The most ironic thing about Street Fighter III is that it really is the proper sequel to Street Fighter II in ways that the Alpha and Vs. spin-offs never will be.  It's ironic because this game comes so far after Street Fighter II that it seems hopelessly silly to call any game Street Fighter III at this point.  However, this game is the spiritual successor to Street Fighter II in almost every way.  Some examples are certainly needed to defend that point, so here goes.  There is a limited roster in this game.  There are all-new characters.  The animation is miles ahead of any other Street Fighter game.  Most of the characters are not Ryu clones.  Super-combos, called Super Arts in this game, are limited in flair and damage.  Most importantly, the changes to the fighting engine are logical and enhance the strategic nature of the game.  Unfortunately for Capcom, this game comes to the Dreamcast so long after Street Fighter III hit the Super Nintendo that most of these features are no longer what players are looking for in a fighter.  Hopefully this review will help you decide which side of the fence you will be on when playing Street Fighter III.  

Perhaps the best word to describe this game is balance.  The Street Fighter III: Double Impact disc has the original arcade version of Street Fighter III, plus its first update, Giant Attack.  Including both is basically a gimmick because Giant Attack is expanded and improved.  Capcom has tweaked the Street Fighter III engine, adding depth while removing some of the frills.  Gone are the alpha counters and air blocking from the Alpha series.  In their place, characters in Street Fighter III have what is called a “parry”.  By pressing forward just before an attack hits, a parry stops all damage from an attack, and allows the defender to get in a counterattack.  However, this technique is difficult to master, especially playing against another human player.  Pressing forward before the second of impact is counter-intuitive to years of training in Capcom fighters, but the parry technique, when mastered, increases the depth of the fighting engine by leaps and bounds, removing much of the predictable nature of many fights and giving players great reason to really put time into the game. 

Also new are the Super Arts, which refine the system of more powerful attacks introduced in Super Street Fighter II so many years ago.  Each character has three Super Arts to choose from, one of which must be chosen before the match.  Some Super Arts have multiple levels which can be filled, while others have only one.  Also, some characters have shorter Super Art bars than others.  The Arts themselves are logical extensions of regular moves each character has, and are for the most part easy to perform in the heat of battle.  The most useful change, in my opinion, is the ability to enhance special moves by using a portion of the Super Arts bar.  By pressing two kicks or two punches when doing a special move, such as Ryu’s hurricane kick, a more powerful version is performed, which uses up about a third of the Super Arts bar.  Again, this adds depth by allowing players to manage their special moves more easily, and makes the whole Super Art system less of a gimmick and more of a totally integrated part of the fighting engine.  

Besides tweaking the fighting engine, Capcom also ramped up the animation quite a few notches.  How?  Unlike the Alpha Series and all the Vs. games prior to Marvel vs. Capcom 2 which run on the CPS-II board, Street Fighter III ran on Capcom’s powerful but rarely used CPS-III board instead.  The Dreamcast is totally capable of handing this more powerful arcade hardware, meaning that Street Fighter III has incredible animation and no load-times throughout.  The fighter’s costumes billow and flow like a Disney cartoon, rather than the static, motionless look they have in previous games.  Elena and Necro, two of the new characters, are so full of motion that they seem like they belong in a 3D game such as Dead or Alive 2.  Unfortunately, the backgrounds have remained mostly static with sparse animation, unlike the improved backgrounds of the Naomi-powered Marvel vs. Capcom 2. 

Not everything with this game is as improved as hoped, of course.  For one thing, the music is sub-par, even for Capcom.  I know that many people complain about Capcom’s music but in general I tend to like it, but the slow, elevator music sound in this game just does not cut it for a fighting game.  Furthermore, Capcom still has not taken a lesson from Namco as far as ending sequences go; Street Fighter III has silly, almost still-frame endings that are generally pointless and do nothing to create an overall story for the game.  I would give my first-born to have Capcom make just one game with fully animated ending sequences for all of the characters.  Also unfortunate is the scarcity of options here.  The training mode is rather limited compared to most recent fighting games, and the incredible World Tour mode from Alpha 3 is nowhere to be found.  Overall, these problems tarnish the game slightly, but also add to its somewhat retro feel.  

Street Fighter III: Double Impact is not for everyone.  It's much slower than Street Fighter Alpha 3 is in turbo mode, although it is faster than the original Street Fighter II games.  Giant Attack gives you thirteen fighters, plus two hidden characters that unlock when you beat the game; some people would say this compares unfavorably to the thirty-something fighters in Alpha 3 and fifty-something fighters in Marvel vs. Capcom 2.  If you yearn for the days of old, where a limited roster allowed you to truly master a fighting game by knowing all the characters inside and out, and where the speed and moves are fast but not so crazy that button-mashing is a viable strategy, then Street Fighter III is a dream come true.  Anyone looking for the craziness of the Vs. series should stay far, far away, as should anyone who demands dozens and dozens of fighters.  Personally, I think this game is a must-have for anyone who remembers how incredible the first days of Street Fighter II in the arcade were.  The feeling of dominating a fighting game due to skill alone is finally back.  Kudos to Capcom for taking a risk on this one.