Tucked away in a small corner of Capcom’s booth covered by all the glory that is Street FIghter X Tekken, I found one of my favorite fighting games of all time. Street Fighter III 3rd Strike. What is it doing at E3 you ask? Why it’s getting an XBLA/PSN release. Many of you may have forgotten but Capcom announced Street Fighter III 3rd Strike Online back at San Diego Comic Con 2010. But is it worth your time?
Well, to put it simply. No. That’s not to say SF3 is a bad game, in fact it’s probably the best in the series. The XBLA/PSN versions are a waste of time. Capcom promised updated visuals and robust online play. Unfortunately, the transition into HD wasn’t good to SF3. While the colors were very bright and clear, it’s easy to see that Capcom did little work to port this over to HD resolutions. The 2D sprite models appeared overly stretched out with a distracting amount of jaggies. While in motion, the game looked like a mess of colors on screen. Still images don’t justify the game’s horrendous transition into HD. Gameplay wise, it still plays like a dream, and that all that Street Fighter fans want. This one is definately only for the hardest of the hardcore Street Fighter fans looking to compete onlne for bragging rights. $15 is too steep of a price to justify a purchase for the casual fan.
Who knows, maybe the art in it’s current state will be cleaned up the time of it’s release and a ton of new features will be announced. But currently, go find a copy of SF3 for Dreamcast or PS2. Or play it online by other less legal means…
