Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection has just released, and I’ve been getting endless requests to do some tutorials for my area of expertise: Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. Despite being almost twenty years old, 3rd Strike is probably more popular now than it has ever been in the past, largely due to the massive influx of new players since 2008, as well as its cult following and its endurance in Japanese arcades. In light of the new release, I’ve prepared a few guides to help new players get into the old engine.
First, I have a guide on anti-air. The presence of air parry in SFIII means that jump-ins, rather than being a punish scenario in which the grounded player can always win clean, are instead a mix-up scenario requiring careful consideration from both players. Jump-ins still lock the jumper in a telegraphed arc and remove their ability to block — so it’s still a disadvantageous position, but it’s a far more complex position than in any other main line Street Fighter title. This seems to be the area where players most frequently get stuck when attempting to enter this game, so I highly recommend this one.
Next, I made a guide on okizeme, or the wakeup mix-up. The presence of wakeup parry, the ability to use parry to shut down safe jumps, and the overwhelming presence of strong lows and overheads mean the wakeup mix-up is extremely strong in SFIII. However, unlike SFIV and SFV, here the person on the ground has a chance to do enormous damage with the right read. This means the attacker needs to apply heavy mix-ups and occasionally check his swing, so again it’s quite an elaborate and complex scenario as compared to other Street Fighter titles.
I also have a video on the juggle engine of the game. This mostly only matters if you play Oro or Urien, but elaborate knowledge of the game’s juggle system gives players a little edge on their combo opportunities, which can occasionally make or break a round. It’s also a great opportunity to show off! This video is more documentation of the engine itself than a tutorial, though it is helpful for certain characters.
Finally, I’ve put together a little guide on how to use piano inputs to easily hit one-frame links into supers, which is a common confirming route in SFIII. Piano motions are not commonly used in modern Street Fighter games, but they allow for consistently timed specials and supers in many older titles, and because it’s an execution trick it’s not visible in most arcade footage, so I don’t think it’s common knowledge anymore.
I’ve got many other Street Fighter III primers in the works, so subscribe to the ShoryukenTube YouTube channel if you don’t want to miss out!
