So I've been thinking about why SF III never set the world ablaze

I think there are 2 reasons well 2 Main reasons.

1. By the time Street Fighter III was announced Nobody cared, and also the game wasn't given a ton of press.

2. It's like, Street Fighter in Name ONLY. It's less like Street Fighter and more "some Game Ryu and Ken happened to be in" Yun, Yang, Dudley and Ibuki were really the only stand outs TO ME. I think the Parry system was off putting to the fans that did stick around as well.

I think the 10 year break did Street Fighter well. IV is what III should've been.

 

To also go along with point 1, would be the state of Arcades at the time... (Decline)... this in addition to the limited Home console release... didn't help attract any new fans..

 

i remember seeing 3 and wondering where all the characters went

 

I agree SFIII had a pretty mash-potato lineup of characters. But as for the Parrying system, I found it was pretty good. I usually find the parrying technique is a good indicator as to the skill of the player.

 

Another big strike against SFIII was probably that people had gotten sick of Street Fighter with all the SFII rehashes and the Alpha series, the latter of which quite possibly already felt like a series of sequels to many people. An extended break was pretty much what the franchise needed to feel fresh again.

 

too many crappy sf releases made people lose faith I think

 

Bad characters. It's that simple, for me.

 

If it had all the characters from SF II would it have been a better game by far? or you just can't beat the one that started it all?

 

no press.

I had no idea SFIII came out till years later.

like...2003.

 

To true (necro) (gill as the final boss shite)

 

yeah Only Yun, Yang, Dudley and Ibuki really felt like SF Characters.
MAYBE Alex. But his backstory is dumb.

 

Me too. Had no idea it even existed till' much later. Most of the new Characters were pretty cool though, but the boss was retarded... and some of the Characters were pretty retarded aswell....

SFIII is still my favorite though. SFIV a close second!

I LOVE PARRYING! Wish it wasnt removed... :crying:

 

Ryu & Ken (and Sagat) were the only characters that made the jump from SFI to SFII.

I think CAPCOM tried to re-create that formula of all-new characters again in SFIII, but it's much harder to strike gold twice.

And yeah, the arcade market didn't exist in the same capacity it did during the SFII days, ever again.

I've never really heard anyone say they think it's "SF in name only" :katamari:
I'd agree with you if SFIII was a SHMUP or something.

 

actually it's been said that Balrog is Mike.

Ironically when SF IV was annouced I was expecting an all new cast again with just a sprinkle of the old.....then every one came back..Then I played it and found E.Honda doesn't suck anymore..

SF III's cast just isn't as endearing as SFII's

Dudley is AWESOME, Yun and Yang are Classic SF, Ibuki is great, Mokoto would be a great rival for Sakura.

BUt the rest of the cast? Alex is Generic, Hugo is just ok but he's no Zangeif (and Bao lives in his hair), Sean is a uber Generic Dan Clone, Elena looks like she took a wrong turn meaning to enter the King of Iron Fist tournament, Necro is WEIRD, Twelve is WEIRDER, Q is Weirdest, Gill and Urien (which is pronouced like Julian with out the j) need to put some fuckin pants on, Oro
looks like a dehydrated Dhalsim and his fight style is boring as hell, and Remy looks like he took another wrong turn and didn't realize it wasn't KOF until it was too late.

So yeah I still think 3rd strike is a fine game With some of the best music in a fighter ever. However I never learned how to play the game proper because I keep messing with the system direction settings, half the game's fun is making your own Street Fighter III revision.

 

Gotta disagree with all you guys, I thought SFIII was pretty groundbreaking - great graphics, lots of depth, tons of technique. True the characters were funky, not as "iconic" as the old SFII lineup (they look like they all belong in Darkstalkers more to me) but once you learned them they grew on you. The parrying thing was wierd at first but becomes quite natural once you learn it.

 

Fatal Fury was never as Iconic as Street Fighter. But Man, Garou got the total reinvention right.

The cast of Garou was Perfect and for the most part likeable, the Previous games were well referenced. Rock is was and forever will be AWESOME (and why those morons at SNK haven't put him in a KOF yet is a sin) The Kim Twins are great, Butt (or Marco if you have it in Japanese) is a good sub for the AOF guys.

Gameplay wise well, Just Defend is better than parrys if you screw up the timing you just block. I never understood TOP but I guess it works.

It also didn't call it self Fatal Fury 4.

It's really too bad KOF XII wasn't Garou 2, I'd be hating on it less.

But anyways, My point Garou is one of the very few times SNK did something BETTER than Capcom. (the only other times are KOF 98 and Samurai Shodown 1,2 and 4)

 

It's fair to say that no 2D fighting game was as big as SF2 after SF2.

Although SF3 TS is probably the pinnacle of the SF series, it's still in arcades across Japan and on a slow weekday afternoon it always seems to have more people playing it then SF2 AE or SFIV...

As for the home, we it first was on the DC and it wasn't going to sell on that, by the time it was ported to Xbox and PS2 it was already far far too late.

 

and the first 2 versions were dreamcast only (and in fact the reason I got a Dreamcast)

Personally I prefer 2nd impact over 3rd strike. Stylistically I prefer the first SF III over 2nd Impact and 3rd strike

 

Every gamer had Street Fighter II, not just those into fighers. It reached mainstream. But by the time Capcom beat Street fighter to death by bringing "Super duper Street Fighter II ultimate kicks only edition", well, the mainstream was pretty much tired of it...