is a 1997 fighting game in Capcom's Street Fighter series, originally released as a coin-operated arcade game. The sequel to Street Fighter II (1991), it initially discarded every previous character except for Ryu and Ken (hence the New Generation subtitle), introducing an all-new roster led by Alex. Likewise, a new antagonist named Gill took over M. Bison's role from the previous games as the new boss character.
Street Fighter III was produced for the CD-ROM-based CP System III hardware, which allowed for more elaborate 2D graphics than the CPS II-based Street Fighter Alpha games (the previous incarnation of the Street Fighter series), while revamping many of the play mechanics. Despite the popularity of 3D polygonal fighting games at the time, Capcom decided to keep this game in 2D; 3D graphics were instead implemented in the spin-off game, Street Fighter EX.
Street Fighter III was followed by two updates: 2nd Impact in 1997, and 3rd Strike in 1999. A single home version of the game was released for the Dreamcast in 1999 and 2000, in a two-in-one compilation titled Street Fighter III: Double Impact, which consists of New Generation and 2nd Impact. Street Fighter III received a mainly positive reception, but did not manage to be a hit like its predecessor; it was followed by Street Fighter IV (2008).
Gameplay Like its predecessors, Street Fighter III is a one-on-one fighting game, in which two fighters use a variety of attacks and special moves to knock out their opponent. The gameplay of the original Street Fighter III has several new abilities and features introduced. Some abilities are also taken from other Capcom fighting games, such as players being able to dash or retreat like in the Darkstalkers series, as well as performing super jumps and quick stands after falling from an attack like in X-Men: Children of the Atom. The game also introduced leap attacks, which are small jumping attacks used against crouching opponents. As well, the player cannot perform aerial guards like in the Street Fighter Alpha series, which are replaced by parrying ("blocking" in the Japanese version).
The 1994 fighting game Samurai Shodown II is often credited with the first parry system. The main new feature is the ability to parry an opponent's attack, by deflecting any incoming attack without receiving damage. At the exact moment an opponent's attack is about to hit his or her character, the player can move the controller toward or down to parry the attack without receiving damage, leaving the opponent vulnerable for a counterattack. Additionally, this allows the player to defend against Special Moves and even Super Arts without sustaining the normal minor damage that blocking normally would incur. However, parrying requires precise timing.
The other new feature introduced in Street Fighter III is Super Arts. This is a powerful special move similar to a Super Combo in Super Turbo and the Alpha games. After selecting a character, the player will be prompted to select from one of three character-specific Super Arts to use in battle. Like the Super Combo gauge in previous games, the player has a Super Art gauge which will fill up as the player performs regular and special moves against an opponent. The player can only perform a Super Art once the gauge is filled. Depending on the Super Art chosen by the player, the length of the Super Art gauge will vary, as well as the amount of filled Super Art gauges the player can stock up. The players can now cancel a special move into a Super Art, a technique borrowed from Street Fighter EX.
Among the elaborated sprites include multiple hit stun sprites, including a new "turned-around state," in which a character is turned around (his or her back faces the opponent) after being hit. Only certain attacks can put characters in a turned-around state, and grabs and throws can now be comboed, as it typically takes longer for an attacked character to recover from this new type of hit stun.
Plot
Characters
Ryu - As usual, Ryu seeks to better his skills and find worthy opponents. Voiced by Wataru Takagi in New Generation and 2nd Impact, and by Toru Okawa in 3rd Strike. Ken - As the current U.S. martial arts champion, Ken seeks to test his strength against his old friend and rival Ryu, once again. Voiced by Koji Tobe in New Generation and 2nd Impact, and Yuji Kishi in 3rd Strike. Alex - The lead character of the Street Fighter III series. He fights with close-range grappling techniques and powerful punches. His initial goal is to avenge the defeat of his friend Tom at the hands of Gill. He later gets defeated by Ryu in Third Strike. Voiced by Michael Sommers in New Generation and 2nd Impact, and Patrick Gallagan in 3rd Strike. Dudley - A gentleman British boxer who seeks to recover his late father's antique Jaguar convertible from Gill. Voiced by Bruce Robertson in New Generation and 2nd Impact, and by Francis Diakowsky in 3rd Strike. Elena - An African princess from Kenya who uses the fighting style of capoeira. She seeks to make new friends. All of her attacks use her legs or feet, even the punch button attacks and throws. Voiced by Kaoru Fujino in New Generation and 2nd Impact, and Mie Midori in 3rd Strike. Ibuki - An aspiring female ninja who is sent to retrieve the G File from Gill's organization. Voiced by Yuri Amano in all three games in the series. Necro - A Russian man who was kidnapped and experimented on by Gill's organization. He seeks revenge only to get trapped and barely escape later on. Voiced by Michael X. Sommers in New Generation and 2nd Impact, and by Lawrence Bayne in 3rd Strike. Oro - A seclusive hermit who seeks a fighter worthy to inherit his fighting style. He binds one arm while fighting, to keep from accidentally killing his opponent (except when performing specific special techniques). Voiced by Kan Tokumaru in New Generation and 2nd Impact, and by Takashi Matsuyama in 3rd Strike. Sean - A young Japanese-Brazilian fighter who becomes Ken's self-appointed apprentice. Voice by Isshin Chiba in New Generation and 2nd Impact, and Mitsuo Iwata in 3rd Strike. Yun and Yang - Twin kung fu experts from Hong Kong who are young leaders of their city.Official Street Fighter 2 2nd Impact Yun and Yang character biography (in Japanese): Family: Separated from his parents when he was a baby. His godfathers were eight bosses of the underworld, and he was raised by his grandfather who runs a restaurant in Shanghai. Now, together, the two are trusted as young leaders of the city. Personality: The older brother (Yun) is a bright and lively young boss type with excellent intuitive decision-making skills. The younger brother (Yang) is a calm and collected strategist type who helps his older brother with his insight and ability to see the big picture. Fighting style: Both brothers were trained by their grandfather in various Chinese martial arts. They use a series of quick techniques to kill their opponents' momentum and powerful thrusts to deliver a deadly blow. It is difficult to say which is better in terms of the sharpness of their techniques, but the older brother Yun (hat) has a momentary inspiration and uses a series of techniques like the wind to knock down his opponents. The younger brother Yang uses a series of techniques like the swell of big waves to draw his opponents into his own pace and defeat them. While the two brothers are head-swaps, their move sets are identical and they share the same slot in the player select screen, but Yang was given a separate moveset and slot in 2nd Impact. Yun was voiced by Koji Tobe in New Generation and 2nd Impact, and by Kentaro Ito in 3rd Strike. Yang was voiced by Wataru Takagi in New Generation and 2nd Impact, and by Masakazu Suzuki in 3rd Strike. Gill - The leader of a secret organization which seeks to turn the Earth into a utopia. He can manipulate fire and ice. He is the final opponent for all the characters in New Generation and 3rd Strike, and for most of the characters in 2nd Impact. Gill is only playable in the console versions of the series. Voiced by Bruce Robertson in New Generation and 2nd Impact, and Lawrence Bayne in 3rd Strike.
Development On March 27, 1996, Capcom announced that Street Fighter III was in development during a meeting in Tokyo. They later stated that development took more than two years. Production at Capcom started in 1994, and was initially planned to be an original fighting game unrelated to the Street Fighter franchise. Street Fighter II series producer Noritaka Funamizu felt fatigued with the franchise due to dwindling sales on home consoles, and the emerging 3D fighting game market thanks to titles such as Virtua Fighter. Capcom, however, insisted to stick with 2D sprites for their games, and to this end started development on the CPS-3 arcade hardware to support higher color counts for said sprites. When executives at the company pushed for a follow-up to II, Funamizu declined as he wanted to develop a new game. At this point, producer Tomoshi Sadamoto began working on a game titled New Generation. Capcom character designer Akira Yasuda felt that the game's roster lacked personality. Additionally, he asserted the company was likely going to turn it into a Street Fighter title, and suggested pre-emptively to add that franchise's protagonist Ryu to the roster. He proved correct, as the game was retitled Street Fighter III: New Generation.
Though several other characters were also initially considered for inclusion from the Street Fighter II roster, particularly Ken and Chun-Li, the development team instead chose to focus on a mostly original cast. This proved some difficulty for Sadamoto, however, as he felt most of the designs were not as well established as those in II, and had particular difficulty in creating female character designs. Yasuda suggested to make the first female character a ninja, stating "Ninjas are cool!" While this led to the creation of Ibuki, another idea suggested was to introduce a character that was "Yuki in Africa" based on model Yuki Uchida. Yasuda designed the character, leading to the creation of Elena, which helped solidify the development team's vision for the rest of the game's roster. As development progressed, Ken was later also added to the roster. Meanwhile, when choosing a protagonist, they selected an American character, Alex, as they felt martial arts were more popular at the time in America and wanted to target that audience.
The finalized cast, however, still proved difficult to create. Yasuda continued to work on the character designs, attempting to stay within Sadamoto's design constraints unlike previous games where he made the design choices more directly. In an interview with gaming website Polygon, when asked if in retrospect the game would have done better if it had not been a Street Fighter title, Yasuda stated while he liked some of the characters, "if I had to change the past, I'd rather just not have worked on that game at all". Meanwhile, Capcom's North American branch's design support for the title, Chris Tang, expressed shock at seeing the new character designs once they were revealed, with the character Oro in particular causing him to question if Yasuda had left Capcom. Other issues arose from a lack of software support to develop for the CPS-3 hardware, and the amount of detail the higher resolutions demanded of the designs. Character balance also proved an issue, as unlike other Capcom fighting games, each developer was in charge of fine tuning their own character's gameplay, resulting in some feeling more suitable for Street Fighters gameplay, while others felt more in line with Capcom's Darkstalkers fighting game franchise. The long development caused one planned character, Hugo, to be delayed until the game's follow up title, Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact.