Summary
Decent but let down by standard pad.
The Good
The gameplay feels like Street Fighter still and the barrel mini game looks good in 3D. The amount of characters was large for a SF game at the time and still these days only has competition from SFA 3 and Marvel vs Capcom 2(both are superior games to be honest). The music is good to my ears anyway those who like J-Rock and J-Pop style music will enjoy the soundtrack. The backgrounds are nice too and having Guile in a game at this time was good as he had been replaced by his bland brother Charlie.
The Bad
Visually it offended some at the time never mind in as i right this 2007. Box fighter was one term used and it looks nowhere near as good as the amazing port of Virtua Fighter 2 on the Saturn that came out in 1995. It pales next to PSX titles like Tekken 2 also. The controls also stink if you are using a standard PSX or PS2 pad, If you use a arcade stick or the Street Fighter 15th anniversary pad(which is really a Sega Saturn Japanese/European and USA mark 2 pad) then the problem is fixed however.
The Bottom Line
It was an interesting new venture for the Street Fighter series with Capcom making the jump to 3D. Its not an awful game with all the moves you know well if you are a Street Fighter fan working for your fave characters. The music is decent too with the best being Sakura's to my ears. The new characters added for the EX series are a bit hit and miss with some being good and others look like they took all of 5 mins to make up. Its a game that Street Fighter fans will find interesting others who want a retro 3D fighter are best getting Virtua Fighter 2 for the Saturn, if they want a PSX game then Tekken 3 is the one id recommend although its a bit of a button masher compared to VF but fun nonetheless.
