Street Fighter III: New Generation

About Street Fighter III: New Generation

Street Fighter III: New Generation (1997) is Capcom's CP System III sequel to Street Fighter II, which kept only Ryu and Ken, introduced parrying and stayed in 2D when rivals had moved to 3D.

Street Fighter III: New Generation in Depth

Two fighters trade attacks and special moves to knock each other out, with moves borrowed from other Capcom fighters: dashes and retreats from Darkstalkers, super jumps and quick recovery from X-Men: Children of the Atom, and new leap attacks against crouching opponents. Air blocking from the Alpha games is gone, replaced by parrying: tapping forward or down at the exact moment an attack lands deflects it without damage, even from special moves and Super Arts, and leaves the attacker open to a counter. It demands precise timing.

After choosing a character, the player picks one of three Super Arts, each with its own gauge length and number of stocks, and special moves can be cancelled into them. Characters can be hit into a turned-around state, which lets throws be comboed. The new cast is led by the American grappler Alex, joined by the British boxer Dudley, the Kenyan capoeira fighter Elena, the ninja Ibuki, the Russian Necro, an escaped test subject of Gill's organisation, the hermit Oro, Ken's would-be apprentice Sean and the twins Yun and Yang. Gill, leader of a secret organisation, replaces M. Bison as the boss.

Making Street Fighter III: New Generation

Production began in 1994. Street Fighter II producer Noritaka Funamizu, tired of the series and watching 3D fighters like Virtua Fighter rise, wanted a new game, but Capcom stayed with 2D sprites and built the CPS-3 board to show more colours. Producer Tomoshi Sadamoto worked on a game called New Generation, and Yasuda suggested Ryu; Ken was added later, while Ken and Chun-Li were passed over in favour of an original cast. Yasuda proposed a ninja, who became Ibuki, and Elena grew from an idea of "Yuki in Africa", after model Yuki Uchida. Each developer tuned their own character, leaving the balance uneven, and Hugo slipped to the follow-up, 2nd Impact. Funamizu explained that 3D was "not really suitable" for head-to-head fighting and that Capcom lacked the techniques for good 3D graphics.

Capcom announced the game in March 1996 and showed it that September. Game Machine named it Japan's most successful arcade game of March 1997, but critics such as Next Generation and GamePro praised its graphics while finding little innovation, and it did not become a hit like its predecessor. 2nd Impact followed in 1997, 3rd Strike in 1999, and the Dreamcast compilation Double Impact the same year.