And sometimes, a bad game really isn't a bad game at all.

Street Fighter III 3rd Strike announcer voice "Yeah, I've been waitin' for this”

defeated characters in original mode getting dizzy and then just falling to the ground if you choose not to recruit them is so funny to me

This game suffered a lot because of how obviously rushed it was. However, it’s still a damn fun game I’m glad someone with a big enough platform is finally praising the game

Insert here obligatory "Max Gets Exposed on Stream, Faults His Audience and Runs Away"

One other thing that probably played a factor in the games downfall is that the original Japanese version was rushed so hard, it suffers from horrendous slowdown and makes most of the game almost unplayable. All of this was fixed in the western version.

I only figured out that Ex3 had a bad reputation a couple years ago. It shocked me since I had so much fun with it as a child. The art, music, stages, and characters were memorable.

"The worst Street Fighter game ever".
Street Fighter 1987 was so unknown that EX3 earned such an unfair title.

Street fighter ex3 has the most underrated character select theme in the series.

A team compromised of former Capcom employees being tasked to make a Capcom game doesn't sound too insane anymore when Dimps made 4 and 5. Dimps is a team comprised of former Capcom and SNK staff, which I find funny since I mostly associate them with handheld Sonic games.

The fact that the original Fighting Layer can be often overlooked even by very niche communities like the EX players around the world - to the point that, even ARIKA decided to make a game literally called "Fighting EX Layer" and then have a roster that ends up consisting of only the previous SFEX characters + somehow Terry - is, honestly, a tragedy.

Thanks for highlighting this absolute gem even if just briefly, Mr. WinQuote. :]

I remember playing SFEX3 on launch and loving it. The sheer freedom compared to some other games is absolutely terrific. However, there was also SF fatigue that had set in and Tekken has taken the throne of the fighting game everyone knew how to play a bit. The general cultural atmosphere in gaming was already putting SF as passe, with new and better fighting game IPs already exceeding it. Still, I pop in my copy every year just to remind me how good it feels to play unrestrictive fighting games.

The public opinion of the EX series has been wild to watch because personally? I remember EX1 being HATED! The graphics were bad even for its time and the roster on vanilla was lackluster. However, when SF4 was announced there were a bunch of people hoping it wouldn't be as bad as EX...only for a small faction to begin shouting "Actually EX+alpha is good. It's the only good EX but give it a chance" and no I'm not kidding. It would be years later for EX2 to suddenly get a more active scene leading to only EX3 being "the bad one"...and yeah, that's gonna change one day because EX3 is sick awesome.

So yeah, the EX series sorta started from the bottom and gradually got rediscovered. At least from my observations anyway.

I also seem to remember a brief blip in time where EX3 was actually liked when it first came out at least among a casual audience leading to a very brief period where EX3 was "the only good one". Yeah, public opinions on fighters is wild, weird, and dumb much of the time. Do NOT get me started on Bloody Roar, a game series I've loved since day 1 and got utterly mauled on fighting game message boards for it...and NOW everyone goes "What happened to Bloody Roar? We need a new Bloody Roar!" where were you guys 20 years ago?!

This was the first fighting game i ever did a motion in

I loved this shit it felt really fast and frantic and the arika characters were sick. Garuda is still to this day one of the coolest villains in the franchise

As someone who was already a fan of the EX series, bought EX3 game at launch with my PS2 and didn't really get and understand the more inner workings and such, I still was able to enjoy it and glad that the game is able to be explored with much more neuance and understanding now.

Also, have to mention that you were able to level up Ace's moves to have extra properties. Big example was his dragon punch where if you input it precisely ala Tekken EWGF, it could launch for a juggle and I think if you were able to infinite with it over and over if you had the execution down.

Sidenote: While a lot of popular game coverage/content is largely cliche, dumb, misinformative and whatever, I'm glad there's been improvement by some to do more and this channel is part of that. Thank you.

Vulcano Rosso is still one of my overall favorite fighting game characters. I aspire to have his hair. Arika really had a talent for making fun and creative characters, so I hope to see more from them!

Working in a gameshop: the casuals couldn't button-bash like they could in Tekken and SoulCalibur.

Shoutouts to Andy and Hiro Konobu, who between the two of them have the only known match footage of EX3 being played I've seen.
With all the classic arcade and fighting game collections Capcom's been putting out, I hope that one day this game will get a re-release, so we can really see the scene (if there even is one lol) explode for it

Improved emulation and has helped a lot with the modern reassessment of oft-ignored games like EX3. Like WinQuote said this was a launch PS2 exclusive so there probably weren't many physical copies out there. The second hand market for retro games is awful too.

Nowadays, emulation for sixth gen consoles and beyond has improved to the point that more people than ever before can pick up and play games like EX3.

Great content as always. Have you ever considered covering TMNT Tournament Fighters on the SNES and its modern day revitalization?

I never once thought any of the SFEX series was bad at all. It's just "different".