Street Fighter III Series – 1997-1999

Street Fighter III - The New Generation

In February of 1997, we got what we were waiting for, a direct sequel to Street Fighter II. Street Fighter III discarded the character roster from previous games (only Ryu and Ken returned), and introduced us to a pile of new characters. Street Fighter III also introduced the Super Arts selection system, not to mention the greatest feature in any Street Fighter game ever, parrying. The ability to parry an opponents attack blew the game wide open for pro players, to be able to beat someone without them landing a successful hit on you is no easy feat.

Several months after The New Generation we got the next one, 2nd Impact: Giant Attack. 2nd Attack adjusted the gameplay, and gave us another two characters, as well as throwing Akuma back into the mix. It also fine tuned the parrying system making it more responsive and removing the “recoil” from the parry. There were also a few new arenas and some new music.

Street Fighter III - Third Strike

3rd Strike: Fight for the Future, was released released in 1999, and is possibly the finest looking Street Fighter game to date. 3rd Strike was the last iteration of Street Fighter III, it brought back Chun-Li and added four new characters. The parrying system was again improved, the game sported new voice actors, moves and animations for the characters. 3rd Strike is often hailed as one of the best Street Fighter games, its certainly one of the best looking and the gameplay is top notch, not to mention its my own personal favorite.

The first two Street Fighter III games were ported to the SEGA Dreamcast as a compilation titled Double Impact. Ports of 3rd Strike were released for the Dreamcast as a stand-alone game and then included in the compilation Street Fighter Anniversary Collection for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, these are still floating around so try and nab a copy!

Street Fighter EX Series – 1996-2000

For those that thought Street Fighter IV was the first 3D experience for Street Fighter, you’re wrong. Back in 1996 Street Fighter EX was released. Although EX still played like a 2D fighter it was never really the same as the 2D games. EX was still using special moves and super combos familiar or similar to the previous games in the series, and the Super Combo gauge was divided into three levels again. EX also allowed Guard Breaks. An enhanced version of Street Fighter EX called Street Fighter EX Plus was released 1997.

Street Fighter EX2

In 1998 a second installment, EX2 was released for arcades, shortly after EX2 plus was released. Street Fighter EX3 was released exclusively for the PlayStation 2. Although there are differing opinions on the EX series, some regard it as the weakest in the Street Fighter series. Tt differed in the way it used polygons and liberal combos instead of a strong art style and tight gameplay. Whether it was because of this or people just rejecting something new we’ll never know. But one thing is for sure, the EX series isn’t bad, its just different.

Street Fighter Vs. Series – 1996-2008

Marvel Vs. Capcom

Capcom created several cross-over titles for the Street Fighter universe. These received a lot of success; but none more than the Marvel Vs. Capcom games. There were several games in the Vs. series, but I’m not going to get into them as they’re not true Street Fighter games.

• X-Men vs. Street Fighter
• Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter
• Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes
• Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes
• SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium
• SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash
• SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters 2 Expand Edition
• SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos
• SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters DS

• Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Cross Generation of Heroes