When Capcom released Street Fighter II in the arcades in the early Nineties, it revolutionised the fighting game genre forever. By the end of that decade however, the gaming landscape was looking very different. Arcades were on the decline as technological leaps in hardware meant you could essentially have arcade-quality experiences at home. 3D graphics also gave rise to 3D fighters like Virtua Fighter, Tekken and Soulcalibur (a trend Capcom admittedly also tried to capitalise on with spin-off Street Fighter EX with less success). Taking this into account, Street Fighter III, another sprites-based fighter didn’t feel like the evolution of the series that many hoped for when it made its arcade debut in 1997. So how did its third iteration beat the odds becoming fondly remembered as one of the greatest 2D fighters of that generation?
The arcade scene may have been on the wane, but not long after the 1999 launch of 3rd Strike, or to give its full title, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike – Fight For The Future, was also the birth of Shoryuken.com, named after the iconic Street Fighter special move. The success of SFII had been instrumental in creating a tournament scene where highly competitive communities were organising tournaments at their local arcades, but now there was a website that became a dedicated forum to the genre, where the fighting game community (referred to as the FGC going forward) was formed not just in the US but worldwide. To look back at 3rd Strike’s legacy, we spoke to former editor-in-chief of Shoryuken Adam Heart, now a game designer at Iron Galaxy Studios, developer of 3rd Strike, and veteran professional fighting game competitor Justin Wong, famously on the receiving end of the game’s most iconic moment.
