Retro|Spective 127R: Street Fighter

[teddymeow]

I liked the Arika developed "3D" Street Fighter games. They were slower paced, for sure, but the thrill of seeing much loved characters in 3D was awesome!!

Arika also introduced some great original characters like Skullomania.

[Baseley09]

Deffo some cool characters echo the above re: Skullomania, certainly a more appealing series to me that SFIV onwards.

[Cassius_Smoke]

Yeah I liked it. Played it a lot.

[Dogg Thang]

For me, it didn’t compare with the 2D Street Fighter games at all but I enjoyed it on its own merits. A pretty fun game. Skullomania was a great character. Some of the others, not so great, especially the ones that felt like duplicates or just variations only with a hat and so on. I still quite like the chunky look to this day. But the animation was so soft compared with the 2D ones, sometingthe proper 3D SF games still fall victim to sometimes.

[fuse]

I played a loooot of EX+@, and despite the same feeling everyone else had of it not being a "true" SF game, found a lot to enjoy in there. Biggest thing for me was how wide open cancelling was; not just between specials and supers, but from supers to other supers! It was mad and a whole lot of fun. I like a lot of the Arika characters too, and not just Skullo.

First game I remember playing with combo trials, too!

[endo]

Yep, had a similar experience myself. I picked this up while living in France on my year abroad and played it to death. The comboing and cancels were great and I spent hours working out just how long I could stretch my combos out and how many supers I could link, making the Earth and comets and stuff appear if you could win a round with a mega combo. I remember some ridiculous combos with Garuda. The trials were great as well and really helped me get a better understanding of fighting game mechanics in general.

I bought the sequel too, but didn't get to play it much in the end, and missed the third instalment altogether.

[Asura]

Loved EX. Like others here, I didn't see it as a true 3D Street Fighter in raw gameplay terms (that honour went to Rival Schools) but as its own thing, it was great fun. I recall there was a machine on a cross-channel ferry I put a fair bit of money into.

I loved the low-poly fighters, and how the artists at Arika got the absolute best out of them.

However, I think the series actually got worse in EX2/3; the novelty wore off.

[Nu-Eclipse]

The music in the EX games doesn't get talked about often enough. Fantastic!

[Neon Ignition]

Game 27 - Street Fighter EX 2
Akira had added various characters and moves for the home version of EX and its arcade update, much of this making the transition to the sequel with Excel Combo's added. A mixture of new and franchise familiar characters were added to EX2 across both its original release and expanded home version.







2 EX 2 Street Fighter?

[Neon Ignition]

Game 28 - Street Fighter EX 3
As still the only 3D incarnation the series was known for, it was natural for a new 3D entry to come in the form of a third EX title. Arriving for PS2, it added some new move functions and tag battles. It also had 16 fighters with 12 hidden fighters and one more via a cheat device. It reviewed alright too but with Street Fighter falling to gain ground during this era and the future of the main series being in 3D there was no future left for the EX series.







Was it the right time for EX to fade away?

[Cassius_Smoke]

I'll be honest, I didn't know EX has sequels.

[Neon Ignition]

It feels nuts to think it has as many as Alpha. There was novelty with EX but it quickly diminished with each entry. I don't think the early 3D Capcom fighters held up that well, even the better remembered ones like Rival Schools

[Asura]

EX3 wasn't great; especially in the UK as it was an early PS2 launch title, going head-to-head with Tekken Tag Tournament.

It had one thing though, the game has a four-player mode. Which is dreadful. But it's absolute chaos and surprisingly fun for a couple of hours with some friends and beers.

[speedlolita]

Funnily enough due to my age it somehow worked out that my introduction to Street Fighter was EX 2 Plus on the PlayStation, I must have been 10 or 11 years old.

I remember enjoying it quite a bit but obviously it doesn't hold a candle to the real titles. Garuda was particularly nasty in arcade mode.

[Neon Ignition]

Game 29 - X-Men vs Street Fighter
Akuma has guested in X-Men Children of the Atom but this was the installment where the franchise fully embraced the crossover. Using a tag team play style the game built on Capcom's prior X-Men titles and matched the Alpha style SF incarnations of the characters to the Marvel line up. The game featured 17 fighters with the Street Fighter side being all the most common characters.








A crossover for the ages?