Street Fighter fans can unite knowing that this slick port is Arcade Perfect!
What we have here is an high definition version of the fan favorite, that not only manages to please at the basis by including the arcade experience with the infamous bugs patched out, but we also get a bunch of features that enhance the experience and make it better.
First off, the game has several single player modes. There's the arcade mode, which is expected, and then there is the training mode, which comes in normal and parry training, a mode built especially for practicing the feature exclusive to Street Fighter III. You can program the dummy within a wide range of actions and even record up to 60 seconds of the dummy for practicing your parrying and strategies against. Training mode resets every time you enter the pause menu, but the game loads practically instantaneously.
We also have trial mode, which includes character specific trials, parrying trials, and handicap trials, all of which help you to better learn the fighting engine. Since there are no input shortcuts and parrying is very precise, these trials are very intense, the perfect training for any player. The combos that you have to perform are recommended and some of the most effective, both introductory and advanced level.
Multiplayer is a blast, with all of the staples of modern online fighting games, such as quick matches, spectating in lobbies, tournament modes, leaderboards, and a replay channel, allowing you to upload any match you played online to Youtube and the Server, where people can upvote or downvote the videos.
The multiplayer is run on GGPO, which means that most matches are almost entirely without lag. It's like playing at an arcade, you can play with your buddies online and without regrets!
This is all packaged in with the added features of challenges, which also encourage practicing. When you complete a challenge, you earn a set amount of points, which can be spent in "the vault" to unlock art, music remixes, and character endings. The challenges can be viewed from the main menu and also displayed in a sidebar during matches.
Other fun features include dip switches and access to all of the difficulty settings, allowing you to manipulate the rules of the game (for local matches only); this is a feature used in arcade cabinets as well. Go ahead, turn off jumping.
You can also set your controls from the character select screen and unlock the character colors from the other versions of Street Fighter III.
The display settings come in widescreen, stretch, a normal sized setting with borders, and arcade cabinet, which makes the game look like it's being played out of one of those old arcade monitors at an appropriate angle and behind layers of plastic (I thing that arcade cabinet is mostly a novelty though).
The visuals can be put through a filter, to make the sprites look smoother or more crisp and detailed. You can even enable the scan lines that the old CRT monitors at the arcade had, if you want a truly nostalgic experience, and I actually like this feature for some reason.
Overall, we have the most arcade perfect Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike experience in this home version. It is as comprehensive as it possibly can be because Capcom went out of their way to please all of the fans. Sure, there are a few minor bugs that could be ironed out, but any lack of features within the game is made up for with all of the features it does have.
Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition is a must-own for every fighting game fan. For fifteen dollars, you'd be crazy not to buy this game.