Tatsu-Maki-Sen-Pu-Kyaku for life!

I miss the arcade. I really do. I hate to sound like an old man, but these kids aren’t going to have it like my generation did unless they move to Japan or South Korea. Consoles have killed the arcade in America. Then Capcom re-released SF3TSOE and I believe this is as close to the old days that we can get right now.

My fond memories of the arcade involve being in a dark kind of smokey room that is ridiculously loud, putting my quarter up waiting my turn and watching the better players play so I can learn how to play better. Once in a while some generous soul would take pity on my broke butt and throw a quarter in for me so I could get in. Good Times, good times. Let me just say first and foremost. I am loving the online play, but we’ll come back to that.

Let’s talk about the spiffy new features they have in this edition. They remixed the soundtrack, but they kept the original music in there if that is what you prefer. They cleaned up the graphics and brought them up to 21st century hand drawn animation standard, but there is an option to use an old school cabinet view and you can turn the improved graphics off and turn on the analog scan lines. You know, we are so spoiled with our HD 1080p resolution, when you turn all that off you really appreciate how far we have come since 1998. It’s blurry, but nostalgic. I usually turn it on to show my younger gamer friends and tell them to stop complaining, you little brats, you have save points and continues now don’t tell me a game is too hard dang it!!! Anyway...

For the most part (I know strange way of stating something…just follow me folks), this is the cream of the crop as far as 2D fighting games go. But I also had to retro my brain to be able to play this game and what I mean by that is I had to set my brain 13 years back to even play this again. I still get smashed as usual, but I learn. I haven’t had any serious lag issues and the hand drawn updated graphics are nice.

As a fighting genre fan, I say to you, purchase this game. It is the epitome of 2D fighters and if you are a completist like me, you would want this in your collection.

Bryan Thompson