Fluid controls,extra characters,tag team mode for this enjoyable Street Fighter game.
The controls feel a lot more fluid than in the first 2 SF EX games,making special moves easier to do.
The tag team interchange feature is done by pressing a single button,and characters who have been substituted heal when they're not fighting.In the main mode of gameplay named original mode(which is like arcade mode)the characters you defeat will be allowed to become your team mates and occasionally you and your tag partner will fight against other teams of opponents,and the game encourages you to learn how to use every character effectively,because they could end up being your tag team partner.
In original mode,you'll select 1 character to start off with and you are ganged up upon by 3 other fighters and you must defeat them all(but they only have a slight amount of health)and after you defeat all 3 of them,you'll get to choose which one of the 3 characters that you've defeated that you want on your team.You can have a max of 4 members on your team.I like how instead of choosing 4 characters for your team right at the start,it makes you recruit the characters you defeat(it keeps things feeling more random and encourages you to learn the fighting styles of all the different characters).
You can still choose to fight alone if you wish(and some fights make you fight multiple CPU opponents one at a time,or it makes you fight them all at once,and you can still choose to go against them alone if you wish.Sometimes,the CPU team you'll fight against might be a team of only 2 characters,and you can fight against them with a team of 3 characters(and if you want to make things more even,you can only select 2 tag team characters for the battle or you can fight that fight with just one character if you wish).
The demonic entity,named 'Garuda' who was a tough,cheap opponent in the previous SF ex games returns as an opponent you'll face,but you can fight against him with a CPU controlled team member(to make things more fair and interesting).
When you fight Sagat,he will fight you alone,but you can have a tag team parter,or fight him alone if you want a challenge.
You can use 4 team mates to team up against the final boss who is M.Bison,but he is so easy,even on the hard difficulty.The CPU opponents are so vulnerable to crouch kicks and jump kicks(even on hard difficulty).If you want to make CPU opponents challenging,you can handicap yourself and not use crouch kicks or jump kicks.
I can't remember which characters are in this game,but I this this game added new characters to the roster,including some favorite classic SF characters such as Vega.
The graphics are ugly compared to other PS2 fighting games,but this is one of the first PS2 games,and they were still learning how to use the PS2's hardware.And keep in mind,this game was released in 2000,when many gamers were still playing games on the Playstation 1 and this game looks better than most Playstation 1 fighting games.
There is still nice water effects,and forest,Stongehenge(In Scotland)and many nice looking environments with good amount of detail and in 3D.
When you win by using a super combo,you'll see a Buddha pop onto the screen and it adds a nice,oriental feel.
You'll see lots of graphical problems though,such as how the characters start shaking when doing their victory stance.
But overall it's still a fun 3D Street Fighter game,with fluid controls but some problems too.