The fun to play and actually decent, despite not being misunderstood and not that loved Street Fighter III series got a lot of love from me. I own all 3 in the series on the ill fated, but still awesome that is the Dreamcast. I’m easily swayed, and was instantly drawn in by how Ryu’s clothes seem to move all over the place as he lobbed fireballs. But once I sat down with the game I fell for it and commended Capcom’s decision to just start afresh with a bevy of new faces, an all new piece of hardware, and also a fresh sounding soundtrack.

The New generation and 2nd impact had cool soundtracks, but 3rd strike’s was bad asss. The little catchy jingles went out of the window in the place of full on dance, trance and drum ‘n bass fuelled compositions. The brilliant thing about 3rd strike’s soundtrack was that every stage had 3 versions of the same theme: one version for each progressive round, with the mix getting more and more intense.

Makoto’s theme stuck out for me instantly because it was cool, quirky and downright funky. You also don’t expect the track to progress and the beats to drop as they do as the rounds progress. “Spunky” is one of my fave tracks from the 3rd strike soundtrack. The whole of 3rd strike’s soundtrack was a breath of fresh air because it was such a departure for Capcom and the composers didn’t care so much about trying to re-create classic themes. They just wanted to make good music that you could humiliate and combo suckers to.

The version of “Spunky” below is versions A, B and C all mixed together.

And for those of you who didn’t know: Makoto is a girl. A very manly looking girl with a hair cut more boy-ish than Sakura’s, and big old man hands and feet to rival Ryu’s.

Listen: Spunky

Street Fighter III: 3rd strike
© 1999 Capcom entertainment Japan