I just bought the Street Fighter Aniversary game (PS2) a couple days ago (Sept. 2), and I must say, I was rather disappointed with Street Fighter III. There is an absurd amount of ridiculous characters in the game; I had no idea what was going on. Before someone says this thread should be somewhere else, I actually have something to say relating to the comic. When the Street Fighter comic goes into the SF3 timeframe, I think I’ll be forced to drop the comic. I didn’t think I’d ever say it, but I don’t think I’d be able to buy any kind of story for these outrageous characters. Hopefully they’ll just cut them out and focus only on Ryu, Ken, and Akuma (my favs). Anyone else agree?
Nope. Some of us are fans of the entire Street Fighter universe rather than just Ken, Ryu and Akuma.
well if you want to Learn more about the Characters just read the Plot Guide.
http://orochi.com/sffaq/characters.html
Oro
Street Fighter 3 Double Impact: Oro enterred the tournament to find worthy opponents. He fought Ryu and defeated Ryu, but was very impressed by Ryu’s fighting ability and very intrigued, too. He didn’t show up for his battle with Alex. He is now pondering about how much potential Ryu has, and he wants Ryu to meet that potential so he can have a worthy opponent [Official].
Street Fighter 3 Third Strike: For her ninja graduation exam, Ibuki tracks down Oro and challenges him to a fight. Oro is so dissappointed! He thought Ibuki was there to ask him out for a date, instead!
Oro’s boredom has reached the limit. Oro has accepted many students, but most of them are unworthy and can’t endure the practice sessions. Then one day, a rumor from the outside world reached his ears. He hears about the mysterious organization and Akuma. He decides to leave his cave for the outside world and uncover the rumors himself [Official]. Oro has been sensing some powerful ki for some time. He finally tracks it down and finds Akuma! Out of curiousity to see how powerful each other is, they fight [Official]. Third Strike dialogue indicates that the fight was more just to see each others’ strength than anything serious, so there probably was no death matching.
Oro is pondering how the only one who seems to have the potential and is worthy enough is Ryu.
Miscellaneous Facts and Notes
Oro is VERY VERY powerful, storyline-wise. He has voluntarily magically bound and sealed his arm in order to give his foes a fighting chance, and he himself hasn’t even bothered training actively for the past fifty years, yet he is still a strong contender who was able to defeat Ryu.
You can see him unbind his arm in his three hidden EX super arts. Oro breaks the seal on his arm for all three of his EX’ed Super Arts. When you EX the Tengu Stone super, he stretches both of his arms out to the side to summon larger objects. When you perform the Kishen Tsugi (EX Kishen Riki) Oro grabs the opponent with both arms. Lastly, when you perform the Yagyou Daikon (lvl 3 Yagyou Dama) Oro uses both arms to unleash his gigantic ki blast. Also, if you defeat your opponent with the Yagyou Daikon, Oro performs a special victory pose in which he uses both of his arms to draw and encircle himself in sphere of ki (Clay’s description).
Like Akuma, Oro has achieved his great abilities (such as living to such an old age) through sheer training and focus, for the most part. It seems, however, that time is finally catching up to him which is why he’s seeking out a student to be his successor.
Akuma and Oro have never met each other until Third Strike, though they’ve been able to sense each others’ ki before then (because both are so powerful). This would be why Oro feels like he’s met Akuma in his win quote against Akuma in Second Impact, though of course it’s not until Third Strike where they have a storyline mid-boss battle against each other and thus meet for the first time. It was mainly just Oro and Akuma recognizing each other’s style that they’ve been sensing for so long, but not being impressed by each other then deciding to rough each other up, a little.
In addition to a worthy opponent, Oro wants one who is worthy of Oro passing down his style to before Oro passes away and that style is lost, forever. As you can see, he chose Ryu to be that one.
Oro is over one hundred and forty years old. Senjin means ‘aged person’, by the way.
He’s a hermit. Of course. This is why such a powerful guy as Oro wasn’t noticed by people like Gen or Akuma, despite how much Gen and Akuma were looking for worthy opponents. It was only recently that Oro decided that he must find a successor. …my opinion is that Capcom simply is making an excuse for how deus ex Oro is (just like the majority of Street Fighter 3’s plot, IMHO) but ah well. No biggie 
Supposedly, the magic seal on his arm isn’t very selective, and randomly switches to the other arm while Oro sleeps. At least, that’s what I’ve heard. I also believe that Capcom announced that his arm’s magic bound switches to the other arm in the middle of battle sometimes to explain why it’s on his left then on his right depending on the direction he’s facing in, but I’m not sure about that, either^^; And that still doesn’t explain why everyone else becomes a literal mirror image when they face the other direction in the SF universe >:P
No way… Actually, I might even say I’m lookin’ forward to SF3 the most.
So you’ve never played SF3 until the aniversary edition? Have you been living under a rock?
Thanks for your guys’ opinions; it appears I may be in the minority here.
SenorDD - I had never played SF3 until a couple days ago (aniversary edition). I was the type who had played a lot of SF2 when I was a kid and pretty much quit gaming after Nintendo 64 (with the exception of StarCraft and Unreal Tournament on the PC). I don’t remember exactly when I found out about there even being a SF3, but it was rather recent (probably within the last year).
Besides the characters, some of the gameplay, the look, and the music/sounds of SF3 really bug me. It could be perhaps I’m just used to the feel of SF2?
I don’t care much for any storyline, the fact that there are so many outrageous looking characters kind of awe me. When I got to the final stage (Gill), I thought, “what the hell is this?”
I’ll give SF3 more time; maybe my opinion of it will change. But I doubt I’ll be playing SF3 more than Hyper SF2.
By the way, out of curiousity, what systems has Street Fighter III been released on? I don’t have a local arcade here and I don’t remember hearing or seeing SF3 on any consoles (with the exception of the PS2 released a couple days ago). I don’t think I’ve ever seen the game advertised either.
-Kent
It was released on the dreamcast.
i personally really like street fighter III which i’ve been playing when i got the japanese version and its a great, yet hard game to get into and master. mayb as its because its ur first time playing it and you wanted it to be a sort of upgrade to “super street fighter II”. the system is fun to use, with the added parrying/tech instead of zero counters and the different super arts and EX moves. i say give it another go and definately try playing with some friends of urs after practicing teching and intimidate them by teching their fireballs everytime.
characterwise, i felt the same way you did at first as i didn’t know the storyline and i didn’t know alot of the people apart from the usual ansatsukan guys and chun li
don’t lose hope kentdog
I do kind of agree with you KentDog.
I am in possession of Street Fighter 3 Double Impact and Third Strike on the DreamCast and when I get an X-Box I intend to get Street Fighter The Anniversary Edition. Over here the PS2 only has Hyper Street Fighter 2 The Anniversary Edition, not the full collection in other words no Third Strike.
Some of the character’s do bother me, Oro was originally one of them but he is one I can accept, Urien and Gill are others that I have learnt to accept but only because of their storyline. But Gill’s underlings Necro and Twelve (well Oro too really but as I said it doesn’t bother me so much) are better suited to the DarkStalker’s realm imo. Still it wouldn’t be enough to put me off the comics.
Here’s the SF tier list just for fun
Tier 1 Akuma, Gill, Oro - the strongest three out of the SFer’s.
They outclass everyone. These guys are in the godly range. Oh, and SFA3 M. Bison probably goes here, too.
Tier 1: This tier should be obvious. Gill, especially, with his fire and ice creation, angel powers, and his last boss towering status. Akuma should be, too. By SF3, the guy can destroy mountains, islands, and stay in deep ocean for crying out loud. And Oro beat Ryu in the SF3 tournament, and that was despite being handicapped by binding his arm. The guy’s become powerful enough to live to 150 years or so… I won’t go into a deeper analysis due to how obvious this tier is. Who specifically is the best among Gill, Oro, and Akuma is up in the air, but eh, tiers aren’t supposed to be THAT specific. Bison during SFA3
probably went into this range, also. Being able to take on Ken
and Sakura at the same time (only forced to retreat due to Ryu coming to), then Rose, then all 13 Dolls, then Guile, Chun-Li, and Charlie has got to say something
Tier 2
M. Bison: Akuma can beat him in SF2. Whether Akuma could have beaten him during SFA3 where he was stronger (and Akuma was most likely weaker), not sure, but in his last state, he generally goes here from all KNOWN factual evidence (unknown stuff like how he lost the SF2 tournament or even if he DID since we don’t know when Akuma killed him aren’t being considered here since… well, it’s unknown). He’s definately high up, though. His weakened body wasn’t weakened to the point where he’d really really plummet in the tiers, and during Alpha 3 it took a rather ludicrous amount of consecutive battles against multiple opponents to finally take him down.
Ryu: Seen by Oro as the one with the potential to be trained, generally considered a legend (see Makoto’s statements about him), whomped Alex easily in Third Strike, only lost the SF3 tournament because he went up against the godly Oro and even then impressed the old guy, etc etc. This one should be pretty obvious.
Evil Ryu: A major point of Ryu’s SFA3 storyline is that he could follow the path to warrior perfection without giving in to the Satsu no Hadou. Even though Evil Ryu was really high up back then, the reason regular Ryu is on the same tier is due to Ryu’s revelations since then. He has now managed to reach what he could have been had he given in. Generally shown by Ryu promptly telling Akuma that Satsu no Hadou is not the way in SF3. Er… yea. It’s mostly implied as far as I know, but the implications are more than enough to place the two into this tier with enough certainty.
Sagat: Although he was too obsessed with revenge and unfocused during Alpha, by the end of Alpha 3, he has realized the error of his ways and is now on the path to the true warrior. All statements and storyline implications from there on are that Sagat is matching Ryu step for step in progress as they await their glorious battle, so it’s really easy to tier Sagat here. Note that this is Sagat in his most present state, not most present state since when he was last seen in a game, since unlike other characters, it’s easy to estimate where Sagat is even without seeing him due to all the statements and implications.
Q: Q is marked as ‘hinted’ because there’s no way to really gauge his tier, what with him having no interactions with anyone else in the storyline. But he’s robotic and can somehow zip around the world, and those are typically always powerful, and the effects of his moves sure look darn powerful. So as a guestimate, he gets to be in this tier. Though again, it’s mostly a guess.
Tier 3
Rose: She’s M. Bison lite. She’s the only character in Alpha that was actually able to give Bison a somewhat decent match one-on-one. But… she still lost, so she’s a tier lower. Rose could put up a fight against Alpha Bison (well, actually, she WON in Alpha 2. Only ‘lost’ in Alpha 3) while Chun-Li got owned for free in Alpha 2, and since there really isn’t much to indicate that Chun-Li improved THAT much since Alpha, Rose gets to be a tier higher. Chun-Li only started being called the strongest woman in the world since SF2, after Rose was gone.
Ken: Ryu states to Ken in SF3 that he still has the better win record. But the way he says it indicates that it’s still pretty close. Thus Ken gets this tier. Pretty obvious, I think.
Gen: I think it’s hard to decide whether he’s in tier 2 or tier 3, but he’s definately up there. Gen was able to fight Akuma to a standstill in Alpha, after all. He’s definately not as good as the further trained Akuma of SF3, though (Gen of course being most likely unable to further train because he’s most likely dead). I’d be really surprised if he (and thus even Akuma during that time) was as strong as “I take on tons of people by myself” SFA3 Bison, so… generally tier 3 for him. On a random note, Gen uses ki in his attacks with lots of skill. It’s just not as obvious as Akuma (not all ki usage manifests as fireballs or something visual).
Charlie: Charlie is the US Martial Arts champion. Took down Bison in SFA3, albeit with a little help. What mainly puts him here with certainty instead of circumstantiality though I believe is how he’s better than Guile (even SF2 Guile). Charlie’s ki manipulation is implied to be right up there with Ryu and other top-notch fighters. He can shoot sonic booms from any of his limbs, even his feet (something that Guile needs LOTS of concentration to do. It takes Guile two hands and officially stated all his focus just to throw one sonic boom). Since Guile, at least based on what we can think of, comes into the tier below, and Charlie is definately above Guile, even without the circumstantial evidence, we can generally place Charlie in this tier.
Urien: Like Gen, I’m personally not sure if he should be in Tier 2 or Tier 3, but he’s up there. He’s better than Chun-Li (he’s only toying with her in SF3 Third Strike after all) and definately lower than Gill (Gill doesn’t even have to take him seriously and his power compared to Urien’s is one of the many things Urien is jealous of, of course). Anyways, Urien’s abilities include earth and lightning manipulation and an iron body (as part of his earth manipulation). He’s blinded by jealousy, though.
Tier 4
Guile: Most likely winner of the SF2 tournament. If you decide to ignore that, then there’s also the way in how he’s storyline-wise more interwoven and more ‘important’ than most of the other SF2 characters, and they typically get favored in the storyline power tiers. And I believe he’s meant to be the same power as Chun-Li, but I forget^^; Whatever the case, he’s been training really hard since SFA3, though Charlie in SFA3 was still most likely better than him (see Charlie in Tier 3 for reasons). He isn’t progressing any more because he gave up fighting after SF2 to be a family man.
Chun-Li: Weaker than Rose but after Rose died then come SF2, is called the strongest woman in the world, thus gets to be above the other female characters in the next tier. That was easy. …er, going further, Chun-Li isn’t any higher because she quit the ICPO and generally retired from fighting and training after SF2 (course, after SF3, she trains OTHERS, but that’s another story). Anyways, Capcom has stated that she’s the strongest woman in the world during SF2, so it’s not just the opinion of the SF tournament audience (or whatever) that she is.
Hugo: Actually rather surprising he’s up here, but all the facts point to it. Hugo is officially stated to have withstood the shin shoryuken against Ryu, which is officially stated to be one of the most powerful moves in the world, so right there you know he’s a really strong guy. He is also officially stated to have made ‘an amazing performance’ in the SF3 tournament, which probably means he’s generally above the majority of the SF3 characters (he lost the tournament due to going up against Ryu, of course. Oh, and to those who think Hugo is all stamina and nothing else, I highly doubt he would have been stated to have made an amazing performance if he didn’t at least put up a somewhat decent fight against Ryu. So no, he’s not just a big punching bag with lots of endurance). As for who is better, Hugo or Alex, well, Hugo withstanding the shin shoryuken means that he probably put up a better fight against Ryu than Alex did. He withstood an attack that officially could kill someone (Yea, Ryu’s style isn’t designed to kill, but that doesn’t mean it can’t kill due to the sheer damage alone) compared to Alex, who Ryu didn’t even break a sweat fighting against. That would probably earn him a tier spot higher. Ryu still beat him somewhat soundly, though, so he’s definately not up in Ken’s tier. Note, though, that many of these tiers are at best, educated guesses and estimates. Maybe Alex made a huge comeback after Ryu was beating him (the fight wasn’t completely finished in Alex’s TS ending) but from all available evidence, this is the best that can be estimated.
Vega: Cammy’s love-hate rival is generally better than her, and almost positively let her win in their fight in SFA3. Therefore, Vega’s a tier higher than Cammy. Easy. He’s also a better fighter within Shadaloo than Balrog, I believe (not sure if it was officially stated. I think it was, but I forget). He doesn’t go any higher because that would place him on Gen’s level, which seems pretty darn silly. Capcom doesn’t go around praising his ability like they do for Charlie. Course… a harder more definitive proof might just be simply that Rose beats him in A3.
Twelve: Again, there’s lack of storyline interaction. But Twelve officially feels no pain, and he can morph into other characters, so he’s probably up there somewhere. He’s at least tier 5, because all lab reports from Gill’s organization indicate that he should be superior to Necro in every way (not that that means it’s fact, but it’s the best thing to go by so far. Course, you never know how far ‘spirit’ could go, I suppose).
Tier 5. Everyone else who managed to cut it.
Guy and Cody: Hard to tier, IMHO. They can beat Sodom and Rolento, obviously. They can also beat a whole bunch of the Mad Gear gang, but it’s important to remember that they did not fight through Final Fight alone and also that it’s wholly possible and likely that the SF universe follows the laws of anime (IE, any generic bad guy is really weak and easy to beat up by most any semi-important character), thus the fact that they can take out most of the Mad Gear scrubs isn’t a very good gauge, either. Guy, even though he is a Bushin master, is still equal to Cody even during SFA3, though, so we at least know they are on the same tier. But storyline-wise, neither has ever really gone up against any of the really high tier Street Fighter characters, so this is the best guess we can get to place them unless more comparative info ever comes in. Actually, though, after getting Juni’s official power ratings that she scans in SFA3, I’m thinking that Sodom, Rolento, Guy, and Cody are probably a lot higher than this. Probably around Charlie’s level during SFA3, actually.
Adon: Strong enough to beat Sagat in SFA2. Sagat may have been unfocused, but he was still powerful. There aren’t many other matches to use to tier him with hard core certainty, but beating SFA2 Sagat and being the new Muy Thai Emperor should be enough to give him this tier.
Sakura: She’s better than Karin. It’s officially stated that her chi manipulation is equal to Ken’s during SFA3. The girl’s ridiculously gifted and able to learn Ryu’s moves just by watching him. If Sakura continued training on and on after SFA3, she could really be something. Unfortunately, since SFA3 was so incredibly long ago, and Sakura’s future still highly up in the air (highschool is really a bit too early in life to get that hard a bead on one’s future, I think), the tier can really only go by her last seen position (unlike Sagat, where it’s shown that he’s still in the game after SF2 and his determination to stay on level with Ryu is further emphasized). Anyways, Chun-Li is the strongest woman in the world so Sakura is below her, regardless. Oh, and judging from SFA3, she can beat Honda, so she gets to be higher than him.
Balrog: Can kill an elephant with his bare hands. Generally among the top fighters in Shadaloo (not sure if it was officially stated, though I think it was… it’s implied, at least) and thus higher than the Dolls. Oh, and judging by SFA3, he beat Birdie. Probably weaker than Vega, so here he goes. Even if he’s an idiot, he’s still armed with ‘the world’s strongest punches’…
Cammy: She’s better than the other Dolls but weaker than Vega. …wow, that was easy.
Zangief: A bit hard to tier, but being implied to be Russia’s greatest warrior should account for something. He’s better than R. Mika (it seems he goes easy on her in SFA3 and all), and R. Mika is most likely better than Dan, so Zangief gets to go here. On a random note, I have no clue where Haggar (or any other Final Fight exclusive character, really) fits in, here. Even Cody and Guy, who weren’t exclusive to only Final Fight, are hard to tier. Can’t even decide whether or not Haggar is on Zangief’s level because the two never even met in person, after all, so there’s no interaction to use to compare.
T. Hawk: He can beat (and most likely actually has beaten) the Doll Noembelu. …another easy one.
Dhalsim: Loses to Ryu (at least, implied by one of Ryu’s SF3 win quotes). A bit hard to tier, but he’s been going around doing lots of good things for the world and has that fire power granted by the gods and such. There might be more that I should poke Saiki for, but overall, this is a pretty good guess, I think. He retired from fighting after SF2, by the way.
Alex: Alex is better than all the other SF3 characters (besides heavy hitters like Ryu and Oro, who he never had to fight) as can be seen by him winning the SF3 tournament. However, he’s still not really that high up since Ryu beat him VERY easily in Third Strike. Thus he only gets to be a tier higher than where the other SF3 characters go. He’s below Hugo even though they never fought because Hugo actually put up a fight against Ryu.
Tier 6 The Twelve Dolls, Rolento, Sodom, Karin, Birdie, Necro,Dudley
Tier 6: All the characters listed have been stated to beat other skilled people, even if none of them were actually non-nameless goons. Or… something to that effect. The twelve Dolls are each stronger than each of the other 2000 skilled martial artists in Shadaloo (They aren’t called elite for nothing), Rolento and Sodom rise above all generic Mad Gear members to be bosses, Karin loses to Sakura but still puts up a good fight so she’s probably only a tier lower, Birdie fought hard enough to impress Bison in order to join Shadaloo (and thus is also probably above the other 2000 skilled martial artists. Eh, he got to be playable and get a name while they didn’t :P)… Necro is implied due to all his genetically enhanced abilities that probably give him an edge, and Dudley beat lots of guys in his boxing career to earn money to buy his dads’ things back.
Tier 7 Blanka, Fei Long, Honda
Tier 8 Makoto, Ibuki, Elena, Yun, Yang
Tier 9 Dee Jay, R. Mika, Dan
Tier 10 Sean
And TiamatRoar’s list is missing Remy. He belongs in Tier 8 IMHO.
Are you implying that the characters in SF2 aren’t ridiculous at first glance? O_o
Yes. I think the only SF2 character that can be considered ridiculous at first glance is Blanka, but his story is somewhat believable in my opinion. Either way, I grew up playing Blanka, so I don’t mind.
Other than Blanka, the stereotypical characters (T. Hawk) are lame and I’ve never liked them, but they still have a better lineup than the SF3 characters.
-KENT
What the hell r u talking about? First, you bitch about how ridiculous the characters look and that you don’t care for storylines, but you tolerate Blanka (whom you deemd ridiculous) 'cuz his story’s “somewhat believable”? Christ! Just shutup!!! Don’t talk anymore!
Hey Kentdog, just give the game some more time, the characters will grow on you. I was only about 14 when SFIII first came out, and I felt the same way initially (I had difficulty accepting the “weird” characters I hadn’t grown up with).
However, I love the line-up now. No, its not the same character quality as SFII, but they are great in their own way. Just play as them for a while and they grow on you.
SFIII has a great line-up and serious comic potential. Don’t be so quick to pass judgement on it just yet. I’m not bashing or flaming you in any way, and if it seemed like that I apologize.
It takes a while to get used to the SF3 character rooster, as stated. A lot of the chars are like “WTF” but after you use them and know their “character” they are just as good as the OG SF2 chars. I personally don’t like the newer SFA3 chars, but that’s just me. I’m very VERY looking forward to the 3S comic.
URIEN!!! GET READY TO DIE!!!111111111111111
thanks alot sagatryu for your story line wise tier list.Do you have a snk story line wise character tire list?
I agree with MangaManX Kentdog.For example, people who were fans of ST1 had the same reaction when SF2 first came out, but they gave it a chance right? and look at it now. 
Yeah, when SF3 came out more than anything, I missed the familiar faces and the interesting story.
The Alpha series created so much back story. I was in shock when SF3 came out. “What the heck? Who are all these people? What the heck happens to Shadaloo? etc?”
The characters themselves aren’t bad when you get used to it. You just have to get over the initial shock that everyone you knew and loved from the other series (besides the shotos that weren’t even supposed to be in the game and chun-li).