Happy 25th birthday, 3rd Strike
12 May 2024 • Andy Corrigan
In the very first post on this blog, I talked in length about my history with fighting games, which included the correlated highs and lows of both the arcade scene and my friend group’s interest in the genre.
My hometown’s fighting game scene, even if we could call it that, died when most of our local arcades closed, and my friends’ collective interest fizzled out along with it.
Those circumstances meant it took me years to realise a Street Fighter III even existed. I’d not stopped playing fighting games altogether, so I’m not sure how I missed it. I enjoyed Street Fighter Alpha and its follow-up on home console, but their mileage hurt by the lack of anyone willing to play it with me, so maybe I’d stopped paying as much attention.
Yet, when I found out Street Fighter III: New Generation existed from a magazine, I excitedly couldn’t wait to show my best friend… who subsequently told me it was meant to be crap. Fighting games are dead, man, didn’t you hear?
I never got to contest that argument as I never saw Street Fighter III in the wild. Even with our old haunts closed, I still expected to see it in cafes, cinemas, and bowling alleys, but it was nowhere to be seen. I don’t even remember seeing the Dreamcast ports in stores, so weirdly absent was Street Fighter III from the north of England.
Many years later, a Street Fighter Anniversary Collection launched for the original Xbox, which included Hyper Street Fighter II and Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, and boasted online functionality for both games.
I couldn’t wait. Not only was I excited about revisiting Street Fighter II, but I could finally try Street Fighter III in its best iteration and play against real people again too. Was it everything I hoped for?
No. Not at all. It was fucking miserable.
Xbox controllers were not a great fit for fighting games. ‘The Duke’ barely fit in an adult’s hands, but even the smaller, second-generation controller had problems. Notably, the d-pad wasn’t a great fit for motion inputs and the button layout was uncomfortable for the genre. I bought a cheap arcade stick, which wasn’t really made with precision in mind, so neither game felt quite right.
The ports themselves were fine, but the online modes were atrocious and I could only find matches against Americans at high ping. My final straw for the collection was a fight against a laggy US Guile in Hyper Street Fighter II who yelled ‘you will never be good!’ repeatedly down the mic for the entire 2 rounds. I was done at that point.
I didn’t give 3rd Strike a proper chance because of these things and, knowing very little about it through circumstance, I probably found the mostly-unknown roster alienating too.
I got the online Street Fighter I’d craved a console generation later through the Xbox Live Arcade release of Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting and Street Fighter IV. Both had delay-based netcode - rollback was still a twinkle in the Cannon brothers’ eyes - but it was at least functional. The 360’s pad was also viable, which was a relief as I couldn’t afford a fight stick at the time.
Finally, in 2011, I got to experience Street Fighter III’s third iteration properly thanks to Iron Galaxy’s terrific PS3 and 360 ports, subtitled 'Online Edition'.
I fell in love with it this time. I don’t know if it was just the fact it had serviceable online play or that I finally owned a decent fight stick, but there was just something about it that clicked with me immediately. The motion, the flow of matches, the animation, its entire vibe - it just felt like fighting games at their best.
It only just occurred to me that the Online Edition didn't feature the original arcade version's already excellent soundtrack, but had new remixes and bespoke tracks made just for this release. Like the arcade version's OST, the Online Edition's also whips, which means 3rd Strike has two great soundtracks. A little greedy, if you ask me...
Unfortunately, the online population died off before I could really get to grips with the nuances, which meant it didn’t hold my interest for as long as I’d hoped. I don’t know if that’s because it was simply an old game in an era where only the new shiny thing mattered, that we didn’t have cross-platform online then and were stuck with half an ever-dwindling player base, or that Street Fighter IV was still going strong.
I did, however, come away finally realising just how special a game 3rd Strike was, even if my time with it was fleeting.
And what is my relationship with 3rd Strike in 2024, the year of its anniversary?
Well, it’s even better! I play 3rd Strike a lot every week, though not with the latest Anniversary Collection available on all contemporary formats, but on Fightcade, a free service that adds online multiplayer and rollback netcode to arcade classics (gonna talk about Fightcade some more in a future post).
"You know what they say; the 3rd Strike is what counts!"
It’s kinda fitting it was my third attempt at 3rd Strike that saw it stick, a path that mirrors Street Fighter III’s journey through New Generation, 2nd Impact, and 3rd Strike, where it finally found itself.
Although I’m still learning some of the more advanced nuances, I believe 3rd Strike is as perfect a fighting game as you’re ever going to see. There’s a purity to it I can’t commit to words; a simplicity that doesn’t come at the expense of depth; a depth that means folk are still finding new and amazing things, even now.
Hand on heart, I think it might be the best fighting game ever made. Happy birthday, 3rd Strike, I’m glad I finally got to know you.
