With the impending release of Super Street Fighter IV, there's a number of different sort of memes popping back up all over the place, specifically in various commentaries about the Street Fighter series. The most common thing I'm seeing is derision of Street Fighter III, and how it's "too complex" of a game compared to the much more simpler Street Fighter IV, or even Street Fighter II.

As someone who took the time to understand and learn how to play Street Fighter III, I find the increasing number of complaints to be somewhat annoying, and almost ignorant to a point. Admittedly, my stance is a little biased - since I adore Street Fighter III, but at the same time, it's almost ludicrous that the game gets as much undeserved crap as it gets - since it does many things that Capcom haven't done as well since or before the release of 3rd Strike. 

Specifically, let's begin with the "too complex" part that most people seem to complain most about. In particular, people cite difficulty with the parry system - wherein to parry attacks, you need to move forward just as the attack connects, negating the attack and leaving your enemy wide open. By doing this, it effectively negates projectiles (which isn't an issue, since MOST of the characters in 3rd Strike aren't projectile users), and allows you to counter pretty much every other attack, including Super Arts (which will get to in a later paragraph). 

The most common misconception about this argument is that in order to basically play the game - you NEED to know how to parry. This can't be any further from the truth. In reality, it does help if you want to take the game seriously, but you don't need to know how to parry in order to play the game. I can't do it properly, and yet, it doesn't affect my enjoyment of the game. I know quite a few people who can't do it properly, and yet, they still enjoy the game. And if you want further proof that parrying doesn't ruin games - I CHALLENGE you to find someone complaining about the Just Defence system from SNK fighting games or Guard Impacting from Soul Calibur, and how it's "too complex" and ruins the game for them.

I CHALLENGE you to find me a Street Fighter II video that's as amazing as this. 

Another argument I've heard in favour of the game being "too complex, therefore it sucks" is the Super Art system. Basically, each character has three super moves, known as Super Arts. Once you pick a character, you pick one Super Art to use as your sole super move until you choose another character. 

I'm more baffled that people have found reason to even complained about this. The ability to choose Super Arts allows for different styles of gameplay, and locks you to learning only one combination - should you JUST focus on doing just that. What's so hard about locking down one super move?

I'm guessing that a lot of people deriding Street Fighter III are people who grew up and played the ever loving crap out of the various different versions of Street Fighter II. In fact, if you were to read a lot of articles and even listen to podcasts from outlets like 1UP, Gamespot, IGN etc, you'll hear a lot of praising of Street Fighter II and how the participants spent a lot of time playing the game, but stopped at III, citing that it was too complex and focused at a more hardcore audience.

Well no shit it's different. It IS a sequel after all. Were you expecting a title known as "Street Fighter III" to be as iterative as a lot of the different versions of Street Fighter II? Of course it's different. It's a sequel, a completely new entry in a long running series - you'd better damn well expect it to be different from it's predecessors. If it had been exactly the same, these would be the same people damning it.

The point of this? Go play Street Fighter III. It's one of the best fighting games ever made, and Capcom's crowning achievement as a company.