting soldier who more likely seems to be mutated sperm cell :>), and Q (a mysterious figure with a robotic-like facemask pursued by the CIA... He also creeped the living hell out of players back in the day for some odd reason :/)... All and all, the returning Street Fighter III characters received new voice actors, with a few exceptions.

If it's one thing that shines the most in 3rd Strike, it IS the gameplay engine: parrying has never been more badass in a fighting game... It's been improved (or somewhat changed), and you can now perform a "Guard Parry" or just a standard Parry during Guard Stuns if timing has been done accurately. It's also obvious that another nickname for this Parry tactic is called a "Red Parry", since whenever you execute it, the character glows red... Imagine if the fighter just glowed primary colors every time that happened, and you were awarded a seizure! It may not be good, but just hilarious at times... But what about if the character was actually on fire, literally? Could he/she immediately get KO'd!? Would be cool to see the results!

Whenever you play the single player mode, it is mainly obvious: fight against ten regular opponents, which also includes a character-specific rival as the penultimate boss, and finally Gill as the true boss (if you're playing as Gill, you actually defeat Alex, in last boss position)... Not only all that, but a CPU version of Q can be fought as a secret character. Minigames occur in the middle of a single-player mode gameplay session, with two of them making hardcore comebacks: the "Parry the Ball" minigame from 2nd Impact, and a new version of the "Crush the Car" game from Street Fighter II... Simply---Fuckin---Amazing---TimesTwoHundredThousand!!!

The music, similar to New Generation and 2nd Impact, is still extremely fresh and upbeat even to today's standards... Take that, Street Fighter IV, with your "too quirky, generic, and Dance Dance Revolution-influenced mix". Of course, we all know that Yuki Iwai worked on the soundtracks for New Generation and 2nd Impact, but Hideki Okugawa is up on the friggin' top doing both of those games, and returning for more variety on 3rd Strike... We even have a solid Canadian rapper who goes by the limitless alias of 'INFINITE', who performed three songs for this powerhouse, and best of all, the best announcer of a Street Fighter game... No mainstream rap/hip-hop artist can surpass this man! They need to give up their careers and give back the champion belts to those from the past, as recreated legends, baby.

Now last, but not least is how I rank: is Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike what I truly feel deserves to be the best of the series? Honestly... HELL YEAH!!! No matter how overrated 3rd Strike is at times, the music of this game is still fresh and holy, the character models and stage backgrounds looked packed with excitement even by today's standards, and best of all, the announcer was near-perfect and so was the main antagonist, himself: give it up for Gill, everybody! Not Seth... Just, Uuuuuuugh... He isn't truly threatening and the name gets you by surprise more as an embarrassment than originality. Even the story of 3rd Strike, which continues after New Generation and 2nd Impact, btw, seems so realistic and flesh-filled... the Illuminati and the CIA in the same damn video game??? Just so awesome!

What I wait for now, though, is just a simple successor that continues where 3rd Strike left off... If Capcom makes plans to make it, I hope they let it be something more than nostalgia, because fans may simply agree with my opinions, whenever the people want to or not... Your opinion doesn't truly matter, but when it comes to newer Street Fighter title, the voiced opinions should sound spectacular! Personally, I never liked Street Fighter IV... Not to say that it was a bad game, it actually had some nice variety and stuff, but the majority of character models made me turn it down and so did some of the lackluster storylines... Animation quality, though, it looked pretty fantastic to me!

I rate Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike as a traditional way of saying the number of fingers that are on both hands: T-T-T-T-T-T-T-ten.... o-o-o-out.... o-o-o-o-o-f-f-f......... TTTTTTEEEEENNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh, yeah, and if you noticed what I gave this fantastic entry of the series, it was of course, a 10 out of 10... Still rockin' after almost thirteen years, baby. And next Thursday, we will end our official VG Reviews, but some more unofficial ones might be considered... Just wait to play your cards right, man. This is Ouroburos signin' out... Peace!

Pros

 * Amazing gameplay engine
 * Dynamic visuals, as well as character models... CPS3 was incredible at its time!
 * Pulling off Super Arts Combos here are just as fun as executing Parries or even other tactical tricks
 * The music is GODLY awesome, and has almost every bit of variety... Hideki and INFINITE, you rule!
 * The storyline is inventive and crazy, but still enjoyable to experience... Even if fighting games have NO real depth when it comes to plotting
 * Gill is cool as a boss... I think he exceeds over Seth, that's for sure
 * The minigames during the middle of the single-player mode are memories to behold... Dearly
 * This is still the perfect Street Fighter title to play... Fans can simply agree, and others have opinions, like assholes

Cons

 * The character endings somewhat leave a few things to be desired, but it's all good
 * I honestly never liked how Necro sounded in this one: having a tone similar to Gir from Invader Zim, who was another character I enjoyed throughout my childhood.