Street Fighter 3: Third Strike… one of the most popular and longstanding games in capcom tournament history, but why? lets travel back in time to B4… 3rd strike appears for the first time in a srk sanctioned tournament. at this time the game is very unpopular in the usa besides the booming golfland scenes in california and a small but strong texas crew led by hsien(who was added to the usa vs japan event of the same year for no other reason than his proficency in 3S). so… B4 was a huge success which led to B5 the following year… but what did not return… third strike.
At this time i was more hardcore into the gaming scene than probably any other time in my life… nobody talked about, cared for, or played 3S… it was generally seen as the third and best installment of a failed series. any arcade you went to would be filled to the brim with people playing mvc2 and cvs(prior to cvs2’s release)… maybe one or 2 random people on a 3rd strike machine between their matches on other games. so… i propose this question… how did a game that was overshadowed by a game that was widely hated on(cvs) at the time, end up becoming the headlining game at more than one evo event?
My personal opinion is, as sad as it sounds, american fighting game players wish they were japs to the point of being straight up poseurs. say all you will about the solid gameplay and roster… it existed from day one. i’d say american gamers got serious about this game around day 1000(well into 3 years after it was released). why is this?.. what is there besides a yearning to be more like the japs that led this game to resurface on the american landscape? i honestly feel if the japs started playing CFE hardcore all of the sudden… the usa would jump on it like pigs in shit.
i have mad respect for top 3S players… i mean no disrespect by this critique. but what gives?.. i have never been into this game for the simple fact that i hate following trends, and until the day japan gives us a run for our money in MvC2, this game will always be 2nd fiddle to games my country picked up from the beginning and stuck with. thank you for reading.
America got into 3s after we got our asses handed to us, 22-3 at Evo 2k2.
I don’t think it has anything to do with WANTING to be like the Japanese. It’s about WANTING to be at a level where we can beat them and even the score.
And I can speak from personal experiance that people that weren’t real into fighting games back in the day got introduced to 3rd Strike through the Daigo video. I remember seeing that and going “wow, I didn’t even know they had Street fighter 3.”
3s released in 1999… evo 2k2… 3 years. and i dont recall japan training hardcore in mvc2 after they won one match out of 25(which was given to the guy as a birthday present) in 2000.
they also don’t play REALLY REALLY broken games in tournaments. They also really didn’t grow up looking up to them damn marvel super heros and villans either.
I think most people just saw how solid a game it was after seeing the japanese play If thats what your saying. Why did the US look down on sf3? Well that discussion is tired but I for one can say I didn’t get on the game because of the japanese I was just attracted to how great the game actually is presentation and gameplay wise.
I think the rage over MVC2 back then kinda overshadowed 3S. My friends and I played the hell out of 2nd Impact, but felt something was missing in 3S, which I feel was later rekindled by US players watching some of the matches coming out of Japan and seeing the potential the game had along with the desire many US players had to rise to the occasion and get better at the game after seeing where they were skill wise when compared to the Japanese players.
From what I understand, American superheroes have at least some popularity in Japan. Toei even made a Japanese Spider-Man television series.
Anyway, first and foremost, the reason people play Third Strike is the same reason they play any other fighting game: they enjoy playing it at a competitive level. Did the Japanese give us a kick in the ass to step things up? I think so. But Americans getting more into the game has nothing to do with people wanting to be Japanese and everything to do with seeing how well the game can be played, and becoming more motivated to win.
Incidentally, America’s 3S showing at B4 was dreadful. I think we won a single match out of the whole thing. We plainly weren’t ready for it and it’s not especially shocking that 3S didn’t show up at B5. It kind of rankles people whenever Japan catches America completely off-guard… know what I mean?
No. You misquoted. I said people that weren’t real into fighting games. Like, most people didn’t give a shit about street fighter after 2. I know that the hardcore fans followed the VS series and the Alphas. But most of the kids that just played street fighter 2 on genesis or super nintendo weren’t exposed to street fighter 3.
I don’t buy the ‘it’s too broken’ Marvel argument. I mean HnK got played enough to be in SBO, even if it’s dead now. I mean sure Marvel in terms of use of roster is more unbalanced or broken in comparison to other stuff, but I don’t think that has any reason to do with it. There was an explanation about the time-release characters having problems being unlocked on the jpn version when it first came out.
Nowadays the top players don’t play because 1. the learning curve is too much to catch up on, 2. they already have their other game(s) that they are good at and actively practice and play, and 3. there’s tons of newer, way more popular games to get comp in. In that way it’s the same as it is here; people play what they have comp in. Scenes just don’t up and happen just because there’s a scene somewhere else in the world. It’s gotta either be naturally popular from the beginning (old trusted franchise, etc.), or something happening to convince a mass audience to play it. 3rd Strike in Evo 2002 fits both of these.
Sometimes things just don’t work out. I mean why didn’t USA players get into VF4 or KOF98/2002? Why doesn’t Japan play RTSes or FPSes? Those games certainly have/had massive scenes in other countries. Either people don’t like it, theres no comp, etc. It’s the same all over.
it thought it was really fun when it came out, it just didnt have the lasting appeal and presentation as 2nd Impact, imo.
mix in 2nd impact with 3rd strike gameplay, and its a winner in every aspect. I started with NG/2I, and i liked the way it looked, and the music was very catchy, especially Jazzy NYC, and i also liked Elena’s Stages.
i think 3s wasnt as popular (at least to me) because of that. the gameplay was the most balanced tho.
This is why you all still suck. You spend too much time thinking around fighting games with all these dumbass threads instead of playing them and learning them. You think the japanese give a fuck about what games are popular around the world to get into? No. They just play whatever they like.
Yeah, we want to be like the japanese, so we play 3S, but wait, we also play mvc2 which the japanese don’t play, AND we don’t play games like melty blood, VF, arcana, which are all pretty popular in japan too. So hmm, just because we play ONE game that’s also popular in japan, we must be trying to pose them. Right…
Well thats pretty stupid. Go play Clayfighting Mr. Counter Culture. What difference does it make why people play? It’s not some big charade. So the game got shitted on at first, but people changed their minds. So what? We could use being a bit more like the Japanese since they kick our asses in almost every FG out there.
It is stupid, but you guys are focusing on the wrong part of the post.
It is actually puzzling as to why the feeling from 3S went from ‘meh’ to “OMFG, this is the best shit ever”. What brought about the sudden change of heart? I think yungb hit the nail on the head by him saying the U.S. just didn’t know how the game should be played until evo2k2. After this it seems the proverbial cataracts where removed from the eyes of players, and people began to play it serious.
It’s sad though, that it took a whole country 3 years to figure it out and even then not on it’s own, but had to be shown. If US had played the game from day one I wonder if it’d be forever playing the “catch-up” game now?
