Title - "Street Fighter III"
Alternative title(s) - N/A
Genre(s) - Fighting - 2D
Platform(s) - Arcade and Dreamcast

This review will be different from the other game reviews because all categories will have three scores as well as a final score. So, when you read each category, you will see the scores of "New Generation", then "Double Impact", then "Third Strike" and finally an average of the three scores. Does that make sense?

Call it what you want. I call "Street Fighter III" one of the most overrated sagas to come out not only in Japan, but in the video game world. The first version came out in 1997, the second one a year later and the final one, a year after the second one. There were thoughts of making this an all-new game without any of the old characters, but you know the rest from there. So, I'll list the roster with additions of each game and then I'll jump to the scores.

"New Generation": Ry, Ken, Ibuki, the kawaii ninja fighter who cares about having fun and is most likely the niece of Geki of the first game, Elena, an African capoeria fighter who wants to make friends all over the world, Matsuda Sean, Ken's student who's part-Japanese and part-Brazilian and who wants to be as strong as him, the Lee brothers of Yun and Yang, the boys who uses their various Chinese arts to fight for their father Lee of the first game, Alex, the New York brawler who is supposed to be the focus of this game, but isn't from the fans' point of view since people still say that Ry is the hero of this series, Dudley, the British boxer, Oro, an old Japanese fighter who decides to fight w/ one arm behind his back and Necro, some android from Russia as well as Gill who wants to be a god.

"Double Impact": Gki, Urien, Gill's brother and Andore or rather one of his kids, Hugo. (Hey! Poison is there, or someone who looks like that person. It's definitely not Roxy. So, I'll claim that this Hugo is part of the Andore family.)

"Third Strike": Chun-Li, Akane, I mean Makoto, a tomboy who uses karate to one day make a training hall in honor of her dad, Remy, some messed up French guy, Twelve, a freakish character with no depth and a not so innovative secret character named Q who looks likes Inspector Gadget.

Fun - 4, 3, 2, 3

Usually, remakes are made to make the series better. What you see is the opposite. Gill is just no fun to watch. I would have been happy if the only returning Capcom characters at the end were only Ry, Ken and Chun Li, but no! Capcom had to add Gki and Andore's kid and I don't want to know how Andore's kid got in here. (I know about the debate, but since Poison's there, it has to be an Andore kid.)

Thought that was it? In "Third Strike", they added the car bonus stage late. They added Chun Li late. They ditched the spiffy defeated art to give us okay victory art, but with the horrible grading system. They made the kids weaker. Oy vey!

Life - 2, 2, 2, 2

The only reasons why you should keep the games are the onsen stage, the girls and the kids. That's it.

Control - 3, 3, 3, 3

Let's see. You can dash a la "Vampire". You can use EX moves like "Vampire", though they don't make as much damage as the ones in the series. You get super arts like the final version of "II".

What's wrong now? Unless you have the DC's "TS", you can only use one art, which is bad for some characters, and if can't speak Japanese, you're in trouble. Throws in "TS" are now w/ two buttons, even though overhead attacks are easier to do. Of course, the worst aspect of all is the Japanese blocking systerm or the parry for you simple folk that are not in Japan. Matches become dull if you fight someone that's good at this skill and this kills the hardcore spirit you see in "II" because air parries act like air blocks. The funny part is that I get good scores in the parry bonus stage, yet I am pathetic at parrying in matches. Go figure.

Story - 1, 1, 1, 1

Normally, people don't bother with this section in terms of fighters. Well, I'm not one of them. Yeah, it's the same as "II", but one, I was in elementary school when the game came out and two, this game that I'm reviewing right now has no depth at all. I want depth!

Audio - 2, 2, 2, 2

I'll say this: without Amano Yuri-sama (Yuriko in "Tylor", Kiyone in "Tenchi", Ifurita in "El Hazard" and such) as Ibuki, there would be ones across this category. The actors in "Third Strike" improved and the one surprise is Alex, making him sound like a New York brawler and not Michael Jackson with a cold. Of course, there's the bloody rapper who can't keep his freaking yap shut. They should have either kept the announcer from the first two versions or let Yuri-sama announce here.

Oh and don't get me started on the music. The music is a mixed bag to hear while you're sitting in a room, but as fighting game music, the batch is horrible. There are no themes from the old games. Ibuki and Makoto don't have J-pop themes. In "Third Strike", there's song sharing.

Art - 10, 6, 3, 6

It's eye candy early on. There's the onsen stage, one of the best stages ever. The girls and the kids look good. (I want the outfits Yun and Yang have!) All is well, right?

Nope. Gill and Urien freak me out and I don't know what's up with Ry getting Ken's "New Generation" stage in "Double Impact". Thought that was bad? "Third Strike" not only has horrible stages, but stage sharing and reused elements as well. This proves that you can be an eye candy series and still look mediocre if you get that far.

Oh yeah. This is the first well-known CPS III game (a type of hardware), though "Warzard" ("Red Earth" for some of you) was the first CPS III game. That's all you need to know. (Games no longer run under this though.)

Overall - 3, 3, 3, 3

"Street Fighter III" is no doubt a saga that has a lot of debates. Overall, half of the new characters don't interest me and there's also the pair of Gki and that Andore. To those that liked the games, I respect your opinions. I just don't agree with them. If this happens to be the end of the timeline, I'd say "Street Fighter" ended with not a bang, but a big, fat wimper.

+

The onsen stage is spiffy, the kids look good and the amount of kawaii girls doubled from the previous time period.

-

The games got worse in terms of overall mechanics and fun, there's no depth in story and the music is flat out pathetic.

Date of creation - 1/1/05

Last update - N/A

Back