Since I started watching people play the pixel art Street Fighter games, and dabbling in them myself, I have grown incredibly fond of them. A lot of the love has gone to 3rd Strike, but since playing through the Alpha 2 arcade mode and messing around in Alpha 3’s practice mode, I now seek out these games and if YouTube drops me a random recommendation of a tournament stream, I’m down to watch it. High level 3rd Strike is an absolute joy (even under the scourge of Chun and Yun) and while it is my favourite, the Alpha games are similarly fun to watch. The characters, the animations, the game play – it’s all so good. Lately though, I’ve found myself falling in love with the stages in these games.
The pixel art in the pre-2.5D era Street Fighters is something to be admired. It’s downright beautiful. And there are so many little details to notice. For this post, I am going to be focusing on the 3rd Strike stages because it’s my favourite Street Fighter games, the verticality of the stages and that I can practice on 3rd Strike. That last point is important, owing to playing these games on the 30th Anniversary Edition. All these games (the Alpha series and Street Fighter 3 series) have wonderful stages, and I would like to do other posts in the future focusing on those.
If you go into the various modes on the 30th Anniversary Edition, you get different screens. On Arcade Mode and Verus Mode, you get all of this:
On the Practice Mode screen, you get this:
Having to go into Versus Mode to look at the stages is frustrating. In large part because in the 30th Anniversary Edition, versus mode does not have the option of a one-off fight against the AI. It’s for two players. I either have to hook up a second controller, or let the timer run out on the character select screen. Not a world ender, but enough of annoyance that it’s a bother. On any other fighting game I have play/am playing, I can go to versus and fight the AI in one fight. It would be nice here. Arcade mode is more of a bother because the input reading AI won’t give me a moment to myself to look at the stages. Plus, arcade mode has pre-selected stages – there is no guarantee I can get the stage I want to look at. Not the most critical complaint, but it does bug me.
Now that the moaning is out of the way, let’s get to the good stuff. To fully admire the pixel art stages of 3rd Strike, a few things are needed. Certain characters must be picked, and then certain supers. For this purpose, I roll with Gouki (read: Akuma) and his Tatsu super. Other characters who work for artistic admiration are Ryu using the Shinshoryuken, and Hugo wielding his Gigas Breaker. Akuma’s Tatsu super does send him skyrocketing though and has him hanging in the air for quite a while. As cool as this super looks though, in the game it’s not that great. While it does the most damage of Gouki’s supers, it’s incredibly hard to combo into. Gouki’s Fireball super is the much superior choice. But for stage admiration, the Tatsu super reigns supreme.
What can be seen on the screen is wonderful enough. However, input two quarter circle forwards and kick, suddenly whole new parts of stages can be seen. And they are glorious. So much more exceptional pixel art to be seen. Some folks worked incredibly hard to craft it, and there is a good chance it could go unnoticed for 30, 40, 50 + matches. In my experience the Alpha series doesn’t have this verticality in its stages (characters just go off screen) – still has wondrous pixel art, it’s just that there is more of it in 3rd Strike. Two examples are Dudley’s stage and Remy’s stage. Dudley’s stage is a lovingly rendered street in London. Going vertical reveals all the tall building’s stretching skywards, just as lovingly rendered. Remy’s stage already has night club full of moving parts but up top there’s a glorious moon that might never be seen.
3rd Strike also has a lot of little moving parts that are incredibly fun to spot. Chun Li’s stage is a brilliant example. There is a little sparrow that hops across the central table. To the left there is a table that can be broken – no extra damage but it does look like a neat Jackie Chan fight scene when it does give way. And to the right there is a bamboo pole with a red sheet atop it. If there is enough corner pressure first the sheet will rip in two, then the bamboo will break.
There are a few other stages with little details like that. Gouki’s Hollow – already a favourite – has an owl on a branch that will blink intermittently. Makoto’s Dojo – the stage I go and practice on most of the time – has a persimmon tree that when someone gets knocked down near it, drops fruit. And there is a basket of swept up leaves that jostles similarly. Ibuki’s stage – incredibly chill with the music and the evening sky – has a dragonfly skimming around and when someone gets knocked down near the trees, snakes tumble down and slither off screen. It’s all so wonderful.
I wish there was a mode where I could strip away all the UI, the characters and just admire the stages as is. Honestly, they are some of the most wonderful examples of pixel art that exist, and they do deserve to be acknowledged. They are one the reasons I love to watch and play the games.
Notes and Asides:
A website that is a massive help with looking at the stages is the Fighter’s Generation. It’s an incredible website. Basically, a comprehensive reference of fighting games. Tons of character art and animation, descriptions and reviews of fighting games and a whole load of stage art. It’s a wonderful place to be. Here’s the link to the 3rd Strike Stages, all animated.
Speaking of 3rd Strike supers, one of the negative things I will say about the game is that there a whole bunch of cool supers that will never be used, simply because other supers are way better. Or some supers look cool but aren’t that good in practice. Taking Yun as an example, his other two supers are pretty cool combos. But you’d never use them over Gen Ei Jin – it’s simply too good. There are a few characters like that – Ken, Chun Li, Urien, Gouki (as mentioned above) all have cool supers, but one reigns above all others. Doesn’t hurt the game overall, but it’s still a shame some cool supers just never get seen.
One last thing. When talking about supers earlier and going vertical, I mentioned Hugo and Gigas Breaker. I find that super incredibly hard to do – it’s two full circle inputs. I have to mash it out and I often miss it. And that’s just in practice. This is a great opportunity to talk about Hayao, the legendary Hugo player from 3rd Strike. He just hits Gigas Breaker after Gigas Breaker, often instantly after a parry or just casually fitting it into a gap. It’s truly magnificent to see.
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