YMMV / Street Fighter III

See also:

• Awesome Music - Street Fighter
• Memetic Mutation - Street Fighter

Index:

Games

• Main Page
• Street Fighter
• Street Fighter II
• Street Fighter Alpha
• Street Fighter EX
• Street Fighter IV
• Street Fighter V
• Street Fighter 6

Other Media

• Street Fighter: The Movie
• Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie
• Street Fighter Alpha: The Animation
• Street Fighter Alpha: Generations
• Street Fighter II V
• Street Fighter IV: The Ties That Bind
• Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
• Street Fighter: Assassin's Fist

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• Audience-Alienating Premise: There's a reason the game ended up being a Franchise Killer until Street Fighter IV:
  • Right off the bat, the decision to replace most of the cast from Street Fighter II proved disastrous. While Capcom had previously been able to successfully pull off a near complete cast changeover from SFI to II, that was largely because the first Street Fighter game wasn't particularly successful, meaning few fans cared about those characters. Conversely, the characters from II had proven to be extremely popular and had subsequently reappeared in the Street Fighter Alpha games and the various adaptations based on the Street Fighter franchise. This meant there was far more backlash to their omission than there had ever been over the cast of I not returning for II. Ryu, Ken, Akuma, and Chun-Li were the only veterans from either II or Alpha to return in this sub-series. And this is before getting into the fact that many of the new generation had decidedly offputting or unusual designs. While II had its odd designs with the likes of Blanka and Dhalsim, characters such as Oro, Hugo, Necro, and Twelve looked much more grotesque, which caused the game's roster to earn a reputation as being full of weird freaks.
  • The game was more complex and difficult to master than the previous Street Fighter games, alienating casual players even further. While III did later gain a major following among tournament players and in the Fighting Game Community, to this day it has a reputation for being very unfriendly to newbies.
  • The game came out as the arcade scene was dying and while 3D games like Tekken, Soulcalibur and Virtua Fighter were becoming increasingly popular. III was also developed on Capcom's new CPS-3 arcade system board, which allowed for more fluid and detailed sprites than had previously been seen. Unfortunately, this also made III much more expensive, and this, coupled with the declining popularity of 2D fighters and arcades in general, meant that many arcade owners passed on ordering the game.
  • The expensive and time-consuming process of making brand new sprites also resulted in III only having 11 playable characters at launch (even with Ryu, Ken and Sean sharing the same body), which seemed downright paltry at the time. For comparison, Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter and Tekken 3, which were released the same year, had 17 and 21 playable characters, respectively.
  • Those advanced graphics meant that III could not be ported to most of the then-current consoles without sacrificing animations and features; the only console which could have handled the game without major difficulty was the Sega Saturn — which was not only the least successful console of its generation, but had Sega pull the plug on it less than six months after the game was released to arcades. Consequently, the Street Fighter III series was initially ported exclusively for the Sega Dreamcast, which barely sold better than the Saturn did! It wasn't until 2004 when 3rd Strike was re-released as part of Street Fighter Anniversary Collection.^note In Japan, it was re-released exclusively as a standalone game for the PlayStation 2. Because of the failure of the CPS-3, Capcom's future 2D fighters, such as the Marvel vs. Capcom and SNK vs. Capcom series, were developed from assets used in Darkstalkers and the Street Fighter Alpha series and on the CPS-2 and later Sega's new NAOMI system board. Street Fighter Alpha 3 was released the following year on the CPS-2, and while the sprites weren't as good as the ones used in III, it was significantly more affordable for most arcade owners. The less-refined graphics also meant it could be more easily ported to the PlayStation, where it sold a million copies.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • From a purely gameplay-related standpoint, Ken has earned a lot of scorn in 3rd Strike from (mostly) online players because so many fans use him online. No one knows why, but it might be due to his ease of use compared to Ryu, who somehow got harder to use as time passed.
  • Remy. You either think he's cool and more interesting than either Guile or Charlie, or you think his emo attitude, SNK-based design and his reason for fighting are dumb.
• Character Tiers: This game has been out a while, so most people agree on the general area where each character resides with differing opinions boiling down to exact placements. Modern consensus is as follows:
  • Top Tier: The most generally fixed in terms of character order. The best character in the game is Chun-Li^DetailsChun-Li has amazing neutral thanks to pokes that box out most characters and the best Kara-throw in the game. The real kicker is her Hoyoku Sen Super Art; it's insanely fast to start up and launches her across the screen in an instant, which makes it usable in just about any situation. And not only does it shave off about 30% of their lifebar if it lands, it launches the victim such that Chun-Li can follow up and carry the opponent across the entire stage. While this should make her reliant on meter to deal damage or transition from defense to offense, stronger attacks in this game build a bit of meter even if they're whiffed; Chun-Li is able to throw out buttons in neutral without much fear of retaliation, so she's often got a super ready before other characters can mount a response., with the only other S-tier and close second being Yun.^DetailsYun boasts some of the best mobility in the game: he's got a great walk speed and super jump, and his divekicks give him a degree of unpredictability in the air that most characters can't challenge. He's also got a ton of mix-ups, including a command grab and the aforementioned divekick. His biggest selling point, however, is his Genei Jin Super Art, which gives him several seconds of improved frame data and combo routes that make his offense virtually airtight; it also has a short enough meter that Yun can reliably activate it two or three times a round. A not-insignificant gap exists between these two and 3rd and 4th place, those being Ken^DetailsKen in 3rd Strike is the epitome of Master of All; he has good movement speed, EX Tatsu allows him to escape corner pressure more easily, he's got moves that allow him to be successful in neutral or apply pressure when he's at an advantage, he can easily make himself safe by ending his combos with a Hadoken, and his Shippu Jinrai Kyaku Super Art gives him a damaging hit-confirm alongside a ton of meter to work with. While he doesn't have anything truly outstanding like the other top tiers, he has no major weaknesses for the opponent to exploit. and Makoto^DetailsMakoto and sports an offense that is riskier than Yun's but far more explosive. Her Hayate dash punch leaves the opponent standing and is easily comboed into, which can force the opponent into a very quick series of mixups. She also has excellent uses of meter: her EX Oroshi chop is a ridiculously quick overhead that covers most options that her command grab doesn't and knocks down to ensure that the offense doesn't stop, EX Hayate allows for extra damage in the corner, her Seichusen Godanzuki Super Art offers a consistent source of burst damage, and her Abare Tosanami Super Art leads into massive damage and stun if with a well-placed command grab. If this wasn't enough, Makoto doesn't struggle to get into this position thanks to the fastest forward dash in the game and a set of long-reaching pokes that either score a knockdown or a combo. respectively, though some place Makoto higher.
  • High Tier: The 5th best character was previously considered to be Akuma^DetailsAkuma has many tools and excels at offense. His Demon Flip has a bunch of follow-ups, including air fireball, a dive kick (see Yun's details for why that matters), and a command grab. His combo routes offer good damage and corner carry and generally allow him to mix up an opponent into oblivion. Akuma can also play defensively to an extent thanks to having a projectile, which Yun, Makoto, and Dudley all lack. Unfortunately, he can only use his meter for Supers, most of which don't offer much beyond more damage (he does have an unblockable setup by kara-canceling into Raging Demon, but this costs all his meter); he also has the smallest life bar and stun gauge in the entire roster., but nowadays, the spot usually goes to Dudley^DetailsDudley has an incredible mix-up game, especially in the corner. He has a functionally unreactable overhead, an amazing throw game, and plenty of combos, including a launcher in EX Machine Gun Blow and long juggle loops. His Corkscrew Blow Super Art is much more consistent as a combo ender than his other supers and gives him a ton of flexibility to use EX moves. Dudley also has some great mobility; his ducking special allows him to dodge attacks and quickly punish, and his very low jump arc makes it hard to anti-air him (conversely, Dudley has quite a bag of anti-airs himself). Unfortunately, Dudley doesn't do great when he's on defense thanks to a wide hitbox that makes him the victim of character-specific combos, and he can struggle in neutral due to his best pokes being easily avoided by just crouching. with Akuma in 6th. Yang^DetailsYang's moveset is largely similar to Yun's, including his excellent mix-ups and divekick. The two deviate in special moves, where Yang trades Yun's leaping punch and shoulder check (both of which see the bulk of their use in Genei Jin) for a rekka with good corner carry and high damage (particularly its EX version, which also builds just below half a stun bar for most characters) and a command dash that gives him a lot of freedom when timed right. While Yang can take any single hit further than Yun can, the lack of Genei Jin's unstoppable offense means he can't get force opponents to give him that hit nearly as consistently (Yang's equivalent Super Art, Seiei Enbu, doesn't give as much flexibility as Genei Jin and the lack of meter means that Yang will have none to spend on EX rekka). Yang has to be more patient to get openings, which is easier said than done in a game where stronger characters rely on fairly airtight offense or defense. and Urien^DetailsUrien's claim to fame is his Aegis Reflector Super Art, which can lock down an opponent and force them to block for several seconds or else get hit. Urien can use Aegis Reflector to create absolutely ludicrous pressure and combos, including unblockables and even Touch of Death combos if he's got full meter. Beyond this, he's also got excellent meterless combos, most of which either carry an opponent to the corner or juggle for large damage. Despite all this, Urien lacks many solid options to mount his explosive offense. His pokes in neutral are solid but struggle to lead into anything, and his best defensive options require meter that he would otherwise want to put towards his combos or Aegis Reflector setups, none of which are totally guaranteed (it's also worth noting that much of Urien's biggest combos or mix-ups are character-specific). Ultimately, Urien has a lot of risk for truly astronomical reward, and he's highly reliant on meter outside of his combo game. are generally considered similar to Dudley and Akuma in viability, if a bit lower.
  • Mid Tier: Ryu^DetailsRyu, like Ken, is a jack of all trades, but gets a lot less reward out of any given situation compared to Ken. Ryu has two serviceable Super Arts in Shinku Hadoken and Denjin Hadoken; the former augments Ryu's basic gameplan by giving more meter to use EX specials and hitting consistently in combos; the latter is unblockable, builds a bunch of stun meter, and can be held to throw off the opponent's parry timing and build even more stun, making it an inconsistent yet powerful offensive tool. He also has great moves for neutral and can hit-confirm into a wide variety of specials. Unfortunately, compared to the higher tiers Ryu's offense is inconsistent and he can struggle to keep up offensively without spending meter. He's also forced to choose between an offensive Super Art or a versatile one whereas most characters have access a single Super that satisfies all their needs., Ibuki^DetailsIbuki has highly unpredictable pressure and excels at baiting out her opponent's defensive options. This is thanks to the fastest walk speed in the game, a great jump that can be altered with her kunai, and amazing frame data that generally lets her stay advantageous at best and safe at worst. This attack speed is offset by having poor range, so she struggles to poke and hit-confirm in neutral and is thus forced to rely on risky movement to get in — while she has the movement to make this work, her low health means that any mistake will hurt. Ibuki often relies on using EX moves for damage and her general gameplan, and generally poor Super Arts means she has less overall tools than other characters., Oro^DetailsWIP, Elena^DetailsWIP, Necro^DetailsWIP
  • Low Tier: Hugo^DetailsPretty much the default strengths and weaknesses for a grappler. Hugo has absurd damage from his grabs and good pressure thanks to his claps, but he struggles to get in due to his size and poor mobility., Alex^DetailsAlex is a Skill Gate Character who struggles to get in on players who know his options, has little use for his supers, and few combos to work with.,Q^DetailsWIP
  • Bottom Tier: Remy^DetailsEssentially in the wrong game for him to succeed. Remy is a traditional zoner in the vein of Guile, but because other players can parry his projectiles with minimal effort to build meter, he struggles to create space and it becomes easy for other characters to rush him down. He then suffers the classic zoner issues, having poor close range options and needing charge to really do anything. While he does have some solid supers for damage and reversal, Blue Nocturne is possibly the single worst super in Street Fighter, being a counter with low damage and a super flash before the initial startup, making it easy to react to. He does, however, possess some very good anti-airs and has some strong corner offence thanks to being able to combo from his grab., Sean^DetailsAfter being top-tier in the previous versions, they addressed the Gameplay and Story Segregation problem by nerfing him into the ground. This would leave him with similar but subtly worse normals from other shotos and his special moveset being changed to be barely usable and mostly unsafe and has very few good special cancel opportunities. Most notably, his particularly strong Hyper Tornado super got gutted by being only able to stock one bar. Thus, he fits the Joke Character the writing clearly intends him to be, Twelve^DetailsHis only strength is some great keep away normals and airdash mixups, which may be invalidated by parries. But what dooms him is that his damage output is the worst in the game with pratically zero useful special confirms from his normals, thus requiring a super to do what many characters can do with a special cancel. Most of all of his problem is that he suffers from having the worst frame data in the game, with some of his moves having -15 recovery unblocked.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: As a result of removing all of the old cast except Ryu and Ken, 75% of all players picked Ken, 20% picked Ryu, and 5% picked one of the other characters. It got a little better in 2nd Impact. But in 3rd Strike, not only was Ken a tad bit easier to learn compared to Ryu, but he was top-tier (alongside Chun-Li and Yun). In other words, Tournament Play in 3S was filled with Ken, Chun-Li, Yun, and the occasional Makoto, Dudley, and Akuma. (See Character Tiers above for more details.) This status followed him into Street Fighter IV and V, with lukewarm reception (especially in the former). There's a reason the trope used to go by the name of "That Damn Ken."
• Contested Sequel: When first released, III was criticized for ditching the majority of the cast from the previous games, for its steep learning curve, and for its "dated graphics". As described below, the years have been far kinder, especially with ''3rd Strike'.
• Creepy Cute: Twelve might be a Humanoid Abomination, but it has something of a cute charm to its design that earned Twelve a small fanbase.
• Cult Classic: Street Fighter III didn't do particularly well when it was released, and is the only Street Fighter series to ship less than 1,000,000 units on a single system (excluding compilations). It started picking up in popularity through the early 2000s in the Fighting Game Community, with many considering 3rd Strike the best Street Fighter game for competitive play, even if it was still largely forgotten by the general public. Come the release of 3rd Strike Online Edition in 2011 and later the arcade port in the 30th Anniversary Collection in 2018, and Street Fighter III is considered a classic with deep gameplay that has aged much better than its polygon-based contemporaries like Mortal Kombat 4 or Tekken 3.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Ibuki, to the point where she placed 22nd on IGN's List of Top 25 Street Fighter Characters. She's had the second-highest amount of non-SF appearances after Yun (Pocket Fighter, SFxT), has cameos in Capcom Fighting Evolution and Onimusha Soul, was considered for Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars, returned for SSFIV, and most recently has appeared in SFV as DLC. She and Remy were the only new characters from the III series to be included in SOTA's popular line of Street Fighter action figures.
  • Dudley. Many fans like him better than Balrog, to the point where he won a poll to see who fans wanted to appear most in Street Fighter IV. Capcom granted the fans' wish by including him in Super Street Fighter IV, alongside Balrog. In addition, he placed 25th on IGN's List of Top 25 Street Fighter Characters.
  • Makoto. Unlike many of the newcomers in III, she has been hailed as a great addition to the cast. Episode 33 of 1UP.com's Retronauts podcast singled out Makoto as being "pure Street Fighter" in relation to the rest of the cast, when she placed 23rd on IGN's List of Top 25 Street Fighter Characters. Her popularity might also be due to her high-risk playstyle and high-tier status. Perhaps being savvy enough to realize this, Capcom included her in SSFIV. Furthermore, when the results of the first Street Fighter Character Popularity Poll was announced, Makoto took second place, right behind fellow darkhorse Sakura.
  • According to the polls for Street Fighter X Tekken, Q is the second most requested character from Street Fighter III after Alex, the main character. Sadly, neither one of them made it in, and Capcom specifically requested that Q be left out of Tekken X Street Fighter. Also, according to the aforementioned Character Popularity Poll, Q is the 4th most popular character in the entire series, and the most popular male in the series by extension.
  • Yun and Yang. The fact that Yun has had the most playable out-of-series appearances out of all the III characters (CvS2, later revisions of Street Fighter Alpha 3, Capcom Fighting Evolution) and the fandom rejoicing for the twins' inclusion in the Arcade Edition of SSFIV cements them as this (though Yun has garnered a slightly unfavorable rep since for other reasons).
  • Elena is this as it's hard to dislike her optimistic personality, and you'll find plenty of fan art of her. She even made it into Street Fighter X Tekken as DLC and later appeared in Ultra Street Fighter IV. Her 3rd Strike theme is a huge contributor, being one of the most recognizable songs in the Street Fighter III series.
  • According to a 2014 poll, Alex and Q were the top two most desired characters for Street Fighter V, and Alex eventually made it into the game as DLC. Q for his part would get a Spiritual Successor in SFV in the form of G, who has possible connections to him (and has become a darkhorse in his own right).
• Fan Nickname:
  • For Dudley, there's Studley, Dudeley, Doodley, and (to a much lesser extent) Duddles.
  • Gilley for Gill. In Spain, he's nicknamed Gill-ipollas (after gilipollas, Europan Spanish for "asshole").
  • Due to Urien's poor name, there're Urine, Piss, and many others.
• Fountain of Memes: Dudley, specifically his 3rd Strike incarnation. His Gentleman Snarker brand of Trash Talk has proven so quotable that the majority of the memes from the III series come from him ("You have no dignity...", "Gutter trash", "Down... for the count", etc.), with one line in particular having its own trope.
• Game-Breaker:
  • In the first version, Ibuki was this due to an infinite juggle combo using her close-standing hard kick. Even worse: It could be started from one of her Supers, meaning landing it guaranteed the game.
  • Gill, Capcom's take on the SNK Boss. You rarely find a tournament that makes Gill legal; his Seraphic Wing alone would probably be ban-worthy.
  • Urien due to his Aegis Reflector combos which, if done correctly, take off an exceptional amount of damage and are unblockable.
  • Both the port of 3S found in the Street Fighter Anniversary Collection and 3rd Strike Online Edition give you access to several DIP switches that completely change how the game is played. These include air and ground combo chains, faster move canceling, air guarding, full meter at the start of each match, and all Super Arts available instead of one. The end result? It feels more like you're playing Alpha 3 or one of the Marvel vs. Capcom games. Gill in his default version is bad enough. But if you're playing as him and have the right DIP switches active, you can infinitely juggle your opponent and even rack up combos that last nearly 100 hits.
• Genius Bonus: Despite being perfectly capable of mimicking human speech, all of Twelve's win quotes are in binary.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • In New Generation, Alex can continually Flash Chop Elena into a K.O. due to a delay in her animation.
  • In both New Generation and 2nd Impact, certain characters can float and reset their animations midair. This includes Ibuki in both games and Ken doing a Shoryuken during Gill's Resurrection in 2nd Impact.
  • In both New Generation and 2nd Impact, Sean can fill his EX meter twice as fast as any other character by holding back on the directional pad while tapping an attack button.
  • In 3rd Strike, Akuma's Fierce Shakunetsu Hadoken can juggle opponents completely across the screen, provided they hit the tip of the fireball at just the right angle.
  • Besides copying Guile's moves, Remy also has one of his classic World Warrior glitches. He can freeze Urien by getting hit right after his neutral throw animation connects. The most common way to do this is when Urien's Aegis Reflector is triggered. Not only does it let you escape from the Super Art, but it completely freezes Urien as well. He cannot attack or even move until Remy hits him again.
  • Q's Total Destruction Super Art is very finicky. Due to how it quickly drains a target's health bar instead of immediately defeating them, it's possible to beat Q during his post-attack animation frames by using a slow projectile like the Aegis Reflector. If characters trade hits during the explosion, the game won't always register that the explosion occurred, giving you chance to trigger a second one.
  • An interesting bug with Q is that, when going from a crouching to a standing position, so long as no other button is pressed during the animation, Q is invincible to throws during this time, which doesn't happen with any other character. Whilst this would normally be considered a flaw, Q's position as a low-tier character gives him a unique benefit that exceptionally skilled players can use to avoid throws from other players, assuming they are good enough to predict when they are about to be thrown.
  • Dudley can be comboed into any Shoryuken-style Super Art if he's thrown to the ground in a corner.
  • If positioned and blocked in a certain way, Chun-Li can do her head stomp infinitely. This also results in her building up speed with each stomp, eventually causing her to go flying across the screen and back if it's parried.
  • There's a glitch that turns all the opponents into Gill, effectively changing Arcade Mode into a Boss Rush. You have to let the intro play out, let the CPU choose a character, and press Start at a specific moment during the Super Art loading screen.
  • In April 2020, a glitch was discovered that changes the properties of Super Arts. Basically, you do the same thing as the Boss Rush glitch, but at a specific moment after the Super Art is chosen. This sends you to a glitched Arcade Mode opponent selection screen. Instead of choosing an opponent, have Player 2 press Start; it'll take you to a glitched Versus Mode screen. Just after Player selects their character and Super Art, Player 1 will regain control over the character selection. If done correctly, Player 1's Super Arts will now have the properties (number and length of meters, limited use of ground and aerial Super Arts, etc.) of the character chosen by the CPU. This can result in Akuma and Twelve having triple meters, Hugo and Necro having double, characters having access to way more EX meter than usual, etc..
  • A few others can be found in this video.
• High-Tier Scrappy:
  • Ken's top-tier 3rd Strike incarnation receives much flak he gets for being used 99.9 percent of the time online. Oh Ken, how you've been a flowchart over the years...
  • Chun-Li is this in 3rd Strike. One old Shoryuken post said that you could beat a majority of players with nothing but crouching forward, back fierce, and kara grab.
  • Makoto gets this from certain players due to the fact that from a specific spot on the screen, she can kill you in one combo.
  • While still getting a fair amount of flak from newer players due to how fights tend to go with him in the hands of a competent player, Yun actually managed to mostly avoid this despite being one of the top-tier characters in 3rd Strike. While unquestionably one of the best characters in the game, he has a bit of a learning curve thanks to his Genei Jin combos, and his Glass Cannon status means any mistake will hurt. However, Yun is easily a pain to fight in upper levels of play where players have maximized their Genei Jin combos and mix-up game. Yun's high tier-induced scrappy status would return in SSFIV: Arcade Edition and Ultra Street Fighter IV, as explained here. Some of the top tournament players like Daigo, however, found their interest in 3rd Strike waning long before the advent of SFIV due to Yun's shenanigans.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: One of Chun-Li's win quotes is "No, I've never thrown any of my bracelets away. Why do you ask?" While likely intended as a reference to Pop-Culture Urban Legends that she could throw her bracelets at the opponent in Street Fighter II, it also works as an unintentional Take That! against the (not overly well-received) Street Fighter II pinball game and the Street Fighter: The Movie arcade game, where she does throw her spiked bracelets as weapons.
• Hype Backlash: 3rd Strike is largely considered a Cult Classic amongst the competitive community, but there are also vocal detractors who resent the acclaim of it being considered the "Best Street Fighter Game" let alone one of the greatest fighting games of all time. Detractors critiquing the balance and the parry system undermine both footsie and zoning playstyles.
• It's Hard, So It Sucks!: A common (and not unreasonable) complaint is that the game is too technical compared to other Street Fighter games and comes with a steep learning curve.
• Low-Tier Letdown:
  • Elena's lengthy animations make her parry bait.
  • Twelve is thought by many to be the hardest character in the game to learn. He's been described as a character intended as a rushdown Glass Cannon, with a lot of fast melee moves, strong normals, and high mobility counterbalancing his low stamina and health, but with the crucial missing step in a Glass Cannon of actually having good damage (his damage is some of the worst in the game), and the crucial missing step in a rushdown character of being able to combo an opponent for any length of time (several of his moves have such little hitstun and long recovery that he can be unsafe on hit). Usually, the most he can do with his intended gameplan is to swoop in and poke the opponent for minimal damage before either getting punished or running away, such that most Twelve players give up on rushdown altogether and focus on getting a small life lead and stalling out — and even there, he's still far from good. He's so bad that fans jokingly say Twelve's best move is X.C.O.P.Y., since it lets him temporarily become a different character and gives the poor sap who picked him a break from having to actually play Twelve.
  • Sean was easily one of the best characters in Second Impact; as a result, Capcom nerfed him going into 3rd Strike. Unfortunately, it also rendered Sean as easily the worst character in 3rd Strike. To briefly explain, he has similar normals as Ryu and Ken, but Sean's frame data is slightly worse. The thing that really launches him into bottom tier is his terrible special moves, as it's really hard to get a knockdown or apply pressure, as you can't combo into his tackle and his Dragon Smash has really crap range. Most infamously, his Tornado is unsafe on hit (the EX version is safe, however) — meaning his best combo ender leaves Sean open to get punished. Other than some decent normal and anti air attacks, Sean has virtually nothing going for him. Even in same-character team tournaments in Japan, where you'll see one or two all-Twelve or Hugo teams, it's rare to see an all-Sean team.
• Memetic Molester:
  • Urien. Partially due to his appearance.
    Urien: Lie there as long as you want, I've had my fun with you.
  • Though not so prevalent in the III series, people like to joke that Ibuki, due to her goal to meet "cool boys" in IV, is extremely horny and willing to go to great lengths to get some.
  • Q's trenchcoat has caused some to joke that he's a public flasher.
• Moe:
  • Makoto. Despite her rough-and-tumble demeanor and rather brawny frame, she is a Daddy's Girl fighting for the sake of her ailing dojo. She also fangirls pretty hard over getting to meet Ryu in person.
  • Shaomei, Hoimei's little sister who has a crush on Yang.
  • Necro's girlfriend Effie. Despite her gothic looks and tragic backstory, she's still happy to run out during some of Necro's win poses and join in with a rather adorable pantomime.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Ibuki, especially following her more recent appearances, tends to be compared to Naruto Uzumaki often, with some going as far as to call her Raida and its Yoroitoshi Super Art variation knockoffs of the Rasengan. The thing is, not only does Ibuki predate Naruto by about seven months (New Generation was released on February 4, 1997; the pilot chapter of Naruto would be published in August of that year), the Rasengan wasn't even introduced until Chapter 150, which first dropped in early 2003, long after the III series concluded.
  • Much like Street Fighter III, Art of Fighting 3 abandoned most of the previous characters in favor of an almost entirely new cast, and introduced a smoother, more detailed animation style. It also did all of this in 1996, a year before Street Fighter III.
• Polished Port:
  • The Street Fighter Anniversary Collection port of 3rd Strike, released for the Xbox and PS2. Prior to 3rd Strike Online Edition, it was the best possible version of 3rd Strike. It contained everything from the Dreamcast version, but fixed all of its issues to make it more arcade perfect, even having the "Guard Judgment" feature set to "Old" by default so it played more like the arcade version, as the Dreamcast version featured several balance changes. It was also possible to play with the original arcade version's soundtrack and the arranged one only heard in the Dreamcast version. The Xbox version could also be played online, and while not perfect it was the only way to do so before the original Xbox Live servers were shut down and Online Edition was later released with rollback netcode that surpassed the original.
  • 3rd Strike Online Edition for the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade is the best way to play the game. It has a better Metacritic score than the original 3rd Strike Dreamcast port (86 vs. 84, respectively) and runs borderline arcade perfect.^note Borderline in that the code is taken from the PS2 port. It has both original and remixed soundtracks, a ton of visual options, tutorials (including how to perform the parry and finish from EVO Moment #37), and in-game challenges where players can earn XP to unlock bonuses like concept art, movies, the soundtracks and colour palettes from New Generation and 2nd Impact. There's also an unlockable dip switch that lets the player customize almost all of the game's settings. The only thing that could make it better would be the inclusion of the stages from New Generation and 2nd Impact, along with the previous iterations of the cast from those games a la Hyper Street Fighter II.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: Compared to Alpha, III has a high difficulty learning curve, although the AI is fair unlike Super Street Fighter II Turbo.
• Sequel Displacement: 3rd Strike is so widely treasured that the fact it's the third revision of the Street Fighter III series is approaching lost knowledge (not even Super Turbo displaced the installments that came before it, aside from possibly The New Challengers). It's the only game from the lineage that has been revisited multiple times past its initial home release on the Sega Dreamcast and the first two games weren't even revisited period until 2018's 30th Anniversary Collection, which is also the only time the entire family has been in a single compilation.
• Signature Scene: The one thing everyone remembers about this game's competitive scene, which also set the eventual revival of 2D fighters? Evo Moment #37. It's to the point where it's referenced in multiple videos made by Capcom, and recreating it in the Online Edition is a training challenge and achievement.
• Spiritual Successor: Ibuki is this to Chun-Li in many ways, able to string attacks quickly, the game's example of a Fragile Speedster with much less HP than the males, and does less damage per hit than the males. Also, early Chun-Li wanted to live like a normal girl. All these traits Ibuki inherited upon her debut.
• Squick: You can see Oro's private parts during certain animation frames. There's a reason why Street Fighter V gave him some rags to prevent that from happening in 3D.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • Ibuki's 2nd Impact stage theme (a "Piano Melo Version" of "Sharp Eyes" from NG), interestingly enough, sounds a lot like "Copacabana" by Barry Manilow.
  • Q's theme is often compared to the theme of The X-Files. Considering that the two FBI agents pursuing him are named after X-Files stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, this is probably intentional.
• That One Attack: Gill's Seraphic Wing, his third Super Art introduced in 3rd Strike. Shaves off close to 25% of a lifebar if blocked, can OHKO just about anyone if they're not guarding, and cannot be parried. At all. Think you can interrupt that somewhat lengthy startup animation and force Gill to waste his entire bar of meter? Guess again! Gill gets to keep his meter and can simply use a Super Art again whenever he feels like it. You will taste the rainbow.
• That One Boss: Gill. He can resurrect himself after death:
  "AHAHAHAHAHA! I am your god!"
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • The series got, and continues to get, a lot of flak for its character roster. A critic of GamesRadar listed their personal worst Street Fighter characters; Street Fighter III characters placed in eight out of the eleven slots.
  • Minor one for Revision B of 3rd Strike, which hit arcades in June 1999 (and was later used for the Dreamcast port). It does have its advantages, most notably removing a bug where the game would crash if Ken defeated Makoto with a neutral grab. However, a majority of the playerbase did not like the balance changes, especially the removal of Urien's unblockables. The result is that every release of 3rd Strike since (excluding the Dreamcast port) has used the earlier Revision A.
• Underused Game Mechanic: Very few people know about the fact that 2nd Impact contains a widescreen, 16:9 screen ratio mode. In 1997, with full functionality in every stage and for the entire game's user interface to place itself appropriately. The only way the average player can ever hope to experience it is messing with the WIDE screen mode in the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection, or messing with dip switches in emulation, and no other iteration of III has this feature — nor would any Street Fighter game in a proper, non-stretched sense until Street Fighter IV in 2008. It does come with some quirks, though, such as Supers repositioning characters on the stage, and certain actions like a Hugo throw tossing an opponent from one end of the screen to the other.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: Elena's animation looks pretty out of place compared to the rest of the fighters. That's probably Rotoscoping at work.
• Viewer Gender Confusion:
  • The kid who appears in Ibuki's 3rd Strike intro sparring with her is a boy named Yuta Homura.
  • While the story takes no pains to hide that she is, in fact, a girl, people not familiar with the series often mistake Makoto for a boy. But given that she is as feminine as a truck driver, her gi is quite concealing, and that Makoto is a gender-neutral Japanese name, the misunderstanding is almost expected. The fact that she's absolutely ripped for a girl her age and has huge man-like hands and feet does not help matters. However, her SSFIV in-game model has her cleavage slightly more exposed, enough to avoid confusion in full. Previously, it was only visible during her dizzy animation, in which the shoulder of her gi slips off.
• Vindicated by History: The Street Fighter III series was ignored upon release because it was a complete departure from the considerably more user-friendly Alpha series, and some professional reviewers even went so far as to dock it for looking "like an SNES game." Eventually, tournament-level players latched onto the series as most mainstream fighting games began to resemble Guilty Gear more and more and they desired something a little more grounded and footsies-based, and casual fans discovered the game through emulation and a PlayStation 2 and Xbox re-release of 3rd Strike. And then the infamous Daigo Parry occured at EVO 2004, boosting the game's popularity to newfound heights and turning it into a competitive mainstay. This came full circle with 3rd Strike Online Edition, which ended up being better received by the fanbase than the more casual-friendly Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. Nowadays, it's not entirely uncommon for most fighting game fans to declare 3rd Strike to be the greatest fighting game of all time, albeit not without the resulting Hype Backlash as seen above.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: It must have taken the animators a ton of hard work to make the sprites move as beautifully as they do. Special mention goes to Third Strike's Gill taking his real-time Fashionable Asymmetry and adding on a constant surging shimmer effect to it.

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