Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Is 25 Years Old Now

25 years later, this game still breathes.

It is almost a month since Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike reached its 25th anniversary.

The game is the second enhanced port of Street Fighter III: New Generation which originally launched in 1997. After the end of the Street Fighter II or the Street Fighter Alpha franchises, M. Bison and his Shadaloo organization are out of the picture (until Street Fighter 6).

While the game was popular, Street Fighter III didn’t have the luster of either Street Fighter II (which cemented Capcom’s as the genre’s standard bearer) or Street Fighter Alpha. That changed when Capcom introduced Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike and it f–king CHANGED everything.

The developers modified current game mechanics while introducing new game mechanics.

One of those new mechanics was the “Guard Parry” where players could parry during a Guard Stun.

A “Judgment System” was also introduced which graded you after each match. I always received low grades whenever I played as Twelve.

The game introduced five new characters to the roster.