Released in early 1997, Capcom’s Street Fighter III became something of an enigma to the series as it shuddered a ton of familiar characters, introduced the radically new “parry” ability, and forced players to only pick one super move to use per fight, known as a “Super Art”. And when you add to the fact that SFIII never found a true home on a console system (when US arcades were disappearing at a staggering rate), the game seemed to be equally adored and forgotten by longtime fans of the series. Well regardless of what side of the fence you may have fallen on in the past, Street Fighter III 3rd Strike has been re-released on PSN and XBL and is begging for you to give one of the deepest and most enjoyable 2D fighters the chance it truly deserves.

Street Fighter III 3rd Strike – Fight for the Future is (essentially) the 3rd version of Street Fighter III, preceded by the original Street Fighter III: New Generation and Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact – Giant Attack. With every new iteration, gameplay was tweaked and new fighters added which finally brought the roster to 20 with Akuma, Alex, Chun-Li, Dudley, Elena, Hugo, Ibuki, Ken, Makoto, Necro, Oro, Q, Remy, Ryu, Sean, Twelve, Urien, Yang, Yun and Gill as the game’s final boss character. In addition to the almost completely new cast, SFIII also introduced several new gameplay additions including dashing and retreating, “leap attacks” (that are used on crouching opponents), Super Arts and perhaps its most famous addition in parrying.

When picking your character in SFIII, you have to choose which Super Art (or super move) you will choose for them. In past Street Fighters where characters had more than one super move, players never had this restriction… At anytime facing Ryu you might have to deal with his Shin Shoryuken, Shin Hadouken or Shin Tatsumaki Senpukyaku. But in the new game, you always new which one to be on the look out for. At first glance it seems to be a big step backwards, but a couple matches in you will have forgotten all about it as you may choose to focus on parrying.

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