My journey through the harsh world of Street Fighter 3rd Strike

A few days ago, I was lucky to find a disc of Street Fighter Anniversary Collection. How lucky? By my own estimates, the disc by itself could go for $30 easy due to how few copies of the Xbox version exist. Drop by on eBay andd you'll find copies with the box and instructions going for $40, almost as if it was still a new game! But I got it for $12 for just the disc and a free empty box to boot to protect it. The owner acknowledged the rarity of the game and congratulated me on finding the game for cheap. By the way, I got the game from Game Place, which was a nice bonus.

Not only have I bought one of the rarer Xbox games out there, but it happened to be a game of true blue hardcore system mechanics. The links are tough, the timing for cancels are unforgiving, and the best players out there truly know when to parry to completely negate all your efforts. So in celebration of getting 3rd Strike, I also bought a SFIV Tournament Edition arcade stick to practice against the better players at my campus arcade. And let me say this: I am a pad player. I like having my thumbs do the work and not my fingers. But the TE stick is an incredible experience. I've used sticks before and they felt like controllers with buttons spread out for my fingers to use. The TE stick really recreates the arcade experience, mostly because it uses the same parts as the genuine SFIV arcade machine.

Imagine it like Scorpion from Mortal Kombat, ripping the guts out of Sub-Zero and gaining the ability shoot freeze rays

That said, 3rd Strike really demands a stick because of how it's button configuration is laid out, especially on the newer 360 controllers that it couldn't possibly have foreseen. Throw, overhead attacks, and taunts are all laid out to be simple combination on a stick, but more complicated on a pad. Also, you can't drum your fingers on a pad. This is a trick where basically instead of doing special moves like we've done it since time immortal (like [quarter circle forward]x2 + punch for say a super fireball)  you drum your fingers piano style across all three relevant buttons. Why? By mashing out the motion for something like a super move and drumming your finger across, you increase you chances of doing the execution correctly, especially in strictly tight timing. The last link also goes over negative edge and how it works, but let's assume you know as much as I do and move on.

3rd Strike is really going to be the toughest game I'll have to master yet. In SFIV, they have a plethora of training stages to get you accustomed to things like bread and butter combos (combos you should be able to pull of all the time). Blazblue has an easy learning curve to get used to it but ramps up dramatically when you reach higher levels. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is just crazy, let me just say that. But 3rd Strike, I just might be in over my head, but that's what is gonna be so exciting. I want to be one of those guys in my campus arcade who just inspires awe and high fives.