When 3S came out I was 9, at first I didn’t like it. I can’t point out the exact reason but a number of years later I went over to one of my buddies houses(I think I was 11 or 12) and we were playing a bunch of 2D fighters Mortal Kombat Trilogy, SF Alpha 3, CvS and MvC2 and then we popped in 3S for the Dreamcast and I fell in love with the game. So I’m just going to chalk up my initial dislike for 3S to being a dumb ass kid that didn’t know what was what back then.
Now at age 17 I can really appreciate how advanced and how high quality 3S is. It wasn’t until about two years ago that I played the original SF3 that I realized how much work Capcom put into making 3S the technical game that it is. I’m not sure why 3S wasn’t accepted into American arcades right away and is now one of if not the most popular fighter out there. However I do not think it has anything to do with Americans wanting to be more like the Japanese. It might just be a case of the grass being greener who’s to say? All I know is if you like whatever game it is you like why does it matter what other people think?
Oh God, I could go on for hours about the early history of 3S in America. To simply put it, I was like the 1 out of 2 American players interested in 3S on a competitive level before 2k2 that didn’t live in one of the following locations:
Texas
Nebraska
California
New York
Anyways, as such I was very verbal about my disgust in the lack of interest in 3S back in the day to the point where I, along with some others, got into lengthy (and sometimes not so friendly) discussions as to why it should/shouldn’t be featured in Evo/APEX/Big tournaments/whatever with the likes of inkblot, DreamTR, and company.
Do you really want to know, in a Cliff Notes kind of way, what changed America’s outlook on 3S as a competitive game? [media=youtube]pIXG6resxD4[/media] during the Evo 2k2 3S invitational tournament. What people saw during that match blew their minds, made them curious, and literally generated enough interest that 3S became an open event the following year at Evo 2k3. The rest is history.
I am more like Pinion, I played around a couple years ago, because I thought it looked cool, nothing more, never really played it competitively. Just casually, so we all have our histories.
Well I don’t know how was back in the day in cali, but here in the ATL we always played sf3. From next gen to 3rd strike. That’s before there was a shoryuken.com. I was never on the computer looking up combo vids or tournament vids back in the day. I was at the arcade handing out ass whoopin’s to anyone that put their .50 in the machine. The problem in atlanta, ga was 2nd impact wasn’t in the arcades, so the hype died down in the arcades until 3s came out. Actually it started when I left for college.
I went away for college in south carolina when x-men COTA and alpha 1 was released, so I never got hardcore into the marvel or alpha series. No one played capcom games in SC. All they played was MK2 and Madden. When I returned back to the ATL I heard a rumor of sf3 being at a mall arcade in north atlanta. Looked for hours for this arcade and when I found it I was hooked for life on sf3. "Arario’s arcade" was one of the 1st arcades in the Southeast to have sf3 next gen. It didn’t even have endings.:lol: But we still played it until they kicked us out of the mall,
I started to think about running some tournaments around the city to boost the scene around the atl up in all capcom games. At this time Tekken really started to take over in the ATL fighting game scene. Streetfighter was on the downside for 2d fighters and arcade scene as a whole. EVERYONE AND I mean everyone was playing Tekken or some type of vs. game. 1st it was X-men vs. Streetfighter, then came the rest. (MSH vs.SF), (MvC1), (MvC2). I know why cvs became so popular when it 1st droped. It was what 2d gamers ALWAYS wanted to play. To see who would win or who is the strongest characters in 2d fighting world. Was it capcom or snk? I have a friend that is a diehard snk fan(Had the neo cart system when it 1st came out) and we would always talk shit about who would win/be better if they were in the same game.
We as an ATL fighting game community dog the shit out of sf3 next gen–> 3rd strike for years, but none of us was apart of the srk/irc capcom world at the time. The only way I knew other people played and enjoyed the same shit I do around the nation was to open a tip’s and tricks mag and read up on tournaments that happend 4 months ago around the nation brought to you by "jason wilson". I had to read about tournaments like ECC, MWC, B3(Battle By the Bay)
and I said to myself why can’t we have a national tournament like that around these parts?
I think it took the community a while as a whole to realize how good the sf3 series was. Me and my crew wasn’t one of those people that look up shit on the internet to learn how to play. We played in the arcade and took our lumps the old fashion way. I’ve always had some sort of sf3 at my tournaments and i’ve been running tournaments for 13 years now. Me and my crew also wondered why 3S wasn’t as popular around the scene as mvc1 and cvs.
Once I started to throw bigger tournaments (FinalRound) I made it a point to have some version of sf3 in the mix. The problem was capcom fighters was at a transition period when xmen vs. sf was released. A whole new batch of kiddies was unleash in the arcades when that game was released. I remember it like it was yesterday, because the older people I use to play stop playing while me and my friends became the older guy’s playing against the kids. I stop playing the vs. games at mvc1. I just wanted to play sf3, but the community around the ATL was only playing mvc1 and tekken. I personally think MvC2 is this generation version of SF2 for capcom fighters. I see alot of kids that started playing mvc2 1st and then branched out to other capcom 2d fighting games. Someone told me that if I don’t like mvc2 then i’m not american.:looney:
I don’t think we are trying to be like the japanese. I think the japanese realized how good the sf3 series is and we were late on the bandwagon IMHO. We were in love with our american superhero’s fighting game that we forgot about the roots for all 2d fighting games. The root/foundation of 2d capcom fighting games is and always will be Streetfighter. Not alpha, not vampire, not a vs. game. It’s streetfighter. I think most of the community forgot about that during the mvc1 and cvs1 era and carry over into the mvc2/cvs2 era. But once people started to play it they see how good the sf3 series is they all came back.
I’ve talk to plenty of people over the years while running finalround and alot of them started playing mvc1 or mvc2 as their 1st capcom fighting game. Now you know that makes me feel old as fuck. Also most of the people started playing seriously on home consoles, not in the arcades like I did. When the dreamcast came out mvc1 and cvs1 were released on console before they hit the arcades in the USA. Also arcades were dying all across our great nation, so people played what they had. It didn’t hurt that the marvel and cvs games were popular has hell at the time. The 1st time I played 2nd impact was on the Dreamcast. Hell, I prefer 2nd impact because it feels more like a traditional sf gameplay wise, but it’s by far the dirtiest sf3 ever made. Characters are too f’ing strong IMO. It reminds me of SF2 hyper. People that like capcom 2d fighters finally appreciate how good sf3 was made.
After playing all of these games over the years and to see sf3 3rd strike and sf2 superturbo still being played as major games throughout the nation is not showing that the usa gamers are japanese nut riders. It shows that sf3 and sf2 are still the STANDARD IN 2D FIGHTING GAMES PERIOD!
Personally, I didn’t get into fighting games hardcore until 2004. Like, I dabbled in them a bit with my Saturn and Dreamcast, but nothing serious; just mashed with my friends when we wanted to play a fighter.
When I decided to choose a game to start off with, I tested them all. 3S was just the easiest to learn out of the bunch, and it gave me almost instant gratification over the other games I tried out. This impacted my decision greatly. The fact that 3S competition is almost guaranteed wherever you live/travel is nice too; the same can’t be said about other game’s communities. So really, for a 2004-inducted gamer, it was compeition + ease of use that really sold me on the game.
I personally never had access to a Street Fighter 3 cabinet, whether it was New Generation, 2nd impact, or 3rd Strike. The only time I got to play SF3 was when one of my friends got a DC around 2001 and found a downloaded a copy of it. From there, I’ve wanted to play the hell out of that game.
I think you have to look at ups and downs of the Street Fighter franchise. After many installments of the same game with tweaks here and there (CE, HF, Super, ST), the average arcade player got tired of it. And when SF 3 came out, arcades started to do go downhill. Now, you may have been one of the lucky ones where your arcade always had the latest fighting game, but everywhere else, people only had access to two or three fighters, which probably were 3D games such as Tekken 3/Tag and probably MvC2, and even worse, some people had no arcade to go to since a lot of them started closing down. Hell, even SHGL closed down, no?
I think the rise of 3rd Stirke’s popularity is not because people wanted to be like Japs, but because of the internet’s capability of spreading the word with visual representation (ala match vids). People start seeing 3rd Strike and are like, “damn, I want to play this game”. Even though Japanese have the majority of 3rd Strike matches out there, I was still more inclined to play 3rd strike after seeing Pyrolee play Yun. I also think its because of the Cannon brothers’ dedication to sanction a real competitive scene is a good reason why 3rd Strike got big.
I starting getting into 3S before I knew about Japan or the US. I always liked the older SF3s when I was younger, then randomly in around 2004 I went to an arcade and saw how good Toronto was at 3S. After realizing how different the game was than I thought I kept playing. When I found out about Japan’s liking for it I started enjoying the game even more knowing it was respected on an international level. The fluctuations in the US scene for 3S hasn’t changed my opinion on the game and never will. It’s great that a lot of Americans like it, but I don’t really care about why. The fact that they support the game is good enough for me, whether they genuinely like it or they’re emulating Japan. Everybody has their owns reasons.
thank you for seeing the point behind the post… it is sad when i take the time to actually write that i respect 3S players and mean no ill-will, yet some posters still get their panties in a bunch while missing the point completely.
this is probably the 3rd or 4th thread ive made in over 6 years posting here because the way this game came into popularity genuinely baffles me. having said that… i would love to hear from some of the players that took place in the original usa vs japan tournament to hear how the 3S scene in japan was compared to the usa circa 2000. i think the juxtaposition would be very interesting and might shed some light on how/why it took time to explode stateside.
thank you for taking the time to write that and for running FR(i remember attending when it was held at a house in north atlanta way back when). down here in savannah,(not too far from you) the local tilt got SF3:NG right when it was released. everyone seemed excited to finally be playing street fighter 3, but the general consensus was that it felt too clunky and didnt have the smooth gameplay of the sf2 series. the owner of the arcade took it down after maybe 4 months and put mvc1 back on the big screen. now that i think about it… this might have something to do with why the arcade release of 3S was pretty thin compared to the distribution of other capcom games.
… did the shortcomings/failures of SF3:NG and 2I lead arcade owners to believe an updated version of a failed game wasnt worth investing in? interesting.
Actually I belive japanese are good at marvel they just play with different characters, and please trust me that you should never underestemate Japanese players in marvel regardeless of how they might have played in the past.
One of the reasons the Japanese don’t play Marvel(at all, actually) is because of the brick wall of the tiers, and how (some of) their preferred characters just straight up suck, or are harder to make work. In the other games(I’ll use 3S), even the bottom tier can be a threat at high level with enough time invested. In Marvel, thanks to the team dynamic, and the excessive advantage an 8-way airdash gives most chars, the guy that thinks he can get somewhere with Gief/Sonson/Ken can only go so far before the above two points kick him in the teeth.
A handful of the hopefuls I’ve talked to here in Okinawa have said the same thing, the chars they like, while they like what they can do, they’ve realized that they can’t bypass a certain level. I think it’s been said many times that Cable/Sent can shut down like, 70% of the cast by holding ub, calling drones and randomly shooting in the air/tossing grenades, and waiting for an AHVB shot. I’ve seen some absolute beasts even here(who quit and disappeared when 2 of the 4 remaining Marvel cabs disappeared) who lose to my simplistic, 2001-era Storm runaway and Sent stomping.
But whatever, in the end just play what you like, and if you don’t want to go tourney level, then don’t apply yourself.
recently i introduced a friend to 3s. he played only sf turbo on snes, loved it and he was very good at. his reactions:
damn, what happened to the cast?
you know, an ugly guy with one arm and a gay looking bodybuilder in a string, are not really a good excuse to leave out everyones favorites like blanka, guile or claw. poor character design.
wow this game is fucking slow.
what? jazz music in streetfighter? where are those catchy tracks, like ryu, ken, guile or boxer stage?
after only 5 mins he wanted to stop playing it. i think this really shows that old veterans really didnt know what to do with that game and there was not enough motivation and interesting details.
then i showed him some vids, that showed 3s in full glory. top players, close matches etc.
after seeing what is possible he was really interested and now he loves it.
same thing with japanese really showing how to play it to the rest of the world
Also, MvC2 isnt in SBO. Even games that were super popular and played a ton just simply arent played as much if there’s no promise for it to be in a major tournament. There’s no major MvC2 tournies in Japan, hence the lack of people playing it. Its not like they CANT, cause if they wanted to get good at it, they could, but they play the new stuff, and stuff that’s not going anywhere (like ST or 3S), hence why there’s such a huge amount of fighters coming out in japan all the time. All of them trying to get into SBO cause even crappy games can get into SBO and then forgotten the year after.
Japan played marvel, then moved on.
X-Sapphire, you make some good points, but just cause someone is thinking about stuff and posts it on a forum doesnt really relate to why they would suck. Its not like i spend every waking moment playing a game, i post about it too…and really, you can only learn so much without another person there to play against.
I was one of the people that like 3rd Strike because it was 3rd Strike. I liked the animation, I liked the music, there was nothing about the game I didn’t like. This happened in like 2001/2 when the game first came out on Dreamcast. It wasn’t until probably a year or 2 after that that I realized the game had a real tournament scene and that there were these crazy good Japanese players regularly playing the game. The Japanese definitely did inspire me to get better at the game but they’re not really the reason why I wanted to play the game.
I simply wanted to play the game because I had seen the older SF3 games in the arcades and though they were cool. The animation to me was awesome and the characters didn’t come off as dumb looking like some of the people who are used to the art style from the the older games. I really liked Ibuki especially and also messed around with Alex and Ken. Alex was cool to me because he was supposed to be the main character of the game but played nothing like a normal main character in a fighting game. The music was definitely more hip and by that time I was already into hip hop and electronic music. The first time I heard Ibuki’s theme and then heard the track interchange in the second round…I was hooked. I just simply liked the game.
Actually…I kinda liked the fact that 3rd Strike started out as a game that no one really cared about. For me it was cool to like something that no one else did. Which is why I am as into the game as I am now. It’s a testament of what happens when a game that everyone scoffs at for years gets the recognition it really deserves. It was fun to be a part of that growing process of 3rd Strike where it was tough to even find people to play the game with or learn strategies from. People talk about riding the 3S bandwagon but at one time there was a time where the few people that did like to play the game didn’t really have a whole lot backing them. If a game that you cared about for a long time but everyone else didn’t all of a sudden becomes the biggest fighting game in the US…hell yeah you’re gonna keep playing it.
I liked the game the first time i played it but I had never played a game competitvely way back then so I didn’t know any better. Also, no one else wanted to play, people only wanted to play Alpha 3, Capcom vs SNK, and Soul Calibur. But even then the people I played were not that good.
I think I have a unique perspective on this, I moved in 2000 from Austin to Los Angeles. Talk about day and night! I went from a scene where the ONLY game was 3s to a scene where more people played A3 and ST! It was so weird, at the time a few folks played 3s but none very seriously, even Valle didn’t seem to like the game very much and I was really surprised how much the game was disliked for being a “scrub game” and too “turtle friendly”. I moved back to Austin in 03 and expected 3s to be dead in Austin like it was in LA and it was still the only game anyone played… Austin is a weird town. But it was nice to move to a new town and own people with my scrubby Hugo.
austin is a great place man… the 512. yet another oddity about this game; how some off the wall locales decide to make this their “offical” game(austin and nebraska come to mind).
… a little side note about austin… i had a friend from high school move out there and basically be homeless(which worked because she was cute with big tits)… she claimed that she made more money panhandling in austin than at most jobs she has had in her life due to the generosity, coolness of the ppl there… which is saying a lot seeing as she has a degree from ga tech in international buisness. just thought you might find that interesting:)
I say that because half the 2d fighters in us history are the vs series.
So, we played those kind of games and liked them.
The Japanese have had dozens of more games in that time and because they take their games so seriously like a sport, they play only the most perfectly balanced games availaable. Thats basicly their criterion for a good game.
Its a good criterion too, but being happy with what we get I doubt americans in general have developed the gourmet sophisticated palete for 2d games like the japanese. I think japanese just like to take a simple formula, and play it at high a lvl as possible. Its very like japanese culture, strict, balanced, sensible,and not prone to risky behavior. Very opposite of the vs series.
Plus, 3s is boring. I can see why it didnt take off in '99. Everybody was used to the vs series and this “remake” comes out with small combos and slow gameplay.
Americans definetley werent pousing(?) to be japanese. I dont know why ever to do so in the first place. The US jumped on 3s after that ass kicking at b4 for one reason. Competition.
The japanese kicked our ass so we say there was a huge hill to climb and conquer. The arcade scene was dying too, and new 2d fighters were not coming around all that often. So 3s was there…why not play it.
:looney:
