Street Fighter III: New Generation (Japanese: ストリートファイターIII -New Generation-) is a fighting video game in Capcom's Street Fighter series, originally released as a coin-operated arcade game in 1997. The game's name as it appears on the cabinet is Three: A New Generation of Street Fighters. Street Fighter III was produced for the CD-ROM-based CP System III hardware, which allowed for more elaborate 2D graphics than the CPS II-based Street Fighter Alpha games (the previous incarnation of the Street Fighter series), while revamping many of the play mechanics. The game, which was designed as a direct sequel to Street Fighter II, initially discarded every previous character except for Ryu and Ken (hence the "New Generation" subtitle), introducing an all-new roster led by Alex. Likewise, a new antagonist named Gill took over M. Bison's role from the previous games as the new boss character.
Street Fighter III was followed by two updates: Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact in 1997 and Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike in 1999. A single home version of the game was released for the Dreamcast in a two-in-one compilation titled Street Fighter III: Double Impact, which also includes 2nd Impact.
Like its predecessors, Street Fighter III is a one-on-one fighting game, in which two fighters use a variety of attacks and special moves to knock out their opponent. The gameplay of the original Street Fighter III has several new abilities and features introduced. Some abilities are also taken from other Capcom fighting games, such as players being able to "dash" or "retreat" like in the Darkstalkers series, as well as performing "super jumps" and "quick stands" after falling from an attack like in X-Men: Children of the Atom. The game also introduced "leap attacks", which are small jumping attacks used against crouching opponents. As well, the player cannot perform "aerial guards" like in the Street Fighter Alpha series, but instead is replaced by "parrying" ("blocking" in the Japanese version).
The 1994 SNK fighting game Samurai Shodown II is often credited with introducing the first Parry system. The main new feature is the ability to parry an opponent's attack, by deflecting any incoming attack without receiving damage. At the exact moment an opponent's attack is about to hit his or her character, the player can move the controller toward or down to Parry the attack without receiving damage, leaving the opponent vulnerable for a counterattack. Additionally, this allows the player to defend against Special Moves and even Super Arts without sustaining the normal minor damage that blocking normally would incur. However, parrying requires precise timing.
The other new feature introduced in Street Fighter III is Super Arts. This is a powerful special move similar to a Super Combo in Super Turbo and the Alpha games. After selecting a character, the player will be prompted to select from one of three character-specific Super Arts to use in battle. Like the Super Combo gauge in previous games, the player has a Super Art gauge which will fill up as the player performs regular and special moves against an opponent. The player can only perform a Super Art once the gauge is filled.[6] Depending on the Super Art chosen by the player, the length of the Super Art gauge will vary, as well as the amount of filled Super Art gauges the player can stock up. The players can now cancel a special move into a Super Art, a technique borrowed from Street Fighter EX.
Among the elaborated sprites include multiple hit stun sprites, including a new "turned-around state," in which a character is turned around (his or her back faces the opponent) after being hit. Only certain attacks can put characters in a turned-around state, and grabs and throws can now be comboed, as it typically takes longer for an attacked character to recover from this new type of hit stun.
