If you’re reading, know this; Street Fighter 3: Third Strike is my favorite fighting game of all time.
However I’ll be subjective instead of nostalgic, and let you know it is not the best fighting game of all time (that would be Virtual Fighter 5: Final Showdown or Super Street Fighter II X: Grand Master Challenge). Why?
The game is unbalanced in a bad way, not a good way. With Chun-Li as strong as she is in every situation there is little to no counterplay. On the other end of the spectrum, you have Twelve and Sean having to put in 4 times the amount of attacks to kill an opponent than Chun-Li does. You have to bet on your opponent making multiple mistakes.
Comparing this method of purposeful imbalance to Unreal Tournament (1999), where any weapon outside of the Enforcer is capable of killing an enemy 100–0 in seconds there’s a myriad of counterplay.
Counterplay is essential to any competitive video game, and sadly missing from the high-level gameplay of Third Strike.
