Differences within the SF3 series

Current Fighting Games Fighting Game Discussion
1

With the recent cracking of CPS-3, I thought it might be interesting to post a list of differences the old SF3 games have compared to Third Strike. I’m pointing out general differences between the games and individual character differences. For CPS-3 info, see the stickied thread in Tech Talk.

Don’t ask about ROMs or ask to be PMed about ROMs; it will get you banned.

Each character is compared to their Third Strike version. The only exception is True Gouki who is compared to the normal Second Impact version of himself.

While blocking a multi-hit move, like a super art, you don’t have to hold back on the stick. You can block the first hit and all of them should be blocked.

Damage from moves is pretty consistent across the series, with a few exceptions. It’s nothing like the difference between SF2WW and SSF2T.

The DC versions of these game were not perfect ports. Some infinites were removed and parries work differently.

My list is very incomplete. I know almost nothing about some characters. Feel free to make your own comments and I’ll edit them into the list.

New Generation How is it different from Third Strike?

-In Third Strike you have to go to neutral in between parries. Not in NG (for at least the first parry), which is where the “empty DP parry” comes from. DC lost this feature.

-Parry timing feels different

-No EX moves

-No red parries

-No taunts

-UOH is d,d,P/K

-Throws are f/b+P/K

-As a consequence, kara-throws probably do not exist for non command throws

-Can parry in the air by pressing d

-If you parry in the air by pressing f, a lot of backward momentum is added to your character. This is true even if you jumped straight up. So if you super jump forward and air parry Ken’s jHP, you will fly backwards before you have a chance to counter.

-If you parry in the air by pressing d, a lot of forward momentum is added to your character. Same as above but you get thrown toward the opponent. The parries in Third Strike are most similar to this one, but it’s still different.

-You can quickstand from some Super Arts

-You don’t get meter for quickstanding

-All charcters do much more stun damage

-Characters are usually faster on their normals. This allows for many links that would be impossible in 3rd strike. There are a ton of these and I only know a handful, so I will not usually list these.

-Everyone builds meter faster

-Stun bar lengths are the same in across games. For example, Dudley, Alex, and Oro are always harder to stun than Ryu and Ken.

These are the character specific differences I can think of. Very incomplete. c= close, d= ducking

  • RYU*
    Shinku Hadoken is 1 bar, does not recover fast enough to allow normal follow ups
    Shinshoryuken hits 3 times, has more horizontal range, does a huge amount of damage to crouching targets
    HK hurricane can hit multiple times in the arcade only(?)
    HDP hits twice; opponent stays on the ground for the first hit
    No air hurricane
    Fireballs knockdown airborne targets
    Has an infinite with the Shinshoryuken
    Doesn’t have f+HP
    Can’t charge Denjin faster by rotating the stick

  • KEN*
    No air hurricane
    No double LDP combos
    Fireballs knockdown airborne targets
    Rolling throw only rolls once
    b+MK is now f+MK
    Doesn’t have f+MK
    Doesn’t have f+HK
    Shinryuken is 2 bars
    SA3 hits 1 more time
    Infinite is LDP*n against a target that was in the air.
    jMK has a smaller hitbox

  • SEAN*
    DP is the Dragon Smash
    Arcade only can cancel Hado Burst into itself(?)
    HP is a different move
    HK is a different move
    dLP cancels fireballs(!)
    Target combo is MP,HP
    Doesn’t have f+HP
    Has either got invincibility frames or a screwed up hitbox on his parabolic kick
    MK uses the same animation as LK
    Can link SA3 from many specials
    Can charge meter too quickly by holding f/b and pressing any non light normal

SHOTO NOTES
dMK is has less range, is harder to supercancel from
dMK doesn’t move you forward like it does in Third Strike.
dHK has less range
dLK,dLK, super is much harder to do

  • ORO*
    Can’t EX his super arts
    No double jump
    Arcade has an infinite with Tengu Stone
    Tengu Stone lasts longer
    Blocking the Tengu Stone does way too much damage

  • DUDLEY*
    Has an infinite against himself: MK,HK, repeat. Works on DC, good for about 4 repititons.
    Corkscrew Blow does stun damage

Dudley Notes Dudley’s 100% combo against Dudley is MK,HK,MK,HK,MK,HK,MK,HK,Corkscrew Blow(stun)…

  • ALEX*
    Arcade can Hyperbomb from anywhere on the screen, like SF2 Zangief’s magic SPD
    MP Flash Chop infinite against Elena only. Works on DC
    Doesn’t have Backdrop Bomb
    Doesn’t have f+HP
    Doesn’t have the Elbow Slash
    Doesn’t have the Spiral DDT
    A few normals use different animations

  • ELENA*
    ?

  • YUN/YANG*
    These two share the same moves
    They don’t have Raishin Mahaken and You-Hou
    There are no Mantis Slashes
    Arcade has an infinite
    Air target combo is jLP,jLK, 3 hits, knocks down
    Air target combo does block damage on the second and possibly third hit
    MK is now cMK
    Target combo is cLP,cMP,HP
    Target combo is LP,LK
    Genei Jin lasts longer
    Tenshin Senkyutai has more priority and stun damage

  • NECRO*
    Magnetic Storm is 2 bars
    Elbow command is different (df+HP)
    Uppercut command is different (db+HP)
    Has an infinite against Dudley
    HP and HK have less range

  • IBUKI*
    Has the Hashin-Sho instead of Yami Shigure
    Infinite is cHK*n. Removed in the DC.
    Can’t dash through opponents
    dMP is different
    dMK is different
    b+MK is now MK
    Doesn’t have QCF+P
    If the opponent is blocking the Yoroi Dooshi up close, the Super Raida won’t process

  • GILL*
    Resurrection is his only super
    Cyber Lariat is unblockable up close

Second Impact How is it different from Third Strike?

-No red parries
-True Gouki can be fought if you never lose and defeat Gouki with either a perfect or SA
-Taunts give much more meter
-Arcade allows you to EX your universal overhead, it drains meter and does nothing else (Gouki can’t do this)
-air parrying is more wild and can be done by pressing d or f, this still feels a bit less wild than in New Generation
-the game runs faster, and some characters “feel” faster anyway

  • RYU*
    Denjin is 2 bars
    Shinku recovers slower so follow ups are harder
    cHP, HK Donkey Kick combos against non-stunned standing targets in this game only
    doesn’t have f+HP
    Fireballs knock down airborne targets
    LK Hurricane spins more times

  • KEN*
    No double LDP combos
    Rolling throw only rolls once
    Can link supers from his ground EX Hurricane
    Fireballs knock down airborne targets
    b+MK is f+MK
    Doesn’t have f+RK
    doesn’t have f+MK
    Can link HDP from ground EX Hurricane
    SA3 hits 12 times against some people, 9 times against everyone else

About Ken
Without meter, less dangerous than his 3S counterpart. With meter, he is more dangerous since almost every move except HK results in a super. Much better at linking than in 3S.

  • SEAN*
    DP is the Dragon Smash
    Several supers will hit a grounded Hugo after the overhead throw
    HK is a different move
    HP is a different move
    Can link SA3 from many moves
    Can charge meter too quickly by holding f/b and pressing any non light normal

About Sean
Hyper Tornado links from MP, cMP, cHP, cHK, dHP, dMP, Tornado Kick, EX Tornado Kick, EX Parabolic Kick, target combo.

  • DUDLEY*
    Has the Thunderbolt

  • IBUKI*
    Has the Hashin Sho instead of Yami Shigure
    dMP is different
    dMK is different
    b+MK is now MK
    Doesn’t have QCF+P
    If the opponent is blocking the Yoroi Dooshi up close, the Super Raida won’t process

  • ELENA*
    ?

  • YUN*
    Can’t juggle with Genei Jin as long as he can now
    Can’t link LP into the MP,HP,b+HP target combo
    Doesn’t have Dragon Kicks
    Has Yang’s rolling kicks
    Doesn’t have f+HP
    Has the target combo LP,LK,MP
    dHK has a different animation

  • YANG
    *Raishin Mahaken is 2 bars, starts faster, is unsafe if blocked
    Can link Tenshin Senkyutai from LK,MK,HK target combo
    Has the target combo dLK,dMK,dHK. dHK doesn’t combo

  • NECRO*
    Elbow command is different (df+HP)
    Uppercut command is different (db+HP)
    Blocked elbow pushes Necro back too far
    Drill kicks are safer(?)
    HP and HK have less range

  • URINE*
    Spheres don’t freeze opponents in place
    Can’t delay spheres by holding the button
    EX Sphere looks different
    If Aegis unblockables exist no one has reported it
    Violent Knee attack doesn’t knock down ground opponents
    Doesn’t have f+HP
    Doesn’t have f+MP
    Has f+MP (different from Third Strike’s)
    Can juggle longer with EX Headbutts
    Jupiter Thunder does much less stun damage and cannot be blocked on reaction
    Tyrant Punish cannot be blocked on reaction

  • HUGO*
    Arcade has rapid fire jabs (DC can only get 3 hits, arcade hits 5 or 6 times)
    Arcade has a corner clap infinite
    His HP is the same as Third Strike’s f+HP
    His cHP is the same as Third Strike’s HP
    Has a Gill-only infinite
    EX Lariat can’t be delayed by holding the buttons
    cHP resets airborne opponents
    Claps push opponents back further, making some combos more difficult or impossible
    LP is super-cancelable
    SA3 holds the opponent in place upon activation for a longer period of time

  • ORO*
    No EX Super Arts
    No double jump

  • GOUKI*
    Has a move similar to Sean’s roll
    Doesn’t have the Demon Flip
    Doesn’t have the Kongou Kokuretsuzan
    Different animation on MP
    Air fireball angle is different
    Dive kick is better, angle is more shallow, opponent has more recovery frames(?), safer if parried
    SA1 pushes the opponent up and has more reovery, making some Third Strike combos impossible or very difficult
    Air SA1 misses hits more easily since the opponent is pushed away
    Grounded SA3 cannot be blocked on reaction
    Doesn’t have cHK
    SA2 is the same as Ken’s SA1
    SGS can be input as LP, forward, LK, HP
    SA3 does a very small amount of stun damage
    Messatsu Gourasen (the ground version of SA3) cannot be blocked on reaction

About Gouki
He feels about an extra 50% faster than his Third Strike version.
SA1 is much harder to use in combos. SA2 is worse than it used to be. SA3 is better than it used to be.

Shoto Notes
dMK doesn’t throw them forward upon connecting, making some Third Strike combos more difficult or impossible
Different crouching parry animation
Can hit Hugo with several supers after the over-shoulder throw

  • ALEX*
    Can link SAs 1 and 2 after LP Flash Chop
    Missing some Third Strike normals
    EX Charging Elbow Slash doesn’t knock down
    Doesn’t have f+HP
    Doesn’t have Spiral DDT
    Boomerang Raid has a much shorter meter

  • GILL*
    Doesn’t have Seraphic Wing
    Can’t supercancel from fireballs

  • TRUE GOUKI*
    Better defense
    All attacks do more damage
    Larger cancel window on some moves
    Two air fireballs
    Recovers faster from SA1
    Shun Goku Satsu is faster
    Some of Gouki’s combos must be performed differently with him

Got some info from very old posts here on SRK: Strider-Hiryu and ngamer7 for some Necro, Twin, Oro, and Alex items for Second Impact. Apoc for Sean’s projectile-killing dLP.

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“URINE” :rofl:

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Nice. I was gonna make a thread asking this same question. I’ve only had extensive time with 3S. I’ve spent few to no time with NG & 2I. You’re covering the gameplay differences so I thought I’d ask a few questions(mostly cosmetic):

Is it me or do NG/2I stages look better and richer?

Any known reason why they took out the kickass post-fight quote scenes(the ones where the opponent is beat to a pulp.)? They reminded me of SF2 while taking it a step above and looked cooler than 3S’s bland same character art quote screens. Definitely the best and most refined as far as gameplay, but imo it feels like 3S was rushed just a bit presentation-wise…

Yang and Yun deviated from each other in 3S I believe(?). So who still has most of the original style or do both their present styles borrow moves from the former one?

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In NG, Yang was Yun’s second costume. In 2I, they became seperate characters, if that’s what you mean by deviated. Yun had Tenshin Senkyutai as one of his SAs in NG, but that was given to Yang and replaced with You Hou,keeping Sourai Rengeki and Genei Jin. Yang got Raishin Mahhaken and Seiei Enbu, as well as his mantis slashes. They shared most of their normals. Some of them became what they are in 3s (s.Hp,cr.HP,etc.) . Others were not (Yang’s s.HK was still too similar to Yun’s). Also, Yun didn’t have dragon kicks yet. He had what is now the Yang-exclsuive roll-up-to-kick.

So looking at that, I’d say they were already pretty different in 2I, and even more so in 3S.

To add to the 2I section, Ryu’s Denjin bar is shorter than it is in 3S, and with two meters…:cool: Also, he could cancel into Shin shoryu off of ANY normal shoryu and actually hit, where he would whiff in 3s.

For NG Ryu, spinning the stick (or rotating on the pad) doesn’t increase how fast you charge Denjin. :sad: Also, c.HP is a lot harder to cancel from, especially into tatsu.

For 2I Alex, all of supers don’t give room to utilize EX’s that much. Boomerang Raid and Stungun both have extrememly short meters, and Hyper Bomb has the usual.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall taunts giving any bonuses the way they do in 3S.

EDIT: Something for 2I Ken. His Shippu scores 9 hits on certain characters and 12 others. Still can’t find a pattern, because it hits 9 times on Sean and 12 on Ryu.

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OK, I just got off the phone with one of my friends where we discussed this. Back when SF3 first came out, a couple of arcades in the Atlanta area got it really fast. What I’ve come to the conclusion is that there were early versions of SF3:NG and then later updated versions were released, similar to what happened with 3S(verA/verB).

The reason why I think this is because I remember Necro having different properties than the NG that I played on the emulator the other day. The first thing I remember being different is his Slam Dance super. On the emulator, Necro just reaches out and grabs for his opponent when you do the Slam Dance. The machines I played on though, he didn’t do this. Necro jumped at you before grabbing. Think of it exactly like Sodom’s SPD, he hopped.

It was so much better in this “early” version of SF3. It had alot more range and would beat out other grab supers(hyperbomb) because he was considered to be in the air when you did this super.

The next thing that I noticed that was different was the Electric Snake super. In the “early” version of SF3, this super had a screwed up hitbox, meaning it was really really hard to hit Necro during this super. It was perfect anti-air, anti-wake up, anti-poke. Bascially it was anti-everything. It had alot of frames of invincibility, you could only hit Necro when he was recovering from it. I remember using it to beat every super in the game, even stuff like if someone tried to chip me on wake up with a Shinryuken. I would wake up with a Electric Snake and it was like Necro wasn’t even there. I would hit Ken out of the Shinryuken clean. After playing around with Necro in this emulator, I found that the Electric Snake doesn’t have any invincibility on startup and is essentially like his 3S version.

I was talking with my friend on the phone about this and he remembers that Ken/Ryu’s Shoryuken had horrible priority and it was really easy to jump kick them out of it. I remember being able to do this too.

I guess I had no idea that all along I was playing on this wierd version of SF3. I was always arguing that Necro was top tier in NG, saying his Electric Snake super was way better than the Magnetic Storm. Everyone always used Magnetic Storm back in the day cause you could store 2 of them. I aways argued that Electric Snake just did a little bit less damage, and way more stun. It still had better invincibility than the Magnetic Storm. When SF3: Double Impact came out on DC, I argued that it was a crappy translation cause Necro’s supers weren’t the same as NG.

Maybe someone else who actually played NG back in the day can confirm some of this. Were there multiple versions of NG? Maybe eventually this early version will get put in a rom format where we could play it on a emulator some day. Could be fun to screw around with.

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I liked normal grabbing better than 3S/A3 type of crap.

But in general(I know this is true with Dudley losing that air move) sounds like everyone got nerfed somehow.

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It’s a Capcom thing. They do that with every second game. Then the third game comes along, and half-asses on such things.

8

Lol. Why though? I mean what the fuck? Is there a sensible, legitimate reason? Like maybe more animation for the characters took away from the backgrounds? If so, I guess I could buy that…

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Who’s gonna complain? Their fans? Think of this as an ice cream business. Capcom makes chocolate. tasty. Then they make chocolate cherry swirl. Motha-FUCKING tasty. Then they put mix chocolate mint and cow shit in containers and sell it as frosty moose pie, and nobody would complain (Fans TOO loyal), except for those guys who eat other brands too, so they don’t count.

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Gilley I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some early version of NG that is little played. Necro is someone I never used, so I don’t remember about him. I think that version may be where the Ryu hurricane kick infinite comes from because I can’t get it to work now.

Kof4life, taunts give bonuses in Second Impact. I noticed Ken’s SA3 hitting different times there also, but thought I was imagining it. You’ve seen it too. I don’t know what causes this.

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IMO, it’s a mixed bag. Some of the stages are boring/bad to me in 2I and 3S, while others are awesome (in both). Also 2I reuses alog of NG stages. So I wouldn’t say Capcom went “all out” with 2I, either.

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I wonder how a “Hyper SF3” game would effect the tiers. I can imagine NG-Sean, SI-Ryu and almost the rest of the cast being pushed to high mid tier, low high tier now.

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Dunno if this was stated or not. In OG SF3 you could also parry projectiles with the d parry. And also OG SF3/2i the UOHs did ungodly stun compared to 3s. All in all I still prefer 2i over 3s. The game felt a bit faster than 3s. Also the game was broken but fun.

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This is a cool thread and all but it probably deserves to go in the 3S forum :X

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Wow, that stuff’s pretty wild. That’d be great if someone found one of the early revisions and dumped it indeed. It never seems like any of the “location test” or early revisions get dumped. I still want to play the “Sample” version of SFA3 again. :frowning:

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NG ryu has an infinite with shinshoryuken, and the twins in NG have an infinite with geneijin. both can be seen here.

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It hits 12 versus his “rivals”/people he doesn’t like. Alex, Ryu Gill, and I think Akuma

18

Gouki’s raging demon was :lp::r::lk::hp: in 2I.

19

Oh. THAT’S the explanation. Damn man, I went for years without getting to the bottom of that.

EDIT:

Apparently NG Gill is OTG fodder.
Ken’s EX tatsu links into fierce shoryu
Shoto Crouching parry animation is different

Actually everyone should probably just watch that Skillsmith combo vid.

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One thing that really bothers me between 2I and 3S is that in 2I the stages change time of day or location inbetween rounds. This is more typically seen in SNK fighters and is adds a pleasant change to a fight across rounds.