Customer Reviews

Street Fighter III Double Impact

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Street Fighter III and its sequel, Second Impact, were the last Capcom fighters I genuinely got hooked onto, before the hyperactive, button-mashing "Vs." series took over and I lost interest (moving on to Tekken and Soul Calibur). But this was way back around 1997, and I'd been waiting for SFIII to get a proper home-console release ever since.

Suffice to say this was, aesthetically and mechanically, a very well-designed game. Moving away from the Alpha and Vs. series, air blocking has been eliminated, replaced with a much more skill-oriented option, the parry, which requires very good timing and reflexes to pull off. The parry option makes the battles much more uncertain -- in one tournament one player has been known to turn the tide by parrying 14 hits of the opponent's super art move, and then retaliating. The new style of drawing, which is more like U.S. comic books (contrasty, shadowy, distinct lines) than manga (the animation style of the Alpha series), is very nice to look at, and controls were some of the tightest in Street Fighter history. And the game is well balanced -- there's no overpowered character like Wolverine or Ryu in Marvel Super Heroes, or Adon in Alpha 3, which means that skill counts for more than button-mashing or endless air combos. I once lost a game using Ken against a master at Hugo, one of the "alternative" characters, but I also routinely beat Ryu fanatics with Sean (weaker version of Ryu and Ken), so there aren't any novelty characters like Dan or Juni (Alpha 3) here. Every character is equipped with strengths and weaknesses that don't tip the handicap drastically. So even after three years, I still love this short-lived but well-designed series, and its appearance on a home console was long overdue.

Forget the fact that this game doesn't contain a wealth of different play modes to choose from, hundreds of unlockable characters or life-like 3D graphics. What it does have is a fighting engine that has been refined over the years, and the result is perhaps one of the best ever. If you're the sort of player who likes to simply mash buttons and watch the results, stay away. This is the sort of game that rewards skill, and defeating a veteran player takes more than dumb luck. An arcade stick will complete the experience (and is highly recommended, as the standard Dreamcast controller isn't the best match for this game.) Yes, it would be nice if there were some extras included (ala Street Fighter Alpha III), but this arcade-perfect port can stand on its own quite well.

[This review is from an adult gamer's perspective] Whereas Street Fighter Alpha 3 is like a fully-optioned, competent sedan, Street Fighter III:Double Impact (SFIII:DI) is like a manual-shift sports car. SFIII:DI does not have a world tour or survival, or three-player modes like Alpha 3. What it does have is surprisingly tight gameplay and graphical sophistication.

You'll have to know how to handle these beautifully animated characters without falling back on excessive "safety" moves and "super" moves as in the Alpha series. And the new characters are fun to play as well, from the one-armed 140-year old Oro to the US brawler Alex (my favorite, he's fast AND very powerful). Ryu and Ken are here again but they're mostly the same old with new animations. Alex is the new focal point of the series, but the storyline also continues to emphasize Ryu as the one with most skill.

Another note to make is that the 2 games on the disc here are actually somewhat different. The first SFIII has ten characters and weaker music, and it has less moves to perform. BUT, it has awesome animated backgrounds! There are actually three different backgrounds for some characters, one for each round of a normal 3-round fight! The newer SFIII variant has superior gameplay and sound (and four more characters) but the backgrounds were toned down--too much--in animation and variety. The two SFIII's together make for an awesome 2D fighting package.

DTWhite

I've been a veteran of fighting games for over 15 years now, and every new incarnation of Street Fighter gets me excited, even though the series is older than dirt. When Capcom finally learned how to count to three, they went in pretty much the right direction. The new characters were a long time coming, and though most of them aren't very "Street Fighter-esque", they're unique enough to keep the series interesting. Fans of "old-school" fighting games will get a kick out of it, as well as those who enjoy the million-hit aerial combo madness of Capcom's "vs." series and just want to calm down for a bit. Double Impact contains both the original Street Fighter III and 2nd Impact (the only real differences between the two being the backgrounds and a couple new characters), but you'll probably want to go with 2nd Impact anyway. If you want an honest opinion, though, just wait until September and get Third Strike. You'll get all the same characters as 2nd Impact plus four new ones (including Chun-Li!) and some more new features. The character animation won't be as good (for some reason they rushed Third Strike out in development), but it's not bad enough for you to notice much. Gameplay, graphics, and music are all there from the arcade version on all counts. If you're a fight fan, you'll dig it, but like I said, unless you're a complete Street Fighter nut and simply have to have them all, I'd wait for Third Strike.

Calling Street Fighter III the third game in the Street Fighter series is just plain silly. Let's face it. Between all the Alpha games, all the vs. games, and all the "upgrades" to Street Fighter II, we've seen more games in the past decade bearing the name Street Fighter than we've probably needed to see. The journey to game number three has been on a long hard road. Every time anyone hinted at the possibility of an SF3, it always turned out to be another offshoot of the Street Fighter line. Well, Capcom has finally graced the world with its "third" Street Fighter, as well as two upgrades to the game, Second Impact and Third Strike. The arcade releases of the Street Fighter III games have been met with mixed reactions. Many people were disappointed that only Ryu and Ken made it to the third game (though Akuma was added in Second Impact, and Chun-Li is in Third Strike), and the new characters just didn't seem as interesting as Guile, Dhalsim, and the rest of the SF2 gang. Others couldn't get over the slow game speed - after years of playing games like Super SF2 Turbo and Street Fighter Alpha, many players felt that going back to such a slow speed made the game seem like it was stuck in the mud. The game did add a parry maneuver that, when mastered, really changed the face of the game. Parrying an attack caused the attacker to seize up for a brief moment, leaving plenty of room for a counterattack. But even with this bit of innovation, many people stayed away from the game entirely or simply didn't feel like learning the styles of the new characters. As a result, Street Fighter III Double Impact, which contains both the original Street Fighter 3 and the Second Impact upgrade, may find a larger audience on the Dreamcast. Street Fighter III eschews the more cartoony art style - found in, say, the Alpha series - and strives for a slightly more realistic look. Since the arcade game ran on Capcom's CPS3 hardware (all the other recent Street Fighter games have run on the older CPS2 system), there are many more frames of animation to be seen. Elena is, of course, the best example of this, as she is constantly moving around in all of her stances. Unfortunately, Elena's fluid animation makes the rest of the characters seem a little stiff by comparison. All in all, the game appears to be an excellent port of the arcade version, with absolutely no waiting for things to load between rounds or fights. The arcade version's sound has also been well duplicated. Controlwise, the game plays as you would expect a 2D Capcom fighter to play. So you may not want to use the default Dreamcast controller with the game, as the L and R buttons are definitely less than optimal. There are a couple different controller choices on the market, our favorites being Agetec's joystick and the ASCII Fighter Pad FT, which is only available in Japan. Both of these controllers make playing Street Fighter III a much better, and in the case of the joystick, truer-to-the-arcade experience. While including both the original SF3 and Second Impact is a nice touch, Second Impact is a much more refined game, and you won't really be going back to the original game very much at all. Also, it would have been nice to see this package include Third Strike and become a trilogy of sorts, rather than release Third Strike on its own. There is definitely a lot to Street Fighter III. If you're one of the people who has shunned the game since its release in the arcade, you may want to give this collection a chance. Since you won't be paying per play to learn the game's new characters, it's easier to just jump into the game and start messing around. You just may be surprised. However, you may just want to wait for Third Strike, which is currently available in Japan and is releasing here later this year.

This game is fun. I haven't played SF for many years and this is the first time playing since the SNES. I love pulling off combos with Ryu, it brings back memories. I was however expecting something more with the graphics. I have a VGA box and maybe this is why the characters look so pixelated. I expect this on an earlier console, but on the Dreamcast? The animation is not bad but it would've been nice to see these characters in high res. I think this could be attributed to the space restriction on a GD-ROM (1 GB). Or maybe Capcom just didn't want to for cost purposes (?) So all in all, this is good street fighter fun, but with low resolution graphics which does not look like the arcade in my opinion.

I reviewed this game below and gave it 4 stars. My only gripe was the contrast in res between the background and the sprites. Well i later found out that a vga box enlarges those poor sprites up to 640x480 res, which they are not meant for. The result is blocky sprites. But not on composite video (tv). So I got myself an RF adapter and when I played it on tv, even s-video, it was wonderful. Really cool arcade translation. Thank you capcom! I give it 5 stars.

Not at all, for those who know games and know graphics, this has some of the smoothes graphics you could ever see in a street fighter game, or in any animated fighting game, the art reeks of someones hard work everytime you see it. This game is not like Marvel vs Capcom 2, its not cheap, it has specials but they dont do much damage, to pick Akuma in this game highlight Sean and press up, that easy! This is a great simple fighting game, actually 2 games in one, but I thought I would get alot more from each game the only thing I got from one game was some characters taken from the other, other than the character difference I couldn't notice much difference between the two expect maybe the speed, but regardless this is a pretty good game and I think all SF fans should get this one.

I have to say, this is definitely an evolution to Street Fighter. Very direct, requires skills rather than flash to get through each stage. Even at a not so difficult setting, this game's a challenge. Definitely not for those that want high-hitting combos and out of control graphics. Gameplay is a bit slow compared to Marvel vs Capcom series and the new Tatsunoko vs Capcom, but but it has its own style and appeal to true Street Fighter fans.

I've waited so long to actually play this, as I haven't played Street Fighter III in a very long time. The wait was worth it.

This is a great, nostalgic 2D fighting game that still have some life in it in my opinion. I prefer Street Fighter III 2nd Impact over Third Strike. I'm not sure what it is, but it just feels like a better game overall. If you are a hardcore 2D Street Fighter fan, owning this game is a requirement to complete your collection.