Home

 › 

Articles

 › 

Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition Review for PlayStation 3 (PS3)

Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition Review for PlayStation 3 (PS3)

The Best Version Of Third Strike Yet

If you are a fighting game fan, you’ve probably played Street Fighter III: Third Strike at some point. Well, its new re-release, Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition, doesn’t actually change anything in the mechanics. Parries still work just as they ever did, Ken, Chun, and Yun still dominate the tier lists, and EVO Moment #37 still stands out prominently in our minds. So I’m not going to spend too much time on the fighting system; instead, I’m going to talk about the new features that Online Edition in particular brings to the table. Since it’s called Online Edition, let’s start with the online modes first.

Third Strike Online Edition uses GGPO, a netcode that treats fighting games a lot like first-person shooters. Instead of waiting for both players to synch up and introducing button delay to compensate for lag, GGPO runs two completely separate versions of the game on each player’s console. It takes “snapshots” of the game at each frame and compares them. Should the snapshots not match up, the game corrects itself and then continues on. It’s essentially a “rollback” system, and it does a magnificent job of hiding lag. Since each copy runs independent of the other, your combos and timing online are exactly the same as your combos and timing in real life. To this day, I would say that GGPO is the best solution to fighting game lag, and that makes Third Strike Online Edition one of the best online experiences in fighting games to date.

Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition Screenshot

But only the hardcore will notice things such as two-frame latency issues, so let’s talk about stuff that casual players will notice. The game has everything you have come to expect from an online suite, from ranked matches, lobby matches, and tournaments to spectator mode and leaderboards. It even gives players the ability to watch popular replays and upload their own replays to YouTube. If you are the type of player that drools over earning achievements, Online Edition has you covered. There are a series of challenges that must be completed in online matches. You can see these challenges update as you play matches, and successfully completing these challenges earns you “vault points” which unlock things like concept art, music, and movies.

There are also a number of single-player challenges that can be completed through the arcade or training modes. There is also a new “trials” mode which provides you with two sets of five challenges based around parrying (with the final being the famed Evo moment #37 itself), one set of challenges based around handicapped messages, and one set of combo challenges for each character. These are awesome new additions, and completing them earns you vault points. However, once again Capcom has missed a golden opportunity to add a well-thought-out tutorial to a popular game.

Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition Screenshot

There is a wealth of information about Third Strike available on the net, and Capcom has included none of it in the game. The trials only teach you how to parry very specific moves and how to combo totally out of context. There’s nothing about correctly choosing when to block and when to parry, universal overheads, mixups, poking, or any of the skills needed to actually be good at Third Strike. So once again, new players will come into this game hoping to learn what Capcom says is the best Street Fighter they ever made, only to get stomped on by veterans over and over and over again without any tools to get better. I hope Capcom eventually realizes they will never attract new players to their fighting game franchises without actually teaching them how to play.

Online Edition’s training mode, on the other hand, is much better than its trial mode, and caters to the hardcore crowd. Not only do you get all the training options you got in the initial release of the game, you get a host of extra recording options as well. For example, you can record a pattern of opponent behavior, save the game state, and drop yourself into that pattern halfway through in order to teach yourself how to deal with it. There is also an extra “parry training” mode as well, in which you are able to control an opponent while your character parries everything with the exact timing needed. Then, you can play back what you did exactly and attempt to parry it yourself.

Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition Screenshot

The rest of Online Edition’s changes are purely aesthetic, but they’re still a treat. You can play the game using a number of different visual filters in order to make it as smooth or pixelated as you like. You can toggle scanlines on and off, bow the screen to make it look like an arcade cabinet, and even turn widescreen on and off.

The music has also been totally updated, with brand new themes for menus, character select, and stages. The game defaults to modern themes for the menus and classic themes for stages, and you have to spend vault points to unlock the rest. You should do this right away; the rap themes for the menus and character select are incredibly annoying. (They even rhyme the word “one” with itself. Several times.) Switching back to classic is the way to go. Meanwhile, the new remixes for the stage themes are an absolute treat to listen to. They put a new spin on themes we know and love, and they sound way better than the classic Third Strike music (even if they aren’t as nostalgic.)

Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition Screenshot

I don’t honestly think that Third Strike Online Edition will grandly revive the Third Strike community. There are too many good fighting games out right now and too many great ones coming up to get people too hyped about Third Strike again. However, this is easily the best version of Third Strike to ever come out. It’s great for nostalgia purposes, awesome for side tournaments, and a wonderful way to spend a night with some of your old fighting game buddies. It will make you better at the game than you ever were, and will allow you to test your skills against players on the Internet. It can even make you an Internet celebrity if you luck out and upload a popular replay.

The game doesn’t do much for newbies and won’t hold up very long for casual players, but there is one sort of person who should get Third Strike Online Edition: those who have played Third Strike in the past and want to play it again. Luckily, that’s a pretty huge demographic.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 3.2 Graphics
The filters don’t do much to help really, but the large number of animation frames Third Strike originally had still holds up today. 4.7 Control
I have to agree when Capcom says that Third Strike is the best Street Fighter ever. 4.2 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
Other than the new menu themes, the remixed stage music is an absolute treat to listen to. 3.3 Play Value
The allure of Third Strike will fade quicker this time with so many new fighters coming out, but being able to play online with your friends makes this a solid purchase. 4.1 Overall Rating – Great
Not an average. See Rating legend below for a final score breakdown.

Review Rating Legend
0.1 – 1.9 = Avoid 2.5 – 2.9 = Average 3.5 – 3.9 = Good 4.5 – 4.9 = Must Buy
2.0 – 2.4 = Poor 3.0 – 3.4 = Fair 4.0 – 4.4 = Great 5.0 = The Best

Game Features:

  • Upload your favorite replays to YouTube.
  • Practice parrying difficult block strings.
  • Play online in ranked matches and tournaments.
  • Practice combos in trial mode.
  • Featuring all new art and music.

  • To top