Third Strike follows on from Double Impact, which is the second iteration of the SF3 franchise, and both distinguish themselves from the first by virtue of expanded character rosters, new or re-drawn backgrounds, bonus levels and slight tweaking to cancels and the throw move. Third Strike's selection screens are quite a disappointment, with very flat character rosters and little animation to speak of. Although this is possibly a deliberate move on Capcom's behalf to keep the game as serious and functional outside of combat as could be deemed reasonable, their drabness in the face of releases such as Capcom Vs. SNK is still a (minor) shame: as any enlightened person knows, you can be attractive and have depth at the same time - the two aren't mutually exclusive. That said, most players will be drooling over the range of characters on offer and ignoring the backdrop. The selection certainly isn't to be sniffed at, as there are eighteen fighters to choose from: returning from previous Street Fighter games are Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li and Akuma/Gouki, but the rest are all-new to SF3. New specifically to Third Strike are Remy (a 'charge' move character), Q (a iron-masked man in a trenchcoat who, again, uses 'charge' moves), Twelve (a morphing character which plays like a more well-rounded Shuma Gorath) Makoto (a Japanese girl who uses a slow but powerful form of traditional Karate) and, of course, the returning Chun-Li.

Makoto is a fabulous character who, going against the usual Capcom grain, is reliant upon combining special moves in order to cover attacks from any angle, instead of jumping and/or dashing to re-position and counter-attack. Chun-Li works wonderfully well, too. Accused by many of being too fast and overpowered in the Alpha/Zero series, here the trade off between her speed and power levels is balanced perfectly, her air throw essential and her fireball reduced in effectiveness to make her the great fighter she always used to be. Completely re-drawn, Chun-Li finally has the flowing and attractive fighting style always only alluded to in the past, with fluid, acrobatic movement (that is both vicious and balletic) setting her apart from the crowd. Special mention must be given at this point to the animation - it is, bar none, the greatest seen in a 2D fighter to this day. Garou: Mark of the Wolves by SNK comes close, and Guilty Gear X (by developer Sammy) on Dreamcast and PS2 has a higher resolution, but for sheer number of frames SF3 wins hands-down. Costumes ripple with the fighters' respiration, every punch and kick can be traced from contraction to extension, and even such things as hair and finger movement whilst crouching are afforded major attention.

Playing the game, you can quickly see how Capcom have approached the development: the shedding of the Alpha/Zero heritage is true in all but basic structure, it adds dashes and super jumps , and the removal of air blocking - to keep the game true to SF2 - places the burden of emphasis squarely on another new feature: the Parry system. Parries basically work like this: holding away from your opponent means you block as usual but, if you time it correctly, a tap towards the opponent as they strike you will result in you parrying the blow, leaving you in a position to attack for a split-second whilst your opponent is undefended. Parrying can be done for high and low attacks, and also in the air. It is extremely effective but very difficult to master, relying as it does on both split-second timing and a certain amount of gambling arrogance: time it right and you can achieve a better score and a counter attack. Miss, and your opponent can string together a combo that can eliminate most of your energy bar.

In terms of special attacks, you are made to select only one from a choice of three before each fight in order to refine the combat. To make up for this, any special move can be powered-up into a pseudo super-special by pressing two buttons of a type instead of one (which uses one bar of your super meter). For example, with Ryu you can do a hurricane kick with two kick buttons and it will be a slightly less powerful (but no less effective) version of his Shinku-Tatsumaki Hurricane kick. Every character has also had their moves list tweaked to ensure that no single character has a 'cheap' advantage.

On balance, there are some excellent fighters and, equally, some poor ones to choose from in SF3. Dudley, for example, is an English boxer who plays like a cross between Balrog (M. Bison in Japan) and Ryu; Alex is a rarity: a speedy wrestling character, and both Yun and Yang are blindingly fast and difficult to read. On the other hand, Sean is just another Ken/Ryu clone, Remy is poorly animated and ineffective and Twelve looks like he wandered in from the 'Marvel' series of games. Luckily, this iteration of SF3 makes up for such failings by simply having a very large choice of fighters, but still one has to question Capcom's ability to invent new and distinguished scrappers. As usual these fights are played-out against various 2D backgrounds, all of which are completely new to Third Strike. They vary in quality from the mundane to the inspired (Makoto's garden and Hugo's apartment are great, but Remy's catacombs and Sean's dockside are disappointing) but, unfortunately, some are shared by two fighters (Alex and Ken, for example). Such laziness is inexcusable, and Capcom should have, at the very least, re-used scenes from SF3 and SF3: Double Impact to add more variety.

Another new feature is the camera, which now zooms-in on the action when certain hits connect. Obviously 'inspired' by SNK and their use of this trick, it works well despite not having the same impact as the Neo Geo's effect (which is hardware-based and used more frequently). This seems to exist at the expense of Street Fighter's trademark multiple layers of parallax scrolling, which is the first major departure from the SF2 aesthetic and conspires to make the game look a little flat in comparison.

Street Fighter has always until now been the peoples' choice, and the move towards a more technical interface has meant that some have been unwilling to make the effort. Certainly, the game has not replicated the appeal of the original SF2 and the Alpha/Zero series remains far more popular. Did Capcom make a worthy sequel? Well, there are short comings: the character roster sports little variety and relies on volume; the resolution is low (so the fighters look too pixelly for this day and age); the backgrounds are limited and their quality varies, and one feels that this type of game needs to be more customisable from the select screens (like Capcom vs. SNK, instead of tweakable from a ream of menus) to cater for everyone's tastes. That said, it still succeeds in being one of the best fighting games ever made by being technically and mechanically astounding (collision detection is flawless, all available characters are brilliantly balanced), having animation that adds masses to the individuality of each fighter, the incomparably rewarding Parry system, typically Capcom-brilliant sound effects and character voices and, with two people playing, a blocking/parrying/countering/special-moving visual spectacle made even more impressive by it's lack of 'cheap' moves.

Capcom have moved ever closer to the SNK 'technical' style in Street Fighter III, but have managed to pull it off with skill and aplomb. A game (like all 2D fighters) not to everyone's taste, but certainly one of Capcom's best, most stylish and polished entrants to the genre they popularised.