(read with umineko project. you're making a grave mistake if you don't do that. god i feel bad for the og/steam fans)

after reading higurashi i was expecting this to pretty much faceplant, crash, burn, and shit itself in every way possible at some point. but somehow ryukishi got his act together and actually executed his ideas... pretty much perfectly?

sure, i'd be lying if i said i loved every second (a CERTAIN detective drives me up a wall, among a few others) and the pacing can definitely be WAY too sluggish at times, but i also would be lying if i said i cared much at all by this point

yeah, you were all right

this game fucks and cums. i couldn't think of a good way to start this review so i just decided to go with that. there's no subtle way to go about this: third strike is a game with a shitload of style and swagger, and it rules for being such a remarkably and uniquely presented game.

in terms of changes, it doesn't necessarily feel like a lot was edited to III's formula going from second impact to third strike. the 5 characters added round out the cast to a solid 19, and there's a lot of winners here (i ADORE twelve, love gayboy remy, and this entry made me become a makoto main). i think any potential issues i had with the past two entries' cast were a tad overblown, but still, it's great to have these additions and get a fuller and more fleshed out roster. this fighting game has the best ratio of characters that i want to main relative to the cast size; you're telling me i want to use 25% of the cast? you must've done something right in the design stage. characters here are visually appealing, aesthetically distinct, and fun to play as.

there's really something to be said for the fact that even though this roster isn't quite as big as say alpha 3's, it feels brimming with creativity and personality. maybe quality is in fact more important than quantity when it comes to these casts. we only have 4 returning SF characters here, the other 15 are all distinct characters that feel very well-defined. on a gameplay level, a lot of these new characters buck established SF archetypes too. sure, remy has similar specials to guile, but he's got much lankier normals and a much taller sprite, so he plays fairly distinctly from guile. nothing here feels recycled or reused, and in that sense, this is probably the most innovative SF game and maybe even fighting game of its time.

visually, i'm saying nothing new when i tell you that this game is eye candy. the animations, much like in the past two games, are extremely detailed and add personality to these characters in small yet important ways. but i think of all the left turns the street fighter series could've taken, the soundtrack of third strike is one i'm nearly positive most wouldn't have anticipated. III's OST gets completely overhauled here and goes in a direction that fuses hip-hop, drum and bass, and house. and it works incredibly well, in one of those ways where it feels like a natural progression of both fighting games and street fighter. i don't give a shit what dunkey says, the rapping in this game is great and there's not a single misstep in this OST. this genuinely might have taken the spot of my favorite fighting game OST of all time, but that's something i'll have to marinate on.

before i played this game at home, i played this game in the arcade, both growing up and as an adult. it captured my attention in a way that very few fighting games ever have, and, sitting down to analyze it, it's clear to see why. there are so many fine touches and refinements here that all cascade into a joyous experience. when i played this game for several hours at the arcade, i was playing it because it was providing a delight on a visual, aural, and visceral level. there's an argument to be made that if you only ever play one fighting game in your life, it should be this one, and it's a very convincing one.