| Street Fighter III: New Generation | |
|---|---|
 European arcade flyer | |
| Developer | Capcom |
| Publishers | Arcade Capcom Dreamcast
|
| Producers | Tomoshi Sadamoto Noritaka Funamizu[a] Yoshiki Okamoto[a] |
| Designers | Yasuhiro Seto Tomonori Ohmura Shinichiro Obata |
| Programmers | Kazuhito Nakai Tate Yas |
| Artists | Ball Boy Q Yu-suke D Kurita |
| Composers | Hideki Okugawa Yuki Iwai |
| Series | Street Fighter |
| Platforms | Arcade,Dreamcast |
| Release | Arcade Dreamcast |
| Genre | Fighting |
| Modes | Single-player,multiplayer |
| Arcade system | CP System III |
Street Fighter III: New Generation (Japanese:ストリートファイターIII -New Generation-) is a 1997fighting game inCapcom'sStreet Fighter series, originally released as acoin-operated arcade game. The sequel toStreet Fighter II (1991), it initially discarded every previous character except forRyu andKen (hence theNew Generation subtitle), introducing an all-new roster led byAlex. Likewise, a new antagonist namedGill took overM. Bison's role from the previous games as the newboss character.
Street Fighter III was produced for theCD-ROM-basedCP System III hardware,[5] which allowed for more elaborate2D graphics than theCPS II-basedStreet Fighter Alpha games (the previous incarnation of theStreet Fighter series), while revamping many of the play mechanics. Despite the popularity of 3Dpolygonal fighting games at the time, Capcom decided to keep this game in 2D; 3D graphics were instead implemented in the spin-off game,Street Fighter EX.
Street Fighter III was followed by two updates:2nd Impact in 1997, and3rd Strike in 1999. A single home version of the game was released for theDreamcast in 1999 and 2000, in a two-in-one compilation titledStreet Fighter III: Double Impact, which consists ofNew Generation and2nd Impact.Street Fighter III received a mainly positive reception, but did not manage to be a hit like its predecessor; it was followed byStreet Fighter IV (2008).
Like its predecessors,Street Fighter III is a one-on-one fighting game, in which two fighters use a variety of attacks and special moves to knock out their opponent. The gameplay of the originalStreet Fighter III has several new abilities and features introduced. Some abilities are also taken from other Capcom fighting games, such as players being able to dash or retreat like in theDarkstalkers series,[6] as well as performing super jumps and quick stands after falling from an attack like inX-Men: Children of the Atom. The game also introduced leap attacks, which are small jumping attacks used against crouching opponents. As well, the player cannot perform aerial guards like in theStreet Fighter Alpha series, which are replaced by parrying ("blocking" in the Japanese version).[7]
The 1994 fighting gameSamurai Shodown II is often credited with the first parry system. The main new feature is the ability to parry an opponent's attack, by deflecting any incoming attack without receiving damage. At the exact moment an opponent's attack is about to hit his or her character, the player can move the controller toward or down to parry the attack without receiving damage, leaving the opponent vulnerable for a counterattack. Additionally, this allows the player to defend against Special Moves and even Super Arts without sustaining the normal minor damage that blocking normally would incur. However, parrying requires precise timing.[7]
The other new feature introduced inStreet Fighter III is Super Arts. This is a powerful special move similar to a Super Combo inSuper Turbo and theAlpha games.[7] After selecting a character, the player will be prompted to select from one of three character-specific Super Arts to use in battle.[7] Like the Super Combo gauge in previous games, the player has a Super Art gauge which will fill up as the player performs regular and special moves against an opponent. The player can only perform a Super Art once the gauge is filled.[7] Depending on the Super Art chosen by the player, the length of the Super Art gauge will vary, as well as the amount of filled Super Art gauges the player can stock up. The players can now cancel a special move into a Super Art, a technique borrowed fromStreet Fighter EX.
Among the elaborated sprites include multiple hit stun sprites, including a new "turned-around state," in which a character is turned around (his or her back faces the opponent) after being hit. Only certain attacks can put characters in a turned-around state, and grabs and throws can now be comboed, as it typically takes longer for an attacked character to recover from this new type of hit stun.
On March 27, 1996, Capcom announced thatStreet Fighter III was in development during a meeting in Tokyo.[9] They later stated that development took more than two years.[10] Production atCapcom on the first game in the series started in 1994, and was initially planned to be a separate fighting game franchise entirely.Street Fighter II series producer Noritaka Funamizu felt fatigued with theStreet Fighter franchise due to dwindling sales on home consoles, and the emerging3D fighting game market thanks to titles such asVirtua Fighter. Capcom however insisted to stick with 2Dsprites for their games, and to this end started development on theCPS-3 arcade hardware to support higher color counts for said sprites. When executives at the company pushed for a follow-up toII, Funamizu instead wanted to try and make a new game entirely. At this point, producer Tomoshi Sadamoto at the company had started work on a game titledNew Generation. Capcom character designerAkira Yasuda felt that the game's roster lacked personality. Additionally he asserted the company was likely going to make the game into aStreet Fighter title, and suggested pre-emptively to add that franchise's protagonistRyu to the game's roster. He proved correct, as the game was re-christenedStreet Fighter III: New Generation'.[11]
Though several other characters were also initially considered for inclusion from theStreet Fighter II roster, particularly Ken andChun-Li, the development team instead chose to focus on a mostly original cast. This proved some difficulty however for Sadamoto as he felt most of the designs were not as well established as those inII, and had particular difficulty in creating female character designs. Yasuda however suggested to make the first female character a ninja, stating "Ninjas are cool!" While this led to the creation of Ibuki, another idea suggested was to introduce a character that was "Yuki in Africa" based off modelYuki Uchida. Yasuda designed the character, leading to the creation of Elena, which helped solidify the development team's vision for the rest of the game's roster. As development progressed Ken was later also added to the roster.[12][11] Meanwhile when choosing a protagonist, they selected an American character, Alex, as they felt martial arts were more popular at the time in America and wanted to target that audience.[13]
The finalized cast however still proved difficult to create. Yasuda continued to work on the character designs, attempting to stay within Sadamoto's design constraints unlike previous games where he made the design choices more directly. In an interview with gaming websitePolygon, when asked if in retrospect the game would have done better if it had not been aStreet Fighter title, Yasuda stated while he liked some of the characters, "if I had to change the past, I'd rather just not have worked on that game at all". Meanwhile, Capcom's North American branch's design support for the title, Chris Tang, expressed shock at seeing the new character designs once they were revealed, with the character Oro in particular causing him to question if Yasuda had left Capcom. Other issues arose from a lack of software support to develop for the CPS-3 hardware, and the amount of detail the higher resolutions demanded of the designs. Character balance also proved an issue, as unlike other Capcom fighting games each developer was in charge of fine tuning their own character's gameplay, resulting in some feeling more suitable forStreet Fighter's gameplay, while others felt more in line with Capcom'sDarkstalkers fighting game franchise.[11] The long development meanwhile caused one planned character, Hugo, to be delayed until the game's follow up title,Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact, alongside other new character and returning characterAkuma.[13]
The game was first unveiled at theJapan Amusement Machine and Marketing Association show in September 1996, in the form of a few minutes of footage incorporated into Capcom's PR demo tape.[14] In an interview shortly before this show, Capcom senior plannerShinji Mikami stated that it would be impossible to convertStreet Fighter III to any of the home consoles on the market at the time.[15] This prompted rumors that it would be ported to the then-upcomingPanasonic M2.[16][17] In January 1997,IGN witnessed a demonstration of the game in development onNintendo 64 and64DD; IGN and its anonymous insider speculated that the game might join the launch of the upcoming 64DD peripheral in Japan, which was scheduled for late 1997. Capcom referred to the Nintendo 64 release as "just a rumor",[18] and Nintendo would coincidentally delay the launch of the 64DD peripheral until December 1999 anyway. Amending Mikami's earlier statement, in late 1997 Capcom said it might be possible to portStreet Fighter III to theSega Saturn if one of the console's RAM expansion cartridges were used.[19]
Because this and the next twoStreet Fighter III games run on the CPS III engine, more elaborate 2D sprites were created. Each character is made up from approximately 700–1200 individually drawn frames of animation,[7][20] with the game running at 60 frames per second.
General producerNoritaka Funamizu explained the controversial decision to keep the series in 2D: "We feel that 3D is not really suitable for the head-to-head fighting ... and, to be frank, Capcom doesn't really have the techniques to display high quality graphics in 3D."[21]
The game's name as it appears on the arcade cabinet isThree: A New Generation of Street Fighters.[10][22]
In 1999, Capcom releasedStreet Fighter III: Double Impact (Street Fighter III: W Impact inJapan) for theDreamcast, a compilation containing the original game and2nd Impact. The compilation features an Arcade, Versus, Training, and Option Mode for both games, as well as a "Parry Attack Mode" in2nd Impact, where the player can test parrying skills in the game's bonus round. This compilation also allows players to use Gill (in both games) and Shin Akuma (in2nd Impact only), who are exclusively computer-controlled characters in the arcade version.
New Generation was re-released in 2018 as part of theStreet Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection for thePlayStation 4,Xbox One, PC, andNintendo Switch.
The soundtrack to the first game in the series was released on CD by First Smile Entertainment in 1997, and the3rd Strike original soundtrack was released by Mars Colony Music in 2000 with an arranged version afterward. The soundtrack to3rd Strike features three songs and announcer tracks by Canadian rapperInfinite. The themes for the games are predominantlydrum and bass, with somejazz,hip-hop, house and techno elements. Yuki Iwai worked on the soundtracks forNew Generation and2nd Impact, and Hideki Okugawa worked on all three games.
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| Famitsu | Dreamcast: 31/40[25] |
| Next Generation | Arcade:   [23]Dreamcast: [24] |
In Japan,Game Machine listedStreet Fighter III as the most successful arcade game of March 1997.[26] However, the game struggled to break even in Japan, with a high budget of 1 billion yen ($8 million), while only selling 1,000 cabinets.[27] Worldwide arcade sales estimates range from between 1,000 and 10,000 units sold.[27]
Next Generation reviewed the arcade version of the game, rating it four stars out of five, and stated that "The great mystery is why Capcom called thisSFIII instead of leaving that honor for a more powerful and revolutionary 3D title. Gameplay in theSF series reached the ceiling of 2D possibilities a while ago, and as good as this game admittedly is, besides the stunning graphics there's little to distinguish it from the 11 games before."[23]GamePro similarly remarked that while the graphics are outstanding and the controls are flawless, the game lacks the innovation and series evolution that players expected it to deliver. They also said the new characters are a mix, with some of them seeming like they would be more appropriate for theDarkstalkers series, and concluded that the game "makes you look forward to the nextSF installment rather than getting you excited about playing this one repeatedly".[28]
Famitsu magazine scoredStreet Fighter III: Double Impact, the Dreamcast version of the game, 31 out of 40.[25]
Jim Preston reviewed the Dreamcast version of the game forNext Generation, rating it three stars out of five, and stated that "It's a no-frills port of the arcade game that is great at a party but pointless for single players."[24]
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