I’ve always wanted to get into Third Strike. Normally I always play it casually, but I am considering getting into the game and becoming serious at getting good. However, one thing I’m curious about is does Third Strike involve zoning? Personally, one of my favorite things about the Street Fighter series that puts it above the rest of the fighting game series has been the spacing and zoning emphasis playstyle the series incorporates. Other fighters like Guilty Gear, Blazblue, KOF and etc. are good, but they never really had a emphasis on spacing and zoning like SF did. However…I hear 3S due to the parries has little zoning involved and projectiles are almost useless? This would be kind of disappointing to me since I like zoning and spacing a lot. Not just zoning too necessarily, as I understand for rushdown characters spacing is really important as well. Also, please don’t take this post the wrong way. Not trying to hate on 3S or anything just merely asking if it heavily involves zoning or not. Since I tend to play defensive zoning characters and a defensive playstyle.
less zoning than st and sf4, but it’s still quite an important skill. And spacing is big (best players like MOV and Kuroda win alot on that)
Thanks.
parries just add depth to zoning, they don’t do anything to take away its importance
Standard fireballs aren’t as useful in this game, but Akuma and Remy can zone well with their fireballs. Can’t zone the same way you do in SF4 or ST.
yo dont bother picking this up
its not gonna be at evo (short for Evolution)
the worlds largest fighting game event.
i think fireballs are still useful, oro throws lots of balls, same with ryu and the characters mentioned above as well. kens fb just sucks, same with chuns
Doesn’t mean that they won’t bring it back in the future. You honestly never know.
SBO is better anyway.
And fireballs are not useless in 3s at all. Most of the people who assume that are speaking out of pure ignorance.
Chuns fireball alone is pretty shitty, but if you’re going for chip sa2, throwing in a fireball throws off a lot of parry attempts. Same for ken, ex fireball xx sa3 is also better to chip with, cause it’s not hard to parry a raw shippu.
yeah what a great reason to not play this game:rolleyes:
There isn’t zoning to the point that there are fireball traps. However, that’s what I love about 3s. There’s always a way out of something, and you earn each win with every hit.
The projectiles in this game are more used to pressure your opponents into the position you want them in. Good examples are Akumas air fireball and Ibuki’s ex kunais. These can also effectively be used for a keep away game when needed.
Also, projectiles are used as parry bait in order to start mixups, which is an interesting aspect of this game.
Also, people who say 3s has no spacing/fundamentals know absolutely nothing about what they are talking about. This game emphasizes those very gameplay aspects to a large degree. What it simply doesn’t allow is for you to go unpunished for doing the same shit over and over without any thought because it works.
I’m sure there will be plenty of side tournaments being ran for 3s at next EVO. With that said, EVO has rarely been looked at as an important tournament for a 3s player. SBO is the ultimate tournament for 3s.
On topic, zoning and spacing is a very important factor in 3s, you probably wont feel it till you understand the game and character matchups but I feel like baiting whiffs and counter poking is more practical in 3s then any other game. There’s way more footsies in 3s then SF4 and ST, just no fireball traps. As to parry stopping footsies and zoning, remember that parrying is a guess, top players just dont constantly sit there parrying all day, they are zoning and fishing in safe areas, looking for normal to counterpoke, a whiff to punish, any opening. Pick 3s up, it’s the best game ever made.
Gasp’s sarcasm went over your guys heads.
I thought footsies are what you play under the table with your mates girlfriend?? Whats that got to do with 3s???
Because if she parries it you’re gonna eat a big combo from her boyfriend.
because of parries, the fireball traps that were in sf2 were completely nullified…
zoning now pretty much consists of the fact that they still have to deal with the fireball (e.g. parry, jump, block), but is not repetitive…
akuma doesn’t really zone (i don’t think…)…he uses the fireball in an offensive/defensive(runaway) style, so is not really keeping the player in where he wants…and even then he doesn’t use it all that much…
what? lol
True, true…
This is where you don’t make a whole lot of sense. Akuma’s fireballs very much keep the opponent where he wants, because like you said the opponent is forced to make a decision (parry, jump, block, etc.). Check out this video of Match’s Gouki, where he uses the fireball to throw his opponent’s timing off and completely control his cornered position: [media=youtube]r8As6l_XzTQ[/media]
3s involves a lot of zoning for the reasons that people have already stated. The thing is that you have to look at zoning in an entirely different way than you do in ST or SF4, because at any moment your moves can be parried and punished. Zoning is very important in 3s, but overall the game favors ‘knowing your opponent’ over your ability to avoid thousands of fireballs.
Zoning is definitely still there, but there are more layers of potential options than other Street Fighter games. You know, for a country that preaches to “not judge a book by it’s cover”, the majority of players in the U.S. (and 99% of those on this site) never seem to look past surface level mind games, which is one of the reasons they call 3s “random”.