I remember last year vividly.  Street Fighter 4’s release was looming in March.  In a brilliant move ,intentional or coincidental, Capcom released Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix just a few months before.  The release of HD Remix at that time partially fulfilled my hunger for Street Fighter 4 and yet also helping to build my enthusiasm for it.

Fast forward to 2010.  Super Street Fighter 4 is on the horizon for Spring.  In my opinion, Capcom could do the same thing again only with far less effort and money/resources.  Street Fighter 3: Third Strike would be a perfect game to re-release to keep the Street Fighter franchise hot as a kettle until Super arrives.

How to update Third Strike for HD

There will be people out there who will ask for Capcom to completely redraw the sprites in HD like they did with Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix.  That is not practical or necessary.  First of all, Third Strike has many times more frames of animation than SF2 Turbo.  It would take 2-3 times as much time and resources.

The practical solution is to do something similar to what they did with Marvel vs Capcom 2.  Third Strike is still a good looking game even after all these years.  If they just added the graphics filters from Marvel vs Capcom 2, reworked the onscreen lifebars and indicators as well as some of the select and summary screens, and added the GGPO-powered online components of Marvel vs Capcom 2 it would be a great title.

But Would You Buy It?

If Capcom gave Third Strike a re-release as stated above, for Marvel vs Capcom 2’s price ($15), would you buy it?

Vote today in our IPW Forum Poll here.

Who knows, if enough people vote yes maybe Capcom will take notice (we know some Capcom staffers visit this site).  If the no’s are loud and clear, the Third Strike fans will know that the game no longer has the support they think it does.

What Would It Look Like? See These Mock-ups!

If you want to get an idea of what the game would look like, check out these mock-ups done by Mr List at the Capcom Unity Forums.  These were done a few months ago and look amazing. If one person can do this, surely Capcom can do it!

Screenshots of original version are on the left, HD version will be on the right.  Keep in mind that these mock-ups do not apply any filters to the actual game graphics like the ones in Marvel vs Capcom 2, it just shows updates to bars and menus.