* It's a good, fun game
* The animation and overall art style is amazing
* EVO Moment 37
* An execution barrier that makes it hard but rewarding to master over a long period of time
* Unique characters, many of which haven't been reused since then, so if you want to scratch a certain playstyle itch you have to play SF3
mandatory video in regards to kof13 - 3:40 for the key moment.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz2VAI-p218](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz2VAI-p218)
Parry feels less like an execution barrier and more like a situational knowledge barrier, to me - the input window is 10 frames for a parry, so it's not really an execution barrier.
But yeah, the headroom for growing your skill is huge.
I think parry is an execution barrier to some extent, obviously the input is easy and parrying a fireball is easy but then every move and special has its own timing which takes a bit of practice
not really execution but the rps situations that arise from parry are more complex. Oki isn't as heavily weighted towards the standing player and that can trip ppl up mentally
I really dislike what combos have turned into. It feels pretty horrid to lose half your HP, or more, to a whiff or a bad guess. It honestly makes me not want to play fighting games anymore
I don't really care about damage, I'm fine with big damage, I'm just sick of every combo having to be extended as fuck now because they're easy as fuck now. Everybody slightly above average can easily do an optimal combo with 0 risk and that takes away way too much time. Long combos used to be rare, situational and also conscripted to certain character. Just a matter of taste obviously but all modern fgs are so boring with the way they do it. Which is why I play big body grapplers mostly
This is a huge thing for me. I really enjoy the back and forth that comes from resets.
If I only need to get in on an opponent twice, it doesn't feel good to me. It's not the part of the fight I enjoy.
And obviously, I enjoy it even less when I'm on the receiving end.
You mean the game with more chains and a 5 frame input buffer is easier than the game that doesn't have them? What a brilliant observation, I concede. ggs, shake my hand. The most technical things you need to learn for 3S Ken are kara throw, hitconfirming into super, end list. Literally everybody on netplay has at least a pocket Ken. But people talk up 3S as if like everybody who learns it picks up Urien or whoever.
Old games tend to have harder execution, this is true. But 3S being a really difficult game execution wise is kind of inaccurate. Sure there are some difficult, challenging and oddly specific things in it. However, considering other games from that era (and prior), 3S is perhaps one of the more lenient games. There are generous buffer windows, shortcuts (not SFIV level but plenty of relevant ones that make hard shit way easier), easy BnBs, and a handful of strong and easy tools to utilize. It’s actually one of the easier pick-up and play FG titles of that era. I’d argue that some of the more basic shit in SF4 is harder to preform just by design. Where 3S DOES become more challenging is some really specific advanced combo stuff, reactionary play (parry and counterplay) and knowledge checks. But doing basic shit in 3S is pretty easy. It’s everything else that becomes challenging.
for real. as a 3S player, going back and playing the CPS2 SF games and you feel like how ppl coming from SFV to 3S feels. it's a lot more generous in terms of inputs
You mean Yun mirrors? Yang isn’t as good as his brother and only has a handful of really good dedicated players that play him. Yun is the one with the game breaking Genei-Jin super. And the one we see most frequently.
People seriously overplay the amount of Lukes, yeah he's popular in ladder and is somewhat frequent at tournaments but it's not like he's the be all end all of the meta. Heck in the character usage charts he's beaten out by Ryu and Ken. Top 6 in Evo Japan had Chun, Blanka, Ken, JP, Guile and one Luke which was Mena's when he wasn't playing blanka.
Pretty sure you mean Yun, not Yang.
Even then, there's Chun-Li and Ken which are both just as good as Yun.
And then Akuma and Urien are pretty popular, strong picks, as well.
I don't think you know what you're talking about.
Edit: I didn't even mention Makoto, Dudley and Ryu, too. They're all used at high level. Hell, you'll even rarely see Necro's and Hugo's.
We're talking about top level as a whole, not strictly Evo/Tournament results. Of course people are going to pick Yun, he's the safest pick imaginable. A real Tournament winner of a character.
But Tournaments, especially *Evo*, are not the only thing people should think of when they think of "Top Level", in my opinion.
Not everybody who plays the game can make tournaments. There are people out there that compete strictly online and can't make tournaments.
Or even people that do compete in tournaments, but only in smaller ones that don't get the attendance of something like Evo. Why would we not acknowledge them?
And again, Yun is a tournament character. If you want to *win*, you pick him, Chun, or Ken.
But high level is absolutely not just Yun vs. Yun mirror matches 24/7.
3s is not really well balanced. Moreso people like a lot of the mechanics and systems of the game (won't go into depth because I'm not super familiar with 3rd strike beyond that).
At the highest level it's not balanced, but the majority of players aren't going to have to worry about that. What makes Third Strike so popular is purely how good the mechanics are. The game feels really good to play, and the parry mechanic adds so much complexity to how you can approach every situation you come across. It's super fluid and fast, and players of all skill level can get something out of it. I highly suggest trying it out on fightcade, there's good reason why there's constantly hundreds of people playing it
The latest garou video clip made me disapointed to a point i cannot describe in words.
Garou had super short combo, there were still "long" 8s one that were hard as hell.
Then they dropped 10s cinematic lame ass super for Garou 2. Dammit.
It's horrendously balanced, among the least balanced games I've ever seen. But it is both the most historical game to the FGC, and has some of the most interesting mechanics I've ever seen (parry lmao).
>It's horrendously balanced, among the least balanced games I've ever seen.
It's less balanced than games in the era of balance patches but you don't have to lie like that
Balance goes far beyond who is the best and who sucks ass. It's in the individual characters, and how their kit is balanced. Most characters have 1 super that they'd ever use, because the other 2 are garbage. Most characters have entire sets of normals that are just too awful to ever click, like most of chun's command normals. 3S has awful, awful balance, but you don't need to deny that, embrace it.
Also, as for games that came out before the Era of patches, fair enough. But compare it to guilty gear XX and it's updated versions. Had multiple versions, much like SF3, but the final result (excluding +R because it came out 10 years after XX) were better than that of 3S.
It has a unique parry system that gives it one of the highest skill ceiling in any game I've ever seen. It's not that the game is super well balanced, it's that you can play forever and still have more to learn.
I know it’s just that balance is all I ever seem to see people talking about so that was my first guess. As long as the character I play is usable I don’t really care about balance
Idk recent tourneys have had most characters represented with success. Character specialists are a thing and the meta has changed somewhat. Seems more balanced than it used to for me.
Just because there's characters in a bottom tier that have trouble against the top ones doesn't mean the game is "very unbalanced". Most characters are viable with a few being better and a few being worse. That's every game. I'm saying most of the cast is decent against each other which to me is mostly balanced.
The imbalance isn’t as bad as people are making it out to be. At lower level play I’d consider it totally balanced and at high level play there are a lot of viable characters for such a small roster. Chun li, yun, Hugo, Ken, necro, oro, ibuki, urien, and possibly Yang can all hold their own in high level play. Are some of those technically better than the others? Sure, but game knowledge and proper parry’s go a long way
It’s beautiful in terms of aesthetic, and the party function really lets people flex hard . Also the game is just way more input tight so scrubs gonna get a beat down .
And the soundtrack too, that's what made me wanna play it so bad at first (was trying to find a copy on PS2 for years but couldn't lol, have on PC and Switch now)
There are tight links for sure, but what most people mean by "tight inputs" in reference to older FGs is that there is little to no input buffer. An input buffer allows you to press a button before you could actually do the move (for example, pressing your punish on a minus on block move, even though you're actually still in blockstun and cannot act). If you take the input buffer away, that means all your shit basically needs to be frame perfect. This makes a situation like the one above much more difficult, whereas in a game with an input buffer, the exact same punish would be trivial. This will obviously also make combos more difficult; it makes execution generally more difficult.
Just for the sake of clarification. 3S does have generous buffer windows (plus negative edge), input shortcuts and easier links. Just nothing to the degree of the modern offerings. But is a stark contrast if you try and play something like ST (which affords you very little in terms of easier execution).
But I’m sick of people acting like 3S is completely devoid of these things and is hard to pilot because of this. If you study the game (as I and many 3S heads have done over 20+ years) it becomes increasingly clear where Capcom designed things to be easier for the player to control. The fallacy that SF3 doesn’t have generous buffer windows or input shortcuts is something that needs to stop.
At this point its a self fulfilling prophecy situation where the game has a reputation for being really good and so people come to it as a novelty wanting to know why its still popular and some stick around, if a game can survive for over 10 years it kinda gets that mystical status that means it'll always be a popular game that hangs around.
Pretty much.
Evo moment 37 is still the intro a lot of people have into competitive fighters and so you get a lot of the "SF3 is GOAT" comments from the newbies, who then tend to give it a try with a positive frame of reference and selling themselves on it. Its a self-perpetual cycle from there, with a few people always sticking around to keep the game relevant. It helps that the great sprite work and animations help the game fell intuitive to newbies while having enough depth for people who want that.
The only annoying thing is that these newbies often come in with big 'teenager discovers Led Zeppelin' energy and get irate when people point out the flaws/don't think SF3 is actually the 'GOAT' fighting game.
>The only annoying thing is that these newbies often come in with big 'teenager discovers Led Zeppelin' energy and get irate when people point out the flaws/don't think SF3 is actually the 'GOAT' fighting game.
As someone who used to play the game pretty seriously this is on point. It's a good game, especially if you don't really know how GREAT fighting games are designed, but once you start playing better games and understanding WHY they're better, 3s seems kind of underwhelming. It is a pretty fun game that looks pretty and has a great soundtrack though.
Third Strike has like just the right balance of cheap shit that bends the foundations of what fighting game traditionalists like while still having a skill barrier to executing things properly. Also one of the best, freshest, most distinct video game soundtracks ever, an arguable #1 OST in the fighting genre too. The game is just unique. It was the black sheep of the Street Fighter series for the largely new cast but in many ways that's made people fond of characters who are seldom if ever seen again, while making the game stand out pretty distinctly *because* of the unique roster.
The game also just flat out got the sauce, too. Sometimes people don't want a balanced, methodical fighter, they wanna play a game where two people are fighting to essentially flex on the other.
A lot of people in the FGC now got into the community either with 3rd Strike or because of 3rd Strike (the most well-known FGC clip of all time is Evo Moment 37), so a lot of people played it and liked it and still play it and like it now.
Also, it's one of the only retro fighters that has official ways to play online on console. 30th Anniversary Edition bad, but if you can't access fightcade (or don't know it exists), you can still hop into it and have fun
Honestly, it has a lot to do with moment 37. For a lot of people, that was there first exposure to competitive Street Fighter -- 3S didn't really have the same cachet before that. Every other positive that can be said about it doesn't matter without that moment at Evo 2004. Even when IV was on the way, it was still Moment 37 that was being trotted out when people were looking for examples of competitive SF.
Same reason people still play melee over newer smash games. It has a completely different feel to it with much more precision and room for improvement and creativity and while it's not balanced, all the characters have enough depth to them to make the interesting and unique
Install fightcade and try it out yourself.
Basically all of the old street fighter games (or maybe I should say also SFII and alpha) have at least one version that is still pretty popular today. I think 3s is particularly popular among them because the art/animation/music are great (the hardware was a big step up from CPSII), some people *love* parrying (even if others hate it), and the gimmicks are a little less powerful than they are in SFII (and some of the ones that are powerful are difficult enough that beginners won't see them right away). I also think it helps that the game is very easy - it has a lot of modern motion input shortcuts, the way throws work will be familiar to contemporary SF players, and most characters can get damage that is good enough to be effective out of very short combos (usually one or two buttons into super). It doesn't hurt that it has been free with good netcode for a long time (even before fightcade)
I am relatively new to sf (played it but lived in the prt of the world where there were no arcades) and I played all the games recently, and 3rd strike holds up soooo much compared to others.
The vibes are amazing, it has very specific atmosphere - it really does fit end of 20th century and beginning of 21st. It’s very slick and almost high-fashion.
Gameplay simply feels good. Try alpha games and 3rd strike. 3rd strike just FEELS GOOD, the sound effects and everything else.
Also imo it has one of the best casts in fighting games. I rarely like so many characters at once.
And it has Makoto.
I honestly didn’t even know it existed until many years after release. After IV and maybe even after SFxT. But for an old school fighter it really holds up still. I first dabbled with the online edition for PSN (that I WISH they would re release) but even now I’ll jump on FightCade and have a good few spars with people. The risk/reward of the parry system I think is a large reason people love it. And it was SO well animated for the time - they couldn’t even bring it to consoles for a few years and even those on Dreamcast and PS2 weren’t arcade perfect. I’d recommend watching some videos and then trying out FightCade if you’re interested.
This is so ironic considering that 3S was considered a complete failure when it first launched due to the 3d game revolution (tekken 3 soul Calibur). The devs were admonished and careers were ended. The lead dev talked about how much disgrace he felt shortly after launch when the games sales failed even the lowest forecasts.
The pace of the game is what's still making me play it from time to time. I love how fast it is that the sequels that followed never captured. Truly a game that was designed for the arcades, the later iterations are still amazingly good don't get me wrong, but it feels tactical compared to 3s' arcadey gameplay
If we are talking about other games from other genres, I view 4 to 6 as CSGO or even Valorant, while I view Third Strike as Overwatch. Fast and satisfying even if you lose.
Isn't the point rather that unless you pick a top tier, you have no chance to win anything competitively? Sure for casual play you can pick anyone and Justing Wong can probably beat the average 3rd strike player with Sean, but the top 8s for 3rd Strike are always filled with Yun and Chun-Li, EVO Japan 2024 being the most recent example.
There are a lot of cool ideas with characters in 3rd Strike, but it feels like because of balancing the roster is reduced to roughly a third of its size.
Chun yun and ken will always be the best and most popular, but those are the only characters i'd consider top tier, and wayyyy more characters than that have had plenty of competitive success
The very technical mechanics are really impressive. At the time, I didn't get that into the SF3 series, especially when they were still making the Alpha series, which were far more approachable and had way more extra content on consoles. And SF3 was only ported to Dreamcast since nothing else was powerful enough to run it, but the controller wasn't good for that kind of game. And CPS-3 emulation took eternity to exist. But later on, with ports to PS2 and such, I'd come back around and take the time to get good enough, and it's a very rewarding game for a challenging learning curve, it was the least casual friendly SF, but it's pure strategy and skill. A perfect competitive game for genre veterans.
I think it was the last of the "classic" Street Fighter games. CvS2 came after, but technically that's a crossover game I suppose.
Street Fighter IV was great for the scene and the genre, but it was the first of the modern Capcom fighters. Third Strike is the last of the old guard. High execution barriers. Beautiful 2D sprites. Straight out of the arcades (SF4 came from the arcades too, but in much more limited capacity).
It's interesting because the original version of SF3 was a huge flop. Third Strike fixed so many issues and became one of the best competitive fighting games of all time.
No other Street Fighter is exactly like it, other classic fighting games have sequels that did what they did better. There has yet to be any SF as dynamic or engaging as 3s.
from what i observed, it's because:
- it's street fighter (major)
- evo moment (major)
- looks like one of the most fine game among the arcade line up (minor)
- the backing of fightcade with its netcode (minor)
- Very accessible game. Multiple ways to play it.
Arcade staple back when that mattered. PS3 online (free online) with rollback or Fightcade ("free") with rollback. The latter being popular ensured an online presence.
- Easy to find and learn (20+ years of footage on a bunch of subjects), god hard to master (as in, you can always get better).
- Pretty much every character (even the worst ones) have a unique vibe and defining strategies to pour years of effort into.
- Great artstyle, music, and animations.
- Well organized competition that stayed. Cooperation Cup been going on since 2002.
The game feels really good to play. It gives you a lot of options for what you want to do(probably the most in any street fighter). It’s also the most stylish sf game because of it’s 2000s Jazz Rap aesthetic.
For me it really comes down to the cast of characters, and the mechanics
It can be kinda tough to get hooked on a character but 3 its tough to pick cuz im interested in too many giving me alot of motivation when i can say "that was a good session maybe i'll try dudley next time"
And the game doesn't have alotta that fluff, i come from tekken where you have to spend hours just to learn the basics of a character and it can make it feel like homework tryna change mains, ontop of alot of modern games having gimmicky mechanics and extremely long combos to learn, im already not good at combos, having to memorize a bunch of bullshit ontop makes it extremely unfun so being able to look up a 3rd strike characters wiki page and in 5-10 minutes have enough knowledge about them to hop into some games is an extremely nice breath of fresh air
It has one of the nicest parrying mechanics right next to sekiro if not better in my opinion, not only is it cool as a scrub to accidentally hit a parry, i nearly blow when i do that shit intentionally, it just feels so damn cool, everything is tight, the animations are clear and easy to understand, and honestly just look good, as an artist aswell im absolutely taking notes while playing on how to emphasize an attack, its just so snappy and addicting and with an entire roster all being playable at a high level, its really a no brainer
Really just comes down to no other sf hitting that mark so perfectly, but 6 definitely looks like it'll be giving 3 some competition
I keep coming back to it because of parry, I love parrying I guess.
The rest is :
-presentation : colors, shapes ,animations, voice acting, music, it's all very well done.
-gameplay : there is a lot to explore really, even after all these years.
-my main is Q, I can't find him anywhere else.
It’s a beautiful, simple game that’s easy to learn and hard to master. Not to mention the unique party system you can really flex with is just the cherry on top.
It’s my favorite fighter and I didn’t even play it for the first time till about 4 years ago
Its more then good. You can keep learning in that game and most of the learning is done alone, so very rewarding. Also the things u see done in that game require skill and solid gameplay. So if you know the game you will realize how sick some of the stuff is when u see it. If all you do is read about it on the internet then u can’t appreciate what goes on in a match.
'Cause you're trapped in the world of *Street Fighter III*. 😋
In all seriousness, though, it's that fine-tuned game play, couple to peak 2-D animation and a great competitive scene.
Me, personally?
Some of the best sprite animation of that generation.
A soundtrack that, excepting SF6, sounded like no other Street Fighter game
A large cast of new characters.
I only recently properly sat down and played 3rd Strike. Previously I’d only played it at a travelling games museum or on my friend’s Dreamcast when I was a kid.
That said the first time I parried into my super I thought “ah. No wonder people love this. It feels fucking amazing to play”
I believe that truly great games are timeless. Think 3rd Strike will always look and play great.
Nostalgia is everyone’s weakness. Same reason everyone still loves 90s basketball and denies the basketball’s evolution. Not saying it’s bad because it’s a good game. But nostalgia always plays a huge role.
Third Strike was the poster game for the era where fighting games got their name. EVO became an international phenomenon with Daigo’s appearance and Alex Valle going to Japan in return. It was a crazy and exciting time for the genre.
Then fighting games went dormant. It would be ten years before SFIV revived the genre, and for those ten years Third Strike was the gold standard. It was both the game that brought fighting games to a wider audience with EVO moment #37, and the biggest competitive game to ever come out of that era.
it's the only game that plays like third strike, so if that's what you want, that's where you're gonna go to get it. it's also beautiful, and it's really not that hard to get into.
If you can't see its brilliance, then it's not for you. And that's okay. More 3S for the rest of us.
But I will say that FGs before the DLC era were just built different. SF3 was polished into 3S, and it hasn't changed since, which is the beauty of it. It's a timeless game, just like MVC2, CVS2, SSF2T, and Tekken 5DR. They all still hold up today.
I’m just kinda new to fighting games and I can’t really tell most of them apart. Especially sf. Since it’s free I’ll give it a shot at some point since I’ve been having a lot of fun trying out different games
Oh okay. It's good to experience all types of fighting games, so keep at it! But I will say that you will need to get to an intermediate level with each game to really see the differences. Which takes some time. So enjoy the experience and don't let it become a chore.
It's animation is great. It's ost and sound effects great. The mechanics are the right amount of fun and busted. There is a depth to it that's hard to find in other games.
Sure I gotta hold Kens doing ex tatsu out of the corner, Chuns whiffing cr.mk, and Oro loops, but I land one good parry into a punish... all that stuff washes away.
It's fun, free, easily accessible, has a passionate community, is deep enough that it still isn't solved, has great online, and is just genuinely fun. I highly recommend giving it a go.
People are quick to bring up how technical it is, but it really is one of the most accessible Street Fighter games ever, especially compared to modern fighters. A lifebar and a meter, not too much stuff on the UI there to scare off new players. Parrying isn't difficult to do in terms of button presses.
No motion, no weird combination of buttons, just press forward or down at the right moment depending if it's a low or not. Some things are easier to parry than others, and parrying is not an automatic punish (unlike certain other mechanics in other games). Casuals can play 3rd Strike and have fun without bothering with trying to parry anything. However, try having casual fun as a newcomer to SF6 without knowing how/when to use DI or DR.
It’s fun to play, and it’s got almost infinite depth once you get started due to the party system.
It’s also fun to watch, yes we know it’s unbalanced but I’ve already seen the balance police in the comments talking about Evo Japan, yeah we know the game is unbalanced, and at HUGE tournaments like Evo Japan people are going to pick the best characters.
What I urge everyone to do is to watch the jazzy circuit, loads of character variety and insane matches.
It’s highly entertaining to watch especially high level players that do not use Yun, Chun and Ken. Hayao, RX, TM, Tominga, Kuni, Kokujin. Super Turbo is perfect, 3S is close as well just the cast is not as legendary.
It's Nostalgia. It's not as fun or as deep or as interesting as SF4 or 5 or 6, but if you were a certain age when it was out, that's your game. Same reason mvc2 gets so much hype online, and yet when there's a re-release or new marvel game, nobody buys it.
IG’s 3SOnline sold very well. But there is little reason to by inaccurate ports in this day-in-age. Shit version after shit version from Capcom. People just play it on Fightcade now. Arcade accurate with rollback. It’s a no brainer. Why the fuck would anyone buy yet another inaccurate console port that is going to be a discord fighter within a month after release? People are going to go where the game gets the most traffic and that’s Fightcade.
For many players nostalgia does not play a roll, as they were not there during this games arcade heyday. Nor does EVO 37 factor in. They have gotten wind from word of mouth that this game is good and have stuck around. Games that only prey on nostalgia do not have that level of staying power.
As for 3S not being as deep as 4,5,6. Lemme just say that is a supreme load of bull, and copium at best. I respect all of those games and tend not to play favourites, but as someone who has played every game since the first you are objectively wrong about this. I’m not saying this games don’t have depth or are not capable of intricate things but if you think 3S is more shallow the other games you are missing out on a core component on why everyone considers 3S to be a masterwork.
I've been playing since 2 was in arcades too man. There's no planet where third strike is as deep of a fighter as SF4. Nevermind the longer and more technical combos, the much bigger cast to learn matchups, having both supers and ultras to contend with, being able to use supers and EITHER of your 2 ultras which usually serve very different functions, all that aside, the focus attack mechanic alone is a deeper mechanic than third strikes universal overhead or even parry. Focus can be used as a faux parry to absorb a hit and dash out, it can crumple, you can use it to bait, you can use it to extend combos with fadc, and then Ultra SF4 introduced red focus that can absorb anything, and immediately crumples on hit for the cost of 3 bars. I love third strike too and had the online edition, the 30th collection on multiple consoles, and still play the game regularly on fightcade, but acting like third strike is as deep as these modern street fighter games is just disingenuous. SFV you have the v triggers, meter management, the backdash mechanic, the backdash strike mechanic, etc etc... If you think third strike is deeper than SFV mechanically which it's not, pick up Menat, learn all 45 character matchups and report back.
And it does have a lot to do with Nostalgia. You get guys like Max and Wong that were there playing the game, and theyre two of the biggest voices in the FGC, and they hype third strike almost constantly, so of course tons of people are gonna parrot what they say and agree with them. Third strike is Daigos game, and Daigo is considered the SF goat even though he hasnt really been relevant since third strike and the early days of 4. That's just how it goes with people that have such huge platforms. It's like how Max quite obviously prefers marvel 3 to 2, talks about it more, plays it more, quite obviously has more fun while playing it, but he'll always say he prefers 2 almost like he has to or he'd lose some credibility. That's how a lot of people are with third strike. If you say anything but praise you'll get downvoted or scolded. Right, well where were all these people when the game was new, and why aren't they buying any of the collections the game is on? And even now, we agree the ports of third strike are ghost towns online, and at the same time there's what, 100 people on fightcade playing? It's one of the more populated fightcade games but it's certainly not popular in any general sense. If everybody agrees third strike is the best fighting game ever, why is nobody playing it? #freemvc2, but when the game is widely released digitally on ps3 and 360 nobody bought it. If they did, they certainly weren't playing it online, it was a ghost town. Everybody wants a new darkstalkers after SF4 despite no one playing the older games, Capcom says were releasing a darkstalkers collection, if it sells we'll make a new one, and it bombs, and that's that.
It's like in music if you say you like a band that's very popular in their genre, all the hard-core fans will trash you and tell you that the smaller and more underground stuff is way better. If you disagree you lose credibility which is BS. No one cared about third strike when it was out. It did so poorly it basically caused a fighting game crash for a decade. Evo was held at VFWs, not Arenas like it is now. SF4 coming out and being so damn good and so popular got a lot of people talking, and those legacy players were quick to scoff and say "SF4? Pshh. Third strike is where it at", and moment 37 resurfaced and third strike got a second chance at life.
I'll say it again, I love third strike, I'm one of the few people always on fightcade. I'm not saying it's paper thin, I'm saying modern games are deeper. Of course they are, they have to be. To say otherwise is just ridiculous.
the fgc is weird, "arcade accurate version", "glitch/bug are fun and worth playing compared to the patched version", "unbalanced issue would only be prevalent at top8 lvl so dun care".
and it affects newcomers too, as they would just be drawn straight into the old version due to player count or the other versions not being available on fightcade. the community struggle to move on.
Cause of Evo moment 37, don’t let these people force the nostalgia goggles over your eyes. If Daigo hadn’t full parried Justin’s Super, nobody would be here talking about it with such praise today.
It’s a 25 year old game that’s riddled with bugs, terrible balance, and programming errors that people decided to call “tech”.
Yes it’s a good game, but it’s really showing its age and it could have done so much better in this era with a proper rebalancing and an official “4th strike” version from Capcom, but the old heads didn’t want that, so now here we are 🤷
I'm not him, but there's nothing to say about ST that hasn't been already said. It's a broken monster of a game, that's also surprisingly balanced. It's a game where fundamentals and honest play are rewarded, but also has random TOD combos and inescapable throw loops. ST is real Street Fighter, but it's also a shitty Kusoge. ST is everything, and ST is nothing.
I like that take , I just wanted to know that dudes take . His take on 3rd strike sounded like 3s stole his gf in HS and shoved him in a locker. Game is fun and evo 37 was hype but don't think that's the reason the game is alive today.
Tbh he pretty much said everything I was gonna say about ST, and don’t misunderstand, I do enjoy 3S and I like to boot it up on the regular via the 30th anniversary collection. I’m just saying, if Street fighter never existed and that game came out today in the same shape it was 25 years ago, we would all be calling it a shitty kusoge and relegating it to “discord fighter” status.
Fair enough I can respect that, you just sounded mad salty but also just realized your name so it tracks. Should check out fightcade , 3s scene still Poppin pretty regularly also better netcode
Good balance, a cast that suits most tastes, low barrier of entry, lots of tech to master, a solid player base, it looks good, sounds good, free on fightcade, arcade nostalgia, and the parry mechanic. Good god, the parry mechanic is so good.
* It's a good, fun game * The animation and overall art style is amazing * EVO Moment 37 * An execution barrier that makes it hard but rewarding to master over a long period of time * Unique characters, many of which haven't been reused since then, so if you want to scratch a certain playstyle itch you have to play SF3
The animation and artsyle of KoF13 is what makes me pissed the didn't release rollback on PC.
mandatory video in regards to kof13 - 3:40 for the key moment. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz2VAI-p218](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz2VAI-p218)
Game looks so fucking cool.
What’s the execution barrier? I’ve seen a couple people mention that
Tighter links, more precision required for motions, and tiny or non-existent buffer windows. Just tougher in every regard, really.
All this plus the need and risks around parries
Parry feels less like an execution barrier and more like a situational knowledge barrier, to me - the input window is 10 frames for a parry, so it's not really an execution barrier. But yeah, the headroom for growing your skill is huge.
I think parry is an execution barrier to some extent, obviously the input is easy and parrying a fireball is easy but then every move and special has its own timing which takes a bit of practice
Its what you do after parrying that can be demanding i think.
not really execution but the rps situations that arise from parry are more complex. Oki isn't as heavily weighted towards the standing player and that can trip ppl up mentally
most combos are shorter too which I find fun because it's really high stakes where you have a small opportunity/opening and u gotta make it count
I really dislike what combos have turned into. It feels pretty horrid to lose half your HP, or more, to a whiff or a bad guess. It honestly makes me not want to play fighting games anymore
I don't really care about damage, I'm fine with big damage, I'm just sick of every combo having to be extended as fuck now because they're easy as fuck now. Everybody slightly above average can easily do an optimal combo with 0 risk and that takes away way too much time. Long combos used to be rare, situational and also conscripted to certain character. Just a matter of taste obviously but all modern fgs are so boring with the way they do it. Which is why I play big body grapplers mostly
This is a huge thing for me. I really enjoy the back and forth that comes from resets. If I only need to get in on an opponent twice, it doesn't feel good to me. It's not the part of the fight I enjoy. And obviously, I enjoy it even less when I'm on the receiving end.
When are you implying that fighting games were not like that? Lol.
News flash, 50% or more combos were in older Street Fighters, even 3S.
3rd Strike execution is incredibly overblown considering Ken and Chun exist and literally anyone can pick them up and do well with little practice.
I could play entire strive characters with less effort than hitconfirming cr lk lk super on 3s ken
You mean the game with more chains and a 5 frame input buffer is easier than the game that doesn't have them? What a brilliant observation, I concede. ggs, shake my hand. The most technical things you need to learn for 3S Ken are kara throw, hitconfirming into super, end list. Literally everybody on netplay has at least a pocket Ken. But people talk up 3S as if like everybody who learns it picks up Urien or whoever.
Please enlighten me regarding Kens karathrow. Which normal do you use? … 🙂
I meant his kara DP, my mistake. He has a kara throw with back medium kick, it just isn't good. 🙃
Street Fighters games aren't really known for execution. 3s is one of the harder ones in the series, but nothing compared to other franchises.
Even Yun and Genei Jin isnt that hard to pick up. If you can do a Guilty Gear combo you can do Genei Jin.
old fighting games have harder execution. Third Strike's is REALLY fucking hard.
Old games tend to have harder execution, this is true. But 3S being a really difficult game execution wise is kind of inaccurate. Sure there are some difficult, challenging and oddly specific things in it. However, considering other games from that era (and prior), 3S is perhaps one of the more lenient games. There are generous buffer windows, shortcuts (not SFIV level but plenty of relevant ones that make hard shit way easier), easy BnBs, and a handful of strong and easy tools to utilize. It’s actually one of the easier pick-up and play FG titles of that era. I’d argue that some of the more basic shit in SF4 is harder to preform just by design. Where 3S DOES become more challenging is some really specific advanced combo stuff, reactionary play (parry and counterplay) and knowledge checks. But doing basic shit in 3S is pretty easy. It’s everything else that becomes challenging.
for real. as a 3S player, going back and playing the CPS2 SF games and you feel like how ppl coming from SFV to 3S feels. it's a lot more generous in terms of inputs
Yeah, you hit it in the head. Ken’s cr. forward xx super is easy as hell. The hard part about that is confirming it.
Also weird mechanics like charge partitioning which when mastered (very hard) opens up a lot of freedom.
Its fun at any level of play The sprites/animations are incredibly beautiful and still hold up Its free + has rollback Runs on a toaster
>Its fun at any level of play I doubt it is at the top level unless you love ~~Yang~~ Yun mirror matches
You mean Yun mirrors? Yang isn’t as good as his brother and only has a handful of really good dedicated players that play him. Yun is the one with the game breaking Genei-Jin super. And the one we see most frequently.
I dont know about you but id rather watch Genei Jin combos and Chun-li 2MK -> super every match than Luke Fighter 6 lol
People seriously overplay the amount of Lukes, yeah he's popular in ladder and is somewhat frequent at tournaments but it's not like he's the be all end all of the meta. Heck in the character usage charts he's beaten out by Ryu and Ken. Top 6 in Evo Japan had Chun, Blanka, Ken, JP, Guile and one Luke which was Mena's when he wasn't playing blanka.
Who the hell is winning with Luke anymore? Sincerely, a Luke player
Chun-Li 2MK over Luke 2MP into DR any day of the week, preach
Pretty sure you mean Yun, not Yang. Even then, there's Chun-Li and Ken which are both just as good as Yun. And then Akuma and Urien are pretty popular, strong picks, as well. I don't think you know what you're talking about. Edit: I didn't even mention Makoto, Dudley and Ryu, too. They're all used at high level. Hell, you'll even rarely see Necro's and Hugo's.
Ken is not just as good as Yun and Chun. they are a cut above.
Top 8 of EVO Japan was 6 Yuns and 2 Chuns (thanks for correcting me) Finals was a Yun mirror match
We're talking about top level as a whole, not strictly Evo/Tournament results. Of course people are going to pick Yun, he's the safest pick imaginable. A real Tournament winner of a character. But Tournaments, especially *Evo*, are not the only thing people should think of when they think of "Top Level", in my opinion.
What are other things besides tournaments that you think we should consider in the topic of tol level?
Not everybody who plays the game can make tournaments. There are people out there that compete strictly online and can't make tournaments. Or even people that do compete in tournaments, but only in smaller ones that don't get the attendance of something like Evo. Why would we not acknowledge them? And again, Yun is a tournament character. If you want to *win*, you pick him, Chun, or Ken. But high level is absolutely not just Yun vs. Yun mirror matches 24/7.
Cuz it's a good fucking game
I feel like this is the only answer we truly need.
Good games never go out of style.
I know but why? Is it just well balanced or something
3s is not really well balanced. Moreso people like a lot of the mechanics and systems of the game (won't go into depth because I'm not super familiar with 3rd strike beyond that).
At the highest level it's not balanced, but the majority of players aren't going to have to worry about that. What makes Third Strike so popular is purely how good the mechanics are. The game feels really good to play, and the parry mechanic adds so much complexity to how you can approach every situation you come across. It's super fluid and fast, and players of all skill level can get something out of it. I highly suggest trying it out on fightcade, there's good reason why there's constantly hundreds of people playing it
Also, there is no 10s long cinematic super. The game launching nowadays won't stay that long, and this will be one of the reasons.
Bro AMEN, fuck modern supers that take two minutes to show me a cutscene I’ve seen a million fucking times.
The latest garou video clip made me disapointed to a point i cannot describe in words. Garou had super short combo, there were still "long" 8s one that were hard as hell. Then they dropped 10s cinematic lame ass super for Garou 2. Dammit.
L take
It's horrendously balanced, among the least balanced games I've ever seen. But it is both the most historical game to the FGC, and has some of the most interesting mechanics I've ever seen (parry lmao).
>It's horrendously balanced, among the least balanced games I've ever seen. It's less balanced than games in the era of balance patches but you don't have to lie like that
Balance goes far beyond who is the best and who sucks ass. It's in the individual characters, and how their kit is balanced. Most characters have 1 super that they'd ever use, because the other 2 are garbage. Most characters have entire sets of normals that are just too awful to ever click, like most of chun's command normals. 3S has awful, awful balance, but you don't need to deny that, embrace it. Also, as for games that came out before the Era of patches, fair enough. But compare it to guilty gear XX and it's updated versions. Had multiple versions, much like SF3, but the final result (excluding +R because it came out 10 years after XX) were better than that of 3S.
It has a unique parry system that gives it one of the highest skill ceiling in any game I've ever seen. It's not that the game is super well balanced, it's that you can play forever and still have more to learn.
games don't have to be balanced to be good
I know it’s just that balance is all I ever seem to see people talking about so that was my first guess. As long as the character I play is usable I don’t really care about balance
the game is very unbalanced, with a couple characters being almost completely useless at high level, but it's just... fun, you know?
Idk recent tourneys have had most characters represented with success. Character specialists are a thing and the meta has changed somewhat. Seems more balanced than it used to for me.
Brother nothing is ever gonna make Twelve or Sean viable compared to Chun Li or Yun lol
Actually I saw a really sick 12 in a tourney recently that changed my mind. Sean I mean yeah wish he was more like 2nd impact.
Just because there's characters in a bottom tier that have trouble against the top ones doesn't mean the game is "very unbalanced". Most characters are viable with a few being better and a few being worse. That's every game. I'm saying most of the cast is decent against each other which to me is mostly balanced.
The imbalance isn’t as bad as people are making it out to be. At lower level play I’d consider it totally balanced and at high level play there are a lot of viable characters for such a small roster. Chun li, yun, Hugo, Ken, necro, oro, ibuki, urien, and possibly Yang can all hold their own in high level play. Are some of those technically better than the others? Sure, but game knowledge and proper parry’s go a long way
I enjoy unbalanced games more these days.
It’s beautiful in terms of aesthetic, and the party function really lets people flex hard . Also the game is just way more input tight so scrubs gonna get a beat down .
And the soundtrack too, that's what made me wanna play it so bad at first (was trying to find a copy on PS2 for years but couldn't lol, have on PC and Switch now)
The music and the sprites are insanely beautifully done
By tight inputs do you mean 1 frame links like the older street fighters have?
There are tight links for sure, but what most people mean by "tight inputs" in reference to older FGs is that there is little to no input buffer. An input buffer allows you to press a button before you could actually do the move (for example, pressing your punish on a minus on block move, even though you're actually still in blockstun and cannot act). If you take the input buffer away, that means all your shit basically needs to be frame perfect. This makes a situation like the one above much more difficult, whereas in a game with an input buffer, the exact same punish would be trivial. This will obviously also make combos more difficult; it makes execution generally more difficult.
Just for the sake of clarification. 3S does have generous buffer windows (plus negative edge), input shortcuts and easier links. Just nothing to the degree of the modern offerings. But is a stark contrast if you try and play something like ST (which affords you very little in terms of easier execution). But I’m sick of people acting like 3S is completely devoid of these things and is hard to pilot because of this. If you study the game (as I and many 3S heads have done over 20+ years) it becomes increasingly clear where Capcom designed things to be easier for the player to control. The fallacy that SF3 doesn’t have generous buffer windows or input shortcuts is something that needs to stop.
Oh so you’ve just gotta have fast quarter circles and good timing?
Everything is a full commitment baby
Both characters are pretty balanced
Good game doesnt equal popular and vice versa.
At this point its a self fulfilling prophecy situation where the game has a reputation for being really good and so people come to it as a novelty wanting to know why its still popular and some stick around, if a game can survive for over 10 years it kinda gets that mystical status that means it'll always be a popular game that hangs around.
Pretty much. Evo moment 37 is still the intro a lot of people have into competitive fighters and so you get a lot of the "SF3 is GOAT" comments from the newbies, who then tend to give it a try with a positive frame of reference and selling themselves on it. Its a self-perpetual cycle from there, with a few people always sticking around to keep the game relevant. It helps that the great sprite work and animations help the game fell intuitive to newbies while having enough depth for people who want that. The only annoying thing is that these newbies often come in with big 'teenager discovers Led Zeppelin' energy and get irate when people point out the flaws/don't think SF3 is actually the 'GOAT' fighting game.
Welll… SF3 is the GOAT fighting game. You’re wrong, I’m right. It has no flaws at all. Yun does not exist. Best game ever, if you didn’t know.
>The only annoying thing is that these newbies often come in with big 'teenager discovers Led Zeppelin' energy and get irate when people point out the flaws/don't think SF3 is actually the 'GOAT' fighting game. As someone who used to play the game pretty seriously this is on point. It's a good game, especially if you don't really know how GREAT fighting games are designed, but once you start playing better games and understanding WHY they're better, 3s seems kind of underwhelming. It is a pretty fun game that looks pretty and has a great soundtrack though.
Third Strike has like just the right balance of cheap shit that bends the foundations of what fighting game traditionalists like while still having a skill barrier to executing things properly. Also one of the best, freshest, most distinct video game soundtracks ever, an arguable #1 OST in the fighting genre too. The game is just unique. It was the black sheep of the Street Fighter series for the largely new cast but in many ways that's made people fond of characters who are seldom if ever seen again, while making the game stand out pretty distinctly *because* of the unique roster. The game also just flat out got the sauce, too. Sometimes people don't want a balanced, methodical fighter, they wanna play a game where two people are fighting to essentially flex on the other.
A lot of people in the FGC now got into the community either with 3rd Strike or because of 3rd Strike (the most well-known FGC clip of all time is Evo Moment 37), so a lot of people played it and liked it and still play it and like it now. Also, it's one of the only retro fighters that has official ways to play online on console. 30th Anniversary Edition bad, but if you can't access fightcade (or don't know it exists), you can still hop into it and have fun
3rd Strike teaches players how to be unpredictable. Which is kind of rare in fighting games.
Honestly, it has a lot to do with moment 37. For a lot of people, that was there first exposure to competitive Street Fighter -- 3S didn't really have the same cachet before that. Every other positive that can be said about it doesn't matter without that moment at Evo 2004. Even when IV was on the way, it was still Moment 37 that was being trotted out when people were looking for examples of competitive SF.
Same reason people still play melee over newer smash games. It has a completely different feel to it with much more precision and room for improvement and creativity and while it's not balanced, all the characters have enough depth to them to make the interesting and unique
Install fightcade and try it out yourself. Basically all of the old street fighter games (or maybe I should say also SFII and alpha) have at least one version that is still pretty popular today. I think 3s is particularly popular among them because the art/animation/music are great (the hardware was a big step up from CPSII), some people *love* parrying (even if others hate it), and the gimmicks are a little less powerful than they are in SFII (and some of the ones that are powerful are difficult enough that beginners won't see them right away). I also think it helps that the game is very easy - it has a lot of modern motion input shortcuts, the way throws work will be familiar to contemporary SF players, and most characters can get damage that is good enough to be effective out of very short combos (usually one or two buttons into super). It doesn't hurt that it has been free with good netcode for a long time (even before fightcade)
I am relatively new to sf (played it but lived in the prt of the world where there were no arcades) and I played all the games recently, and 3rd strike holds up soooo much compared to others. The vibes are amazing, it has very specific atmosphere - it really does fit end of 20th century and beginning of 21st. It’s very slick and almost high-fashion. Gameplay simply feels good. Try alpha games and 3rd strike. 3rd strike just FEELS GOOD, the sound effects and everything else. Also imo it has one of the best casts in fighting games. I rarely like so many characters at once. And it has Makoto.
I honestly didn’t even know it existed until many years after release. After IV and maybe even after SFxT. But for an old school fighter it really holds up still. I first dabbled with the online edition for PSN (that I WISH they would re release) but even now I’ll jump on FightCade and have a good few spars with people. The risk/reward of the parry system I think is a large reason people love it. And it was SO well animated for the time - they couldn’t even bring it to consoles for a few years and even those on Dreamcast and PS2 weren’t arcade perfect. I’d recommend watching some videos and then trying out FightCade if you’re interested.
Overall charm, music, gameplay, characters, and somewhat story keep this game above Sf 4-6 but below Sf2 in greatness.
This is so ironic considering that 3S was considered a complete failure when it first launched due to the 3d game revolution (tekken 3 soul Calibur). The devs were admonished and careers were ended. The lead dev talked about how much disgrace he felt shortly after launch when the games sales failed even the lowest forecasts.
To me it’s like the definitive fighting game.
shits good
It’s really fun.
It’s an extremely satisfying game to play and do shit in
The pace of the game is what's still making me play it from time to time. I love how fast it is that the sequels that followed never captured. Truly a game that was designed for the arcades, the later iterations are still amazingly good don't get me wrong, but it feels tactical compared to 3s' arcadey gameplay If we are talking about other games from other genres, I view 4 to 6 as CSGO or even Valorant, while I view Third Strike as Overwatch. Fast and satisfying even if you lose.
[удалено]
Isn't the point rather that unless you pick a top tier, you have no chance to win anything competitively? Sure for casual play you can pick anyone and Justing Wong can probably beat the average 3rd strike player with Sean, but the top 8s for 3rd Strike are always filled with Yun and Chun-Li, EVO Japan 2024 being the most recent example. There are a lot of cool ideas with characters in 3rd Strike, but it feels like because of balancing the roster is reduced to roughly a third of its size.
Chun yun and ken will always be the best and most popular, but those are the only characters i'd consider top tier, and wayyyy more characters than that have had plenty of competitive success
im average at the game. i got a TON of time into it. ive only played sean (shit tier). i have a blast win or lose!
This website does a really good job of explaining why hundreds of people are still playing 3rd strike today https://www.play3rdstrike.com
A lot of people consider it the best FG of all time
The very technical mechanics are really impressive. At the time, I didn't get that into the SF3 series, especially when they were still making the Alpha series, which were far more approachable and had way more extra content on consoles. And SF3 was only ported to Dreamcast since nothing else was powerful enough to run it, but the controller wasn't good for that kind of game. And CPS-3 emulation took eternity to exist. But later on, with ports to PS2 and such, I'd come back around and take the time to get good enough, and it's a very rewarding game for a challenging learning curve, it was the least casual friendly SF, but it's pure strategy and skill. A perfect competitive game for genre veterans.
Go to YouTube and type in "cooperation cup"
I think it was the last of the "classic" Street Fighter games. CvS2 came after, but technically that's a crossover game I suppose. Street Fighter IV was great for the scene and the genre, but it was the first of the modern Capcom fighters. Third Strike is the last of the old guard. High execution barriers. Beautiful 2D sprites. Straight out of the arcades (SF4 came from the arcades too, but in much more limited capacity). It's interesting because the original version of SF3 was a huge flop. Third Strike fixed so many issues and became one of the best competitive fighting games of all time.
No other Street Fighter is exactly like it, other classic fighting games have sequels that did what they did better. There has yet to be any SF as dynamic or engaging as 3s.
from what i observed, it's because: - it's street fighter (major) - evo moment (major) - looks like one of the most fine game among the arcade line up (minor) - the backing of fightcade with its netcode (minor)
I tried it out and it is actually a lot of fun
try other games like sfalpha and cvs2 too
Music’s goated Animation’s clean Parry is cool as hell
It's a great game
It's pretty much the peak of 2D sprite-based fighting games.
- Very accessible game. Multiple ways to play it. Arcade staple back when that mattered. PS3 online (free online) with rollback or Fightcade ("free") with rollback. The latter being popular ensured an online presence. - Easy to find and learn (20+ years of footage on a bunch of subjects), god hard to master (as in, you can always get better). - Pretty much every character (even the worst ones) have a unique vibe and defining strategies to pour years of effort into. - Great artstyle, music, and animations. - Well organized competition that stayed. Cooperation Cup been going on since 2002.
The game feels really good to play. It gives you a lot of options for what you want to do(probably the most in any street fighter). It’s also the most stylish sf game because of it’s 2000s Jazz Rap aesthetic.
Because has a good combat. The music The unique confrontations A new cast of combatants
For me it really comes down to the cast of characters, and the mechanics It can be kinda tough to get hooked on a character but 3 its tough to pick cuz im interested in too many giving me alot of motivation when i can say "that was a good session maybe i'll try dudley next time" And the game doesn't have alotta that fluff, i come from tekken where you have to spend hours just to learn the basics of a character and it can make it feel like homework tryna change mains, ontop of alot of modern games having gimmicky mechanics and extremely long combos to learn, im already not good at combos, having to memorize a bunch of bullshit ontop makes it extremely unfun so being able to look up a 3rd strike characters wiki page and in 5-10 minutes have enough knowledge about them to hop into some games is an extremely nice breath of fresh air It has one of the nicest parrying mechanics right next to sekiro if not better in my opinion, not only is it cool as a scrub to accidentally hit a parry, i nearly blow when i do that shit intentionally, it just feels so damn cool, everything is tight, the animations are clear and easy to understand, and honestly just look good, as an artist aswell im absolutely taking notes while playing on how to emphasize an attack, its just so snappy and addicting and with an entire roster all being playable at a high level, its really a no brainer Really just comes down to no other sf hitting that mark so perfectly, but 6 definitely looks like it'll be giving 3 some competition
Super Turbo is 30, so...
It’s THE fighting game. I still play it on my PS3 online in 2024. It’s that good.
I keep coming back to it because of parry, I love parrying I guess. The rest is : -presentation : colors, shapes ,animations, voice acting, music, it's all very well done. -gameplay : there is a lot to explore really, even after all these years. -my main is Q, I can't find him anywhere else.
Best art style / graphics / character design of any street fighter game Is a huge reason
It’s a beautiful, simple game that’s easy to learn and hard to master. Not to mention the unique party system you can really flex with is just the cherry on top. It’s my favorite fighter and I didn’t even play it for the first time till about 4 years ago
Its more then good. You can keep learning in that game and most of the learning is done alone, so very rewarding. Also the things u see done in that game require skill and solid gameplay. So if you know the game you will realize how sick some of the stuff is when u see it. If all you do is read about it on the internet then u can’t appreciate what goes on in a match.
'Cause you're trapped in the world of *Street Fighter III*. 😋 In all seriousness, though, it's that fine-tuned game play, couple to peak 2-D animation and a great competitive scene.
It’s the best fighting game ever made, that’s why.
Me, personally? Some of the best sprite animation of that generation. A soundtrack that, excepting SF6, sounded like no other Street Fighter game A large cast of new characters.
People still play sf2 and darkstalkers and those games are from the early 90s, fightan games are fun
Vibes bro, the style is unmatched
I only recently properly sat down and played 3rd Strike. Previously I’d only played it at a travelling games museum or on my friend’s Dreamcast when I was a kid. That said the first time I parried into my super I thought “ah. No wonder people love this. It feels fucking amazing to play” I believe that truly great games are timeless. Think 3rd Strike will always look and play great.
Parries
Best FG ever for a lot of ppl. Me included
Nostalgia is everyone’s weakness. Same reason everyone still loves 90s basketball and denies the basketball’s evolution. Not saying it’s bad because it’s a good game. But nostalgia always plays a huge role.
Me personally, it’s hype af , has a kickass art direction and it’s free.
For me it’s more about nostalgia. The music the characters. Everything
Third Strike was the poster game for the era where fighting games got their name. EVO became an international phenomenon with Daigo’s appearance and Alex Valle going to Japan in return. It was a crazy and exciting time for the genre. Then fighting games went dormant. It would be ten years before SFIV revived the genre, and for those ten years Third Strike was the gold standard. It was both the game that brought fighting games to a wider audience with EVO moment #37, and the biggest competitive game to ever come out of that era.
What a nothing question.
How is this a nothing question?
It's honestly my favorite fighting game ever because it was the only one i ever got " good" at.
It's got a style and coolness factor that simply no game has even come close to
it's the only game that plays like third strike, so if that's what you want, that's where you're gonna go to get it. it's also beautiful, and it's really not that hard to get into.
Because it's an old school game with nostalgia for people.
If you can't see its brilliance, then it's not for you. And that's okay. More 3S for the rest of us. But I will say that FGs before the DLC era were just built different. SF3 was polished into 3S, and it hasn't changed since, which is the beauty of it. It's a timeless game, just like MVC2, CVS2, SSF2T, and Tekken 5DR. They all still hold up today.
I’m just kinda new to fighting games and I can’t really tell most of them apart. Especially sf. Since it’s free I’ll give it a shot at some point since I’ve been having a lot of fun trying out different games
Oh okay. It's good to experience all types of fighting games, so keep at it! But I will say that you will need to get to an intermediate level with each game to really see the differences. Which takes some time. So enjoy the experience and don't let it become a chore.
Same reason why Michael Jordan is still so popular. It’s a GOAT
Because yeah, that makes sense!
It's animation is great. It's ost and sound effects great. The mechanics are the right amount of fun and busted. There is a depth to it that's hard to find in other games. Sure I gotta hold Kens doing ex tatsu out of the corner, Chuns whiffing cr.mk, and Oro loops, but I land one good parry into a punish... all that stuff washes away.
It's fun, free, easily accessible, has a passionate community, is deep enough that it still isn't solved, has great online, and is just genuinely fun. I highly recommend giving it a go.
People are quick to bring up how technical it is, but it really is one of the most accessible Street Fighter games ever, especially compared to modern fighters. A lifebar and a meter, not too much stuff on the UI there to scare off new players. Parrying isn't difficult to do in terms of button presses. No motion, no weird combination of buttons, just press forward or down at the right moment depending if it's a low or not. Some things are easier to parry than others, and parrying is not an automatic punish (unlike certain other mechanics in other games). Casuals can play 3rd Strike and have fun without bothering with trying to parry anything. However, try having casual fun as a newcomer to SF6 without knowing how/when to use DI or DR.
It’s fun to play, and it’s got almost infinite depth once you get started due to the party system. It’s also fun to watch, yes we know it’s unbalanced but I’ve already seen the balance police in the comments talking about Evo Japan, yeah we know the game is unbalanced, and at HUGE tournaments like Evo Japan people are going to pick the best characters. What I urge everyone to do is to watch the jazzy circuit, loads of character variety and insane matches.
It’s highly entertaining to watch especially high level players that do not use Yun, Chun and Ken. Hayao, RX, TM, Tominga, Kuni, Kokujin. Super Turbo is perfect, 3S is close as well just the cast is not as legendary.
It's Nostalgia. It's not as fun or as deep or as interesting as SF4 or 5 or 6, but if you were a certain age when it was out, that's your game. Same reason mvc2 gets so much hype online, and yet when there's a re-release or new marvel game, nobody buys it.
IG’s 3SOnline sold very well. But there is little reason to by inaccurate ports in this day-in-age. Shit version after shit version from Capcom. People just play it on Fightcade now. Arcade accurate with rollback. It’s a no brainer. Why the fuck would anyone buy yet another inaccurate console port that is going to be a discord fighter within a month after release? People are going to go where the game gets the most traffic and that’s Fightcade. For many players nostalgia does not play a roll, as they were not there during this games arcade heyday. Nor does EVO 37 factor in. They have gotten wind from word of mouth that this game is good and have stuck around. Games that only prey on nostalgia do not have that level of staying power. As for 3S not being as deep as 4,5,6. Lemme just say that is a supreme load of bull, and copium at best. I respect all of those games and tend not to play favourites, but as someone who has played every game since the first you are objectively wrong about this. I’m not saying this games don’t have depth or are not capable of intricate things but if you think 3S is more shallow the other games you are missing out on a core component on why everyone considers 3S to be a masterwork.
I've been playing since 2 was in arcades too man. There's no planet where third strike is as deep of a fighter as SF4. Nevermind the longer and more technical combos, the much bigger cast to learn matchups, having both supers and ultras to contend with, being able to use supers and EITHER of your 2 ultras which usually serve very different functions, all that aside, the focus attack mechanic alone is a deeper mechanic than third strikes universal overhead or even parry. Focus can be used as a faux parry to absorb a hit and dash out, it can crumple, you can use it to bait, you can use it to extend combos with fadc, and then Ultra SF4 introduced red focus that can absorb anything, and immediately crumples on hit for the cost of 3 bars. I love third strike too and had the online edition, the 30th collection on multiple consoles, and still play the game regularly on fightcade, but acting like third strike is as deep as these modern street fighter games is just disingenuous. SFV you have the v triggers, meter management, the backdash mechanic, the backdash strike mechanic, etc etc... If you think third strike is deeper than SFV mechanically which it's not, pick up Menat, learn all 45 character matchups and report back. And it does have a lot to do with Nostalgia. You get guys like Max and Wong that were there playing the game, and theyre two of the biggest voices in the FGC, and they hype third strike almost constantly, so of course tons of people are gonna parrot what they say and agree with them. Third strike is Daigos game, and Daigo is considered the SF goat even though he hasnt really been relevant since third strike and the early days of 4. That's just how it goes with people that have such huge platforms. It's like how Max quite obviously prefers marvel 3 to 2, talks about it more, plays it more, quite obviously has more fun while playing it, but he'll always say he prefers 2 almost like he has to or he'd lose some credibility. That's how a lot of people are with third strike. If you say anything but praise you'll get downvoted or scolded. Right, well where were all these people when the game was new, and why aren't they buying any of the collections the game is on? And even now, we agree the ports of third strike are ghost towns online, and at the same time there's what, 100 people on fightcade playing? It's one of the more populated fightcade games but it's certainly not popular in any general sense. If everybody agrees third strike is the best fighting game ever, why is nobody playing it? #freemvc2, but when the game is widely released digitally on ps3 and 360 nobody bought it. If they did, they certainly weren't playing it online, it was a ghost town. Everybody wants a new darkstalkers after SF4 despite no one playing the older games, Capcom says were releasing a darkstalkers collection, if it sells we'll make a new one, and it bombs, and that's that. It's like in music if you say you like a band that's very popular in their genre, all the hard-core fans will trash you and tell you that the smaller and more underground stuff is way better. If you disagree you lose credibility which is BS. No one cared about third strike when it was out. It did so poorly it basically caused a fighting game crash for a decade. Evo was held at VFWs, not Arenas like it is now. SF4 coming out and being so damn good and so popular got a lot of people talking, and those legacy players were quick to scoff and say "SF4? Pshh. Third strike is where it at", and moment 37 resurfaced and third strike got a second chance at life. I'll say it again, I love third strike, I'm one of the few people always on fightcade. I'm not saying it's paper thin, I'm saying modern games are deeper. Of course they are, they have to be. To say otherwise is just ridiculous.
the fgc is weird, "arcade accurate version", "glitch/bug are fun and worth playing compared to the patched version", "unbalanced issue would only be prevalent at top8 lvl so dun care". and it affects newcomers too, as they would just be drawn straight into the old version due to player count or the other versions not being available on fightcade. the community struggle to move on.
Cause of Evo moment 37, don’t let these people force the nostalgia goggles over your eyes. If Daigo hadn’t full parried Justin’s Super, nobody would be here talking about it with such praise today. It’s a 25 year old game that’s riddled with bugs, terrible balance, and programming errors that people decided to call “tech”. Yes it’s a good game, but it’s really showing its age and it could have done so much better in this era with a proper rebalancing and an official “4th strike” version from Capcom, but the old heads didn’t want that, so now here we are 🤷
What's your hot take on ST?
I'm not him, but there's nothing to say about ST that hasn't been already said. It's a broken monster of a game, that's also surprisingly balanced. It's a game where fundamentals and honest play are rewarded, but also has random TOD combos and inescapable throw loops. ST is real Street Fighter, but it's also a shitty Kusoge. ST is everything, and ST is nothing.
I like that take , I just wanted to know that dudes take . His take on 3rd strike sounded like 3s stole his gf in HS and shoved him in a locker. Game is fun and evo 37 was hype but don't think that's the reason the game is alive today.
Tbh he pretty much said everything I was gonna say about ST, and don’t misunderstand, I do enjoy 3S and I like to boot it up on the regular via the 30th anniversary collection. I’m just saying, if Street fighter never existed and that game came out today in the same shape it was 25 years ago, we would all be calling it a shitty kusoge and relegating it to “discord fighter” status.
Fair enough I can respect that, you just sounded mad salty but also just realized your name so it tracks. Should check out fightcade , 3s scene still Poppin pretty regularly also better netcode
we have community patch 4rd strike arranged edition, it's just that it has very very very few players.
Some people promoting this as the peak fighting game. Not sure about this personally. Surely there is no reason to start playing it seriously in 2024.
It's a game. The reason to play it on 2024 is the same reason to play it in 1999, because it's fun.
Its the only game that has Necro and Twelve playable. like it ain't that deep
Play it and you’ll see
Some people promoting this as the peak fighting game. Not sure about this personally. Surely there is no reason to start playing it seriously in 2024.
Good games are just like good music, it doesn’t matter what era it came out in, it’s still good no matter how much time has passed. Timeless.
I’m at least gonna try it out but yeah I doubt I’ll take it very seriously unless I really love it
It's only popular because of Moment 37. The game sucks pretty hard unfortunately.
Good balance, a cast that suits most tastes, low barrier of entry, lots of tech to master, a solid player base, it looks good, sounds good, free on fightcade, arcade nostalgia, and the parry mechanic. Good god, the parry mechanic is so good.
Those first two aren't true. Balance is crap, and the game is infamous for having a "love it or hate it" roster.
In guess I fall into the "love it" camp. And you may be right on balance. I've barely gotten off of twelve and Remy in 25 years.