Street Fighter III: Double Impact

THE BAD:
poor control and responsiveness from DC controller, limited game modes, lacks replay value

SUMMARY:
Street Fighter III: Double Impact is a port of the popular Capcom series. It combines two titles into one disc -- SF: New Generation and SF: Giant Attack. As I soon learned, however, these titles are pretty much clones of one another.

This installment of the Street Fighter series ports incredibly well to the Dreamcast, taking full advantage of the console's graphic capabilities. Though it's still a two-dimensional, side-to-side scroll fighter, the characters appear in vivid detail and color. The environments are more rich and full than one would expect, featuring the range of bustling activity at a street market (Sean's stage), gamblers waging on a bet (Hugo's stage), a dank cave in the Amazon (Oro's stage), and even a Japanese outdoor hot spring (Ryu's stage). The characters move in fluid, realistic motions on the screen. You'll get the most impressive eye candy during a Super Art sequence. The screen flashes purple as the character moves into the attack; if the Art defeats your opponent, the screen will explode in a shade of sunset colors -- oranges and purples and reds, oh my!

Unfortunately, the game looks great but plays considerably less than expected.

As stated earlier, both titles resemble each other a little too closely to be counted as separate games.

Street Fighter fans who grew up in a tradition of multiple modes and fast-paced and frenzied options may or may not appreciate the back-to-basics featured in this game. The game features only Arcade, Versus, and Training modes. The gameplay eliminates air blocks and juggling combos and cuts your character selection down to the standard issue eight to ten. Ryu and Ken persist as does Akuma (if you press "up" on one of the characters in the selection screen), and though interesting characters such as Alex, Yin and Yang, and Ibuka make an apperance -- if anything, they feel like your favorite SF2ers and Alphas in some different and snazzy clothes. Sean is Ken's protégé, but plays aggravatingly similar to Dan. Dudley is a beautified Balrog with British style. Alex is the rough and tumble street fighter, while Hugo's bulk makes him all but impossible to wield. Sure, he can throw his weight around, but Zangief did it so much better!

And even though the Dreamcast makes SFIII: DS look incredibly pretty, the controller is ill prepared for the gamer who expects slick moves and highly responsive timing for all those combos. The Dreamcast foregoes the left analog stick, thus making it much more difficult to make smooth joystick motions. Ken's Shoryuken was as much a war of attrition as it was when I first learned it on the Super NES Street Fighter II version, if not worse.

While characters can select a Super Art to perform for each match, unless you train with your character before playing, there's really no way to know how effective your selections may be until you have already lost. After all, what good is it to perform a Super Art that does only a negligible amount of damage and stuns your opponent... again?

That all said, I have been a fan of the Street Fighter franchise for a very long time, but I have to admit that this title had not served me very well. I played through the Arcade mode to get everyone's endings, and have since let the game collect dust. Sure, it's fun to whip out Third Strike when you have some buddies over, but sad to say, the game isn't nearly as fun as its predecessors.