no anime please
i feel like this is true of basically most things in the late 80s and early 90s, though, and not really specific to Street Fighter (although was certainly a part of its appeal during that era).
you aren’t incorrect, though! the general vibe in the arcade was “no one wants to play SFIII other than me lol.” my feelings about this are more about what i wish could have happened rather than what made sense for the time. i really did enjoy how much of a departure it was, but also understood why no one wanted to play it and preferred Marvel/VS. games and the Alpha series (but even then, it felt like VS. games were more in vogue, at least on the East Coast)
It might look hella anime but there’s no double jumps or airdashing*
*One or two characters might have an airdash
i don’t think i ever actually played SF3 until it came to the original xbox? i feel like i’ve seen a total of two cabinets in my lifetime and both were at specialty arcades. my local arcade when i was a kid kept buying xmen/marvel machines because they recognized the characters as something people would put coins into, but never picked up any alpha or vampire games. you could play like 3 different tekkens or the one busted marvel cab hidden behind a bunch of giant lightgun cabs (time crisis, house of the dead)
3s is deeply tied to like, 2006-2009ish for me, playing tons of the xbox port with roommates + friends and maybe getting a few games in on the side at like, rhythm game tournaments (since those were the like, only arcade gaming events really going on where i lived at the time)
i think i always had a hard time really digging into sf2 because i found so many of the character designs offputting (this isn’t me saying i’m inherently resistant to shitty racial stereotyping, i just didn’t really click with the whole look in general) but 3’s weirdos were just more my speed, makoto in particular (god, playing 3s makoto is like putting on my favorite, comfiest sweater) because i was also a girl-goblin with anger issues
realizing this is barely-associated rambling but posting it anyway 
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'05 to '07 for me but otherwise same
not including many hours spent with it in mi-ka-do since because that’s fucking cheating
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I think characters like Makoto, Dudley, Elena, Alex, Ibuki and Sean were relatively easy pills to swallow. Broadly reflected their regions without completely being caricatures of them. But then you see the real weirdos like Necro, twelve, oro, Q(I’m all about Q. He’s just an Ishinomori character in SF), Hugo and Remy that take a while to come to terms with. I include Remy in that group mostly it feels like a cop out to make a “pretty” Guile and trying to steal some of SNK’s flavor along with it.
My only strong memories of 3S was just playing on GGPO/2DF circa 2007-2010 on community college wifi because I had satellite internet at home and no consoles with online features.
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Wasn’t even aware III existed in the UK til the mid noughties.
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capcom replacing the hoorah US troop with a femme french dude wearing head-to-toe fitted leather is still very funny and good to me. he was like voldo-tier for getting homophobic dweebs online so tilted they forget how to play their character
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if someone can’t immediately appreciate hugo, necro and oro well, it’s litmus for something
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unfortunate that aging characters has usually resulted in (at least initially) incredibly unpopular or under performing entries in basically every franchise it has been attempted in. think tekken 3 may be the only exception to this (possibly mk too, but mk is weird)
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let’s be real the characters are pretty shit in SF3, definitely the worst part of the series. Dudley is a top tier character design, then there are a handful that are pretty good like Makoto, Alex, maybe Elena or Q. then you got shit like Twelve, Necro, Remy, just shit no one cares about. people are on that Oro, fuck if I know why. Z tier character to me. I would put Yun as a good, distinct character, but I can’t condone anyone with both a top tier custom combo mechanic and a dive kick.
I saw Lizardcube jockeying to get a Garou 2 contract. Would Capcom ever be up for outsourcing a new 2D Street Fighter or would they be too fearful of cannibalizing their current model?
join and or watch our Select Button King of Fighters 98 tourney, all its competitors are ageing in real time, it’s fucking wild
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That house was like the only place I ever got to play 3s regularly and I suck at it, but damn good times.
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Oro the character is completely valid. Ancient master so strong he handicaps himself to give everyone a chance is good. He’s just weird to play and weird to see. Just overly textured and aggressively sharp line work that just feels repellant.
Remy would’ve been fine if he wasn’t copping a playstyle full cloth from a legacy character that he had no thematic connection to.
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There was this really weird thing with the Street Fighter series back then where everyone wanted a part 3. For whatever reason the Alpha series was considered some kind of weird dodge of doing a real sequel. At the time that SF3 hit it felt like Capcom was reacting to that by giving us something that felt more drastically new and different than Alpha. However people felt the cast was too unfamiliar. It also didn’t help that arcades were starting to vanish, and 3D fighters or the early Capcom Vs games were bigger draws.
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only a very well-read billionaire could orchestrate the next fightman i’ll actually play, is what i’ve concluded
i must be fine with this
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and now the alpha cast has way more staying power. Sakura, Karin, Rose, and Dan, have all either had strong staying power, or been fan favorites. Same with Cody and Rolento, but I don’t know that you can just credit them to Alpha. Sodom fell by the wayside, but he’s a great character. The only true dud is Adon, I think, but then Gamerbee showed up in 4 and now people even like that guy. Maybe Birdie counts, but I think he’s charming.
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the unfortunate thing about tekken 3 is that most of the aged characters were just dropped and replaced with a younger generation, and the returning part of the female cast had to be cryogenically frozen to remain appealing for the game’s audience. then sc5 goes and does the exact same thing.
i appreciate the generation jump, kinda, but this shit annoys me so much, especially the treatment of female characters who are given expiration dates. this garbage makes me feel cheated.
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Rather than cannibalizing the current model, I feel they just wouldn’t see the point. Clearly SFV’s value to them is brought by selling DLC cosmetics, so why would they develop a game in a model where you can’t as cheaply switch a character’s skin?
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