Street Fighter III - What Happened?

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As much as I adore SFIII, I still lament the loss of that CPSIII Darkstalkers sequel. Darkstalkers' animations would've looked insane on that hardware.

I feel bad for a lot of sprite-based games in the later half of the 90s. Being outshined by the appealing new third dimension, right as sprites were hitting their peak. I don't mean to disrespect those early 3d games, and I'm usually not the kind of person to laud which "aged better" or not. I'm just sad about it because I simply love spritework and it would take almost two decades for sprites to make a comeback in the gaming scene. We missed out on what could have been the pinnacle of early spriting until the indie scene brought them back.

What's interesting about the arcade situation is that, as a kid, I never would have been introduced to games like Tekken 3 had it not been for the arcade. I remember playing it in an arcade then rushing to the game store afterwards to buy a PS1 copy.

With a brand new year, we have a brand new What Happened. Street Fighter III started out as underperformer, but over time, with the additions of Chun-Li (that's always important), seeing what the game can do, and that sweet character art by Artgerm in 2011, now everyone will say... "Why don't they make Street Fighter like this again?"

SF3 is just so cool. All of the new things it tried, the music, the graphics, even those "freaks", it was all so good and I think it really set it apart from the rest of the series.

We need a What Happened for King of Fighters XIII. Explain to people why it played a big part in the downfall of the company and how the graphics were actually achieved.

I have to agree New Generation was kinda lackluster, but to be fair, Alpha 1 was fairly weak too. Fortunately both series lived to see sequels that vastly improved their formulas. Third Strike and Alpha 3 are two of the best fighting games of all time, with Double Impact and Alpha 2 being in the running.

I'm not gonna lie, I was one of those people who scoffed at SFIII at the arcade when it came out. It was a different era at the arcades and all of my friends, myself included, were preoccupied with the latest trend of 3D games: Tekkens, Dead or Alive, Cruisin' World, etc. It was a crazy time seeing the new technology, as they would roll out something insane every month, and Street Fighter was just old hat. Ironically, these days I use SFIII and Mark of the Wolves as my go-to gold standard for designing pixel art. Those teams were godly.

i gotta say, out of all the 2d fighting games Street Fighter 3 is the most visually impressive for me. the incredibly fluid pixel art animation is still top tier

You know, as a kid with little too no internet at the time of SF3... I honestly thought it was a myth. I remember hearing about it in Nintendo Power or GamePro magazines at some point, but never saw it in the wild. I had older cousins tell me I was wrong, and that SF Alpha was actually SF3. Since I didn't even end up getting a playstation, I didn't really follow the news if what games were coming for them, so after a while I genuinely believed them. I just thought oh maybe the article I read was like an early working title, because of COURSE you'd follow up with SF2 with SF3.

I am so glad you included the quote at 20:19 . I have never been able to fully articulate why Third Strike is my favorite fighting game, but that just hits the nail on the head. So many fighting games feel like you watch them as much as you play them, but every battle in Third Strike is its own unique beast, and therefore infinitely replayable.

3rd Strike is still awesome to me, and the soundtrack is🎤 🔥 . Even tho it didn't get the credit it deserved back then because of the competition, it aged well. It's good to know alot more people are starting to appreciate it today. 👊🏾🎮💯

I wish there were sequels in the same vein but I understand the animation workload was just too insane.

Just looking at 3rd Strike's animations, I cannot believe this game is soo damn old. It looks so modern and beautiful

I remember when Street Fighter II came out in 1991, there was a crowd around the arcade units, and you had to wait hours to play. When Street Fighter III came out, you could see at most one person playing. And those were the good days, as most of the time no one inserted a coin into the arcade unit. Everyone else was playing Tekken, Rival Schools, or King of Fighters 97.

Jeez the background art on new generation is crazy. I know Tekken 3 and VF3 looked pretty sharp, but SFIII has aged superbly in comparison

This is probably one of the most bittersweet "What happen" episodes ever.

Can't wait for a "Brutal Legend" episode of what happened!

Makoto's hair is probably my favourite part of SF3's animation. The way it flows and follows on action while being as short as it is, it's a masterwork.