Street Fighter 3 - A MOVIE LENGTH DOCUMENTARY! (Why Did No One Play It?) 

As someone who lived through this as well it's bizarre seeing people try to re-write history. Street Fighter III is an incredible game, honestly one of the best fighting games ever made on a technical level, but it bombed hard in its day. It didn't appeal to casuals and Street Fighter fans balked at the new characters. Arcades were dying, half the people I knew didn't even know a Street Fighter III existed and if anything were more into Alpha 2 and later Alpha 3 as far as playing Street Fighter goes. Tekken III meanwhile was a phenomenon that completely took over the fighting scene of the time with its graphics and gameplay. I say this as someone who isn't even a fan of Tekken, I have no agenda here, it's just how it was in reality. Yes, the fighting game community and hardcore fans embraced SFIII but they were an even smaller niche back then than they are today. All of the people going "well me and my friends played it and loved it," and I'm sure they did hell I was one of them playing Second Impact and Third Strike with friends on Dreamcast, need to realize that they are the exceptions and not how the game performed with a wider audience. People also seem to not understand that you're saying Street Fighter III was overlooked WHEN IT CAME OUT not TODAY.

I'm 39. I loved street fighter 2 and spent plenty of time in arcades. I didn't know SF3 existed until it was released on PS2

In my youth I used to really enjoy reading about Street Fighter 3 in egm and gamepro magazines. I really love the art direction as well as the uniqueness and challenge of the parry system. Super Arts looked incredible. Anytime I would go on a school trip and we would kill time at the mall I would seek out an arcade to play. I do agree with you top hat gaming man that there were obstacles to playing this game. It wasn't until I got to college in the early 2000s when I bought a Dreamcast that I was able to spend very much time with the game. I would say that Street Fighter 3 third strike is my favorite game of all time. Decades later I'm still playing the game on almost a weekly basis. Thanks for the video. I must be one of the few that enjoyed it from the beginning.

The greatest fighting game of all time. Period.

Sometimes I get sad that Capcom will never make a 2D hand animated Street Fighter again - then I remember that 3rd Strike is the only fighting game I'll ever play

At the time, no one in the UK really touched SF III. It was slow, we didn't get the parry system, we all stuck with Alpha 2/3, and KOF which was really popping off then. SF III New Generation used to sit unplayed, even Tekken 3 was getting more gameplay. It wasn't until much later after EVO moment 2004 that we really understood the depth of 3S. By 2009, TEN YEARS after 3S and THIRTEEN after SF III... It seems like we finally got it.

"The down right respect it deserves" I'm only just now catching that one

Your absolutely right about no one playing Street Fighter III when it came out, I was 17 at the time of the games release and remember we all thought the game was a little to basic and there wasn't enough new in the title and innovative. Especially when you compared it Alpha 2 at the time which was popular and eating a lot of quarters. Arcade's were also very much dieing at the time here in the states which also contributed to this. I'm going to take this controversy a step further and state that both Super and Super Turbo (the go to SFII game now for tournaments and otherwise) also bombed back then as no one played them. Super had the unfortunate distinction of being released at the same time as the juggernaut Mortal Kombat II everyone was playing that and no one was playing Super. In Japan it faired a little better but in that country everyone was playing Virtua Fighter 2. Super Turbo had a similar fate as most who played the game couldn't get past the first character as the USA & Euro Blue board's were very difficult and very few people came back to the game after this. It's funny no one really played Tekken but when Tekken 2 came out it was the number 1 fighting game in the arcade's at the time. In the USA it was Tekken in Japan it was Virtua Fighter that was King, and the Street Fighter series with the exception of Alpha 2 were good but there were alot of other titles and most people played those instead. Of course it's different now but this is the 90s I'm talking about. Many of you young fanboys weren't alive at the time or in diapers.

Making a full length SFIII movie? Yeah that makes sense

Used to love playing Street fighter 2 in my local kebab shop back in the day and as for Street fighter 3 nobody was playing it as the arcades were dead and we were rocking PlayStations or Nintendo 64 (64 basically to play GoldenEye)

The only reason I bought the game was because of Daigo’s parry.

25:58 is that E Honda getting a backrub from a monkey and Haggar under a waterfall?

I heard Ryu's name spoke properly in SSF2 on the SNES 👀

In the 90's we had 2 Arcades where I lived in Harrow on the hill back in those days, Debenhams Arcade and The Edge in St Georges Center. I'm 44 now and work in the games industry. Street Fighter 3 NEVER graced the arcade in Harrow in either arcade. Alpha 3 and Alpha 3 2 were in our arcades. Our main showcase fighting games were X Men v Capcom and Tekken 3. Now the only reason I was aware of Street Fighter 3's existence was because a good friend of mine said that he played in in Japan. This story of my mate playing it became a myth and legend and I forgot about the game. Because I was never actively looking for the game I never saw it in London's SEGA World in Troccodero. Fast forward to 2005, I was working in SEGA QA where on lunchtime some colleagues would play SF3 3rd strike! This was my first exposure to the game. Clearly, I was not hardcore into my fighting games but I know a LOT of people that didn't know that Street Fighter 3 EVER came out!. Hell, I know people that were so confused when 4 came out that they would ask what happened to 3, These are adults in their 40s that are not hardcore fighting game fanatics so it kinda cements the point that 3 was not very popular on release. Speaking of 3 I'm playing it a lot on my Switch and it's great.

I do think limiting the Dreamcast sales as the end-all/be-all sales is somewhat misleading. Street Fighter Anniversary Collection released with SF III: 3rd Strike on both PS2 and Xbox, where it sold a lot more. Maybe that is why people objected so much to your sales numbers. I love your vids and I remember SF III: 3rd Strike not receiving the love it deserved. Tekken, Dead or Alive 2, and Soul Calibur were all the rage back then. Hell, the Alpha/Zero series outsold SF III due to being more readily available on consoles. And, while I think Alex is a great character, he certainly was no Ryu/Ken/Chun Li. If you ask me, it was the Justin Wong and Daigo Umehara moment that made more people sit up and take notice on SF III. Until then, Street Fighter III was only relevant to fanboys like me. You’re spot on.

I am 42 and I'll never forget I think mortal Kombat was on like mortal Kombat 4 or 5 and I'm like whatever happened to Street fighter they tried to do that 3D game the alpha Series whatever happened to Street fighter why is there no Street fighter 3 and then one day it just showed up at our movie theaters arcade I was dumbfounded no fanfare no nothing and this is before they came to the consoles first and they would go straight to arcade one of the biggest franchises of all time had a sequel finally released as quietly received as a silent but deadly fart on a first date

What I remember, and after I had watched your video returned stark and clear, is that 1997 at a point became sad, because arcades were less and less frequented. Few and few people were found there. Where I am living SFIII never arrived.

I remember playing third strike in the arcades. I picked Ken. & his fireball timing was so different. & the leg sweep felt so different. After using an arcade stick at home.. I FEEL that I started to get the hang of playing more offensively in SF3 by wanting to jab forward. Instead of always being in a defensive crouch. I still don’t have the hang of SF3, but I feel if I played it longer.. I would enjoy this arcade stick jab forward/reward fighting style. But I can’t say that I have played this game enough to really say the I know how to play it because I’m still used to SF2

I have owned street fighter 3 on Dreamcast, Xbox, ps2,3,4 and hopefully soon on steam. I consider this game to be one of the most complete and balanced fighters out there.

Never went to Game Works in Seattle when it was announced, but the other arcades I frequented in the late 90's, Tekken 3 was a staple. Sometimes numerous cabs. I can honestly never seen a Street Fighter 3 can in the wild when it came out. First time I played it was on the SF Collection on the PS2.

Great video. Love all these movie length documentaries that you put together

Your vids and your research is golden. There's more of us that love your vids than nitpick. The nitpickers dont deserve your attention. ❤#YourreAwesomeToMe 👍🏿

I didn't know Street Fighter 3 even existed before like 2002... *edit* And I am seeing similar comments in the comment section so this was clearly Capcom's fault.

I was 18 was Dreamcast came out. Me and my crew split our time between SFIII Third Strike, Alpha 3, and Soul Calibur.

I remember reading gamepro how they were saying that there would be a sf3 and they went into how many extra frames of animation on a hadoken alone vs a cps1/2 version. Gill alone couldn’t of been in cps2 games his colors on his body were to advanced. We deserve a beautifully animated cps4 darkstalkers nuff of the sf5 crappola

Nobody even do Street fighter 3 existed at this time most of us have moved on to Tekken and I was still playing one of the 50 versions of Street fighter 2 LOL

Gosh damn top hat. Whenever I think ur done with ur Brit bias stuff it still pops up...Dudley for real mate? U mean Dudley as in Dud? I love you bro and ur patriotism is a respectable trait of urs. Lol enough said my friend across the pond. I swear I believe most ur viewers are red white And blue Americans. I have 12 years military in 2 American branches being the Marine Corp and US Army. We have very different views in gaming but as said I do appreciate ur British perspective. Thank u

Ryu is a character in Ninja Gaiden. Ryu (pronounced RYE-YOO) is from Street Fighter 2 🤣

I’m promising that I’ll watch this to the end.

Street Fighter…. Yeeeaaaaaaaaah! Three ………………

I am one of the 80k buyers for all 3 sf3 games on the Dreamcast! Woohoo 🎉

Street Fighter 3 is a really overhype game but my fave will always be Alpha 3.

i remember playing sf3 in the arcades back in the day, finishing the game with 1 credit only playing as chun-li. all i did was using the spinning round kick lol

It's pretty obvious most of the people disagreeing with the premise weren't actually around during the period in question. Lots of us boomers played sf2 and all its expansions to death (thousands of hours during high school), and there is no way you couldn't have noticed the contrast of how sf3 was just kind of DOA when it launched. No real buzz, no home port, and arcade gaming in general dying as fps and rts gaming began to take off. As a result, you weren't playing it and neither were your friends, even though you all loved sf2. It's not really a statement about the game being good or bad, but its just unarguable that an order of magnitude less people played the game when it came out compared to sf2. Fanboys are weird.

lol this video is over analyzing to unnecessary degree and title is false. The reason it wasn't played is: it wasn't released on a home console at the time and thus not marketed in magazines. Not rocket science. Not to say I don't usually enjoy this channel.

I was a big SF fan and was upset that I could only play SF3 at our local bowling alley once or twice a month. And racked my little brain on why it wasn't on any of my consoles at the time.

I used to play Street Fighter III alot in the arcades but I was the only one playing it in my arcade and I always use Ryu

Sweet!a I can never get enough STREET FIGHTER VIDS!!

The wwf references is why i fell in love with this channel. No homo.

I had thought that the reason sf3 was unsuccessful initially was because players were street fightered out due to an abundance of fighting games from capcom in a relatively short amount of time post sf2. But since you mentioned the fact that 3d graphics had taken the video game industry by storm I think that is probably the main reason it was overlooked as well.

I pronounce it as ''Rye-you'' too. Never did understand why everybody else pronounces his name as ''Riy-you''.

Facts here in the USA, Arcades was dying quickly during the late 90’s. As a Casual at the time, I never even heard of the game. I’m 40 btw. I never played it until the 30th Anniversary Collection. & I still dislike the Roster on there & do prefer SF Alpha’s 1-3 Rosters. But none the less all the SF III Games plays great & definitely wasn’t a pop culture hit like SF II was.

THGM I consider you a friend. And I want you to know, I support you. Salt just comes with the territory. But it’s your content, if you feel the need to defend it. I support it.

Lmao this is awesome comedy video 🤣🤣 Top stuff😊

Parry is forward, not down. And you’ve said Ryu wrong. And you failed to mention Ryu and Ken weren’t supposed to be in 3.

I always thought you were just messing with the viewers by saying RAI-YOO, I've heard people call him that all my life, so at this point, it doesn't bother me. I didn't think people would get that mad at it, lol.

I didn't play SF3 until 2007! I knew about it through GamePro magazine in 2000! Great video!

It would be cool if you did an episode on the different releases for the anniversaries surrounding Street Fighter. Also another good video idea would be the timeline between 3rd strike in Street Fighter 4. You could cover things like ggpo and just a fighting scene as a whole. Lots of things changed in the long period of time between 3rd Strike and Street Fighter 4 that helped more people learn to love Street Fighter 3. Also the evolution fighting tournament has strong ties with the street fighter games

Street fighter 3 is the odd duck of the street fighter games, I didn't even get a chance to play it until a decade after it was out. Street Fighter 2 was at every laundromat from the 90's to 2000.

Tekken was the most popular fighter in the mid 90s-2005

I'm 43, I think I saw 1 SF3 arcade cabinet, but hundreds of Tekken, Virtua Fighter, Killer Instinct, Samurai Showdown, ...I also saw thousands of SF 2 cabinets in the early 90's, and I have SF3 Third Strike as my 2nd Favourite fighting game all time I was 11 or 12, when World warrior came out, I played SF2 Turbo and Super SF2 more than any other cabinet ever I did not play SF3 until 2024 when I bought 30th anni collection, and I played Ex + Alpha and CvS2 back in the day so its not like I gave up on SF games. I adore SF3 Third strike today and I am so happy I bought it, but It was not popular and I actually remember it being a Meme in Europe and north America. It was seen in just about every publication/games show as a failure, so large it was a bit of a joke. as for die hard CvS2 smokes SF3 ...every iteration, people can disagree, but its a better game than SF 3 ever was, and SF 3 is the 2nd best fighting game I have ever played. I wonder how many of these folks leaving these comments are over the age of 30, lool, like if you are under 35 ...you did not live through it so anyone under 35, ...their opinion on the popularity of SF3 at its release are 2nd hand ..at best (without a source for sales that reads in the millions)

I never heard of street fighter 3 until around 2003 when some dude was selling knock offs of dreamcast games. You couldn't buy dreamcast games in most UK shops before Sega dropped it. It would be nice to own an original copy but now days the price is too expensive.

I'm far from a casual FG player and I'll say this, everything you said was true. I not once saw a line at the arcade on the SFiii game back in the 90s. I overlooked it because of the roster and also played Alpha for the graphics at first. I didn't actually get into SF3 until I bought the 25th anniversary edition where 3 came in a bundle with a version of all sf2 roms.

Love this video! I think you are right on with your comments. I'm a big Street Fighter fan and have enjoyed SF3 on the Dreamcast, Arcade, PC, and PS4. However, it did not sell well and it did not make anywhere near the money that Street Fighter 2 did. If Street Fighter 3 was as popular as Street Fighter 2, more arcades would have opened up at that time to cash in on the popularity. It may have a solid fan base and be a tournament favorite among a core set of people, but that is nowhere near the majority of people who purchase games. As far as the name pronunciation goes, as long as people know who you are talking about it shouldn't matter. People pronounce words differently depending on their culture and region of the world. Anyways, thank you for the great video!

Your right bro nobody played it except the real arcade rats. I know me and my friend didn't BBC of the roster. They sucked. Only a few were cool and there was NO explanation as to why everyone disappeared like we were supposed to just accept it. Nope. I just stuck with xmen vs street fighter and mvc2 until way later when I was able to see how deep sf3 really is. Sf3 was definitely pretty tho even back then

Theres an official SFIV documentary that goes over why Capcom believe SFIII didnt take off. They even put test cabinets out in Japan without Ken and Ryu in the roster. It bombed. But they introduced Ken, Ryu and it picked up a little but not massively. But they didnt give up and kept fine tuning it until it was one of the most balanced fighting games there is. However there was then the availabilty issue on consoles. The roster looks so much better now theyve introduced some of the characters into SFV and its not as much the odd one out. But please Capcom release the best version of it without the Arcade difficulty cos im in my forties and my reflexes are slowing down haha

Hey, Top Hat Gaming Man. You should do a video on Ultra Street Fighter IV.

lmao dude tore up these sweaty weebs, anyone who was anyone never went to an arcade, and instead we sat there playing super mario 64 and smash bros. and that is the reason why I (a kid who beat street fighter 2 on his snes) am just now in 2021 finding out street fighter 3 even existed, and that is was such an amazing game. funny how butthurt these kids get when numerous times you praise the game for its gameplay

I used to play this all the time at the video rental store. Problem was the CPS3 arcade was expensive to produce and they weren't as popular to buy because the return on investment to an arcade owner took a while. By the time I went to college the Dreamcast was out and plenty of friends and I continued to play the series on that system along with MvC2 and CvS2. I also used to pronounce Ryu the wrong way all the time until I finally heard the in game announcer say it in the VS series, no excuse for pronouncing his name incorrectly after that.

5:59 "for some reason"? The characters in the Alpha series (1 and 2 in particular) were for the most part from SF1 and Final Fight (the "original" SF2, till executive decisions were made) or were based on established SF folklore, Charlie Nash for instance.

Rye Yoo I can forgive but "DIEGO"? 😂😂

I never saw this in arcades or even heard about it till I found it on mame.

There weren't many areas in US that had access to a street fighter III arcade. I did see a small crowd around it one time but in fairness world heroes 1, 2 and jet had more arcade time near me. After 95 the alphas were the next thing but mainly home ports. Even after 3rd impact it wasn't till 15th anniversary that I was able to have it. It was actually easier to find kof 97, 98 than sf3. Xmen:cota marvel superheroes among others cross ups arcades were easier to find.

LOVE these videos you make, you're a hero! It is a shame that these IDIOTS assume that everything is directed at them! HONESTLY! Also, talking of name pronunciation... the first half of my name Saj is either said like "Sarge" or like Sad (without the D replaced with J)... I will answer to both

I was the biggest fan of the Street Fighter series and I played SF3 from day 1 in the arcades....and Top Hat gaming is absolutely correct. The game was incomplete and not well received and/or ignored by most, very few people cared about Alex, and it wasn't until 3rd Strike when the game was considered somewhat comparable to the more feature rich 2d fighters of the era, let alone the 3D fighters. This is coming from someone who loved SF3 and didn't care much for 3D button mashers. But even I wasn't blind to SF3's lack of success and that the gaming industry largely ignored it.

miss this game back in arcade days few arcades has sf3 in the arcades in midwest back in the day the only home system that had this was dreamcast yrs after it was out in arcades. I remember back in 97-98 in arcades

By the time Super SF II Turbo came out, SF lost the crown. When Tekken Tag came out SF wasnt the apex pvp fighter. Maybe not even Top3

lol I always felt u called Ryu "RAIYU" as a meme.

I always enjoyed the capcom 2d fighter games especially darkstalkers from my opinion it does not matter how people pronounce Ryu every one is individually different love your videos top hat gaming man 😀 👍👍👍

I like documentaries...✌👽👍

I was a huge fan of SF2 but I only ever played SF3 once in arcades around 2001. I don't recall the game receiving much fanfare on its release although there were so many SF games and fighting games throughout the 90s that it would have been easy to miss.

This was my favorite street fighter on Dreamcast and it was my last one 😂

I think something too is a lot of people didn't buy SF3 retail for their DC like me, and I bought the anniversary collection to play SF 3. SF3 online is very active, maybe as active as SF 5 in ranked match in any platform I've tried. A lot more people are likely aware to this masterpiece. That's probably why you got so many views.

Great twitch stream last night! I’d just got tired of Street fighter iterations by the time III finally came out. Then the new characters were mainly meh. IMO. As always, keep up the good work fella and stay safe.

Love Alex’s original look and attitude, but I get he’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

I think the biggest factor to sf3s initial failure was similar to mk3. They axed most of the previous roster. This alienated fans. I think it's simple as that. I was 12 when it came out, it looked amazing to us at the time. We just couldn't get down with the new roster.

No one played if because of the roster. It was shocking when it came out and had an entirely different roster,save ken,ryu,chun li

This is awesome thank you top hat

I started playing this game way back in 2020. Thats How time less this game is.

Why you gotta pick on sf3? …. I’m crying rn

The Street Fighter 3 series is my favorite game series of all time! Next to Gears Of War 😏

This game is still played till this day what are you talking about? This game was in heavy rotation in tournaments and has a strong fan base running strong till now.

Honestly if you really specifically consider the release of New Generation this argument holds even more water. I never really touched SF3 myself and all of my friends that did didn't get into it till late 2nd Impact to early 3rd Strike. So still as far as few people playing the original release definitely sounds about right to me. And most that I know of that did, like you said, didn't get into it till way later.

*I was PRAYING SF 6 would be 2D. Oh well* 😅

Ppl saying that sf3 was popular in the 90s are either dillusional or are born in the 90s The cps3 cabinet was hard to find in the arcades except in japan

Does it really matter which is better They're all games and we all enjoy playing them........... sheesh ☹️ Sorry man about the harsh comments Some people can get really passionate about what they love

Wait a minute at 3 minutes and 50 seconds you said this got a release in 1997 where was the goddamn marketing for it though seriously I even worked at a place called qzar that was a laser tag family entertainment center didn't even know this game f****** existed until 2000 and that's what I was managing a Sam goody and like I said before we went to the movies and there it was in the arcade so for 3 years who the f*** knew where this game was that's a thousand days holy s*** good job Capcom that's the equivalent of missing your child's birthday or forgetting it

All aboard the (A)lex Express!

This game was on the Dreamcast

It was a commercial failure yet A cult classic.

Dudley lucky he maintains his awesomeness, Sean my favorite is butchered in Third Impact ha ha. Oh, street Fighter III always be my favorite in all SF franchise due to the advance and hard to master gameplay ha ha. But yeah, different stroke for different folk

I'm not justifying anything but with the whole Ryu thing....well we always said "Ryeyu" from sf1 until like 2000 then alot of us felt silly learning that everyone else says "reeyu" it was, like a big thing or whatever. So yes they are being pretentious to you but I'm sure a few think they're actually trying to help peoplenot look like a fool as they felt they looked at one time. Particularly with names, we all say them the same across all states even with heavy accent changes I think that's also a factor. I'm sure that's agg I hope all this sheds some extra light on that bs lolll

this video was incrdeibly entertaining, im not going to lie i get the frustration against losers on the internet but a fraction of the video being dedicated to ragging on commenters feels a little childish if im honest.. it takes away from the actual video in my opinion

People are a bunch of followers… everyone wanted 3d because it was the shiny new thing, even though the current 3d titles at the time where potato asf. Everyone wanted popular games regardless of gameplay, and now we have microtransactions because the corpos found out their consumer base was a bunch of peanut brained consumers. Thanks for the vid.

Overlooked? Street Fighter 3 is literally the most overrated Street Fighter series many people said it's their favorite Street Fighter game.

I love this channel.. but please play the game first because we don't do a parry by only pressing "down" as you mentioned at 10:39

I love street fighter

I'm going to get a lot heat because to me Street Fighter Alpha 3 was way better than SFIII any of them

Kinda like how people get made that i, the american teenager at the time, who have never heard of an ocarina, called it an O-Car-In-a. Im reading a word i never heard before, fork off.

Reporting people criticizing you isnt cool even if their mean words hurt you. Making a whole video about how you squashed your detractors and debunked all their claims all while talking about your view count and like dislike ratio comes off as super snobby and I cant watch someone who feels this was about criticism.