THE pinnacle of fighting games. I only played like a few, but when I do play a new one, they're always super fun to play because of being able to unleash cool combos and requires genuinely hard and quick strategizing and lots of skill in order to be able to beat your opponent, especially if they're another competitive player. Well, Third Strike pretty much perfects everything I love about the genre to an absolute T to give us a fighting game like no other.

There's a huge sense of style to be found in this game, like in the music for example. Every single one of the tracks in this game feels so unique compared to what you would normally hear in other fighting games and helps to give each match you do a more unique and special vibe to it, from the really funky sounding "You Blow My Mind" to the more peaceful and calming vibes of "Twilight". Every track in this game feels fresh and none of them feel the same as each other, and that's honestly why this is one of my favorite soundtracks in all of games.

The artwork is another part of this game's insane sense of style. The backgrounds look so beautiful and perfectly represent the places that each of the characters are from and who they are. The spritework is also gorgeous as well, with insanely smooth and cool animations that legit feel like eye candy to watch.

The roster is really cool and are all really fun to play with and against. Honestly glad the only returning characters are Ryu, Ken, Akuma, and Chun-Li because it allows for more unique and awesome characters like the Hong Kong twins and Makoto to truly shine in the spotlight. Every character in this game feels so unique and different to play with compared to each other and it's always super fun to experiment with each and every one of them to see which ones work best for you. Super balanced too (even the worst characters like Sean and Twelve are still pretty decent to use).

The actual fighting aspect is where the game truly shines however and it's the very best you can find in any fighting game. You got your usually different movesets for each characters that allow for different types of combos, blocking, etc, which already gives this game a good sense of strategizing and skill you need in order to win, but what this game has that other fighting games don't is choosing your specials and parries. Each character has 3 specials you can choose to make them have for a single match that you can use in it and every single one of those 3 has their own advantages and disadvantages to them, and parries are a great way to block an incoming attack without taking chip damage and also being able to immediately unleash a huge combo after doing one so your opponent will be caught off-guard and can't really do anything about it. Carefully choosing which of the 3 specials to have before a match and deciding when to parry and trying to do it both add an extra layer of strategy and skill you need to beat your opponents and even more options for how to approach things in a fight (the best example of this being the famous EVO moment 37 where J Wong tried to finish off Daigo's Ken with his Chun-Li's Houyoku Sen, with that unfortunately backfiring on him because Daigo parried every single one of his kicks and than unleashed a deadly super combo on him to finish him off).

So yeah, this is honestly my favorite fighting game of all the ones I played so far. The game feels stylish in a way that no other fighting games can even get close to being and the actual fighting is the very best you can find in a fighting game in my opinion, with smooth gameplay and new mechanics that give you a shit ton of options for how you want to beat your opponent. Honestly peak fighting game and I can't wait to see it at this year's EVO.

It has best girl Chihiro in it, so it’s peak

All jokes aside, I’m not that far into it lmao, but here are some initial thoughts I have on it so far anyways:

-Tartarus is a bunch of randomized floors and may not be that good compared to 5’s palaces, but I do like how the floors of Tartarus look, and the fatigue mechanic is removed, so going through it is less annoying than it is in OG Persona 3

-Probably the best first impressions of the main cast characters in any Persona game. All the characters introduced this early in the game are all instantly likable, from Yukari, the cheerful but lonely girl, to Junpei, the very goofy best friend of the protagonist who’s always just fun to watch on-screen. All of them had enough screen time to truly shine and watching them on-screen is always really nice due to their fun and unique personalities.

-The social links may be pretty short and kinda underwhelming compared to 5 and 4’s social links, but they’re still pretty neat and the voice for each rank really helps to enhance them, special shoutout to the old couple, genuinely fucking love that social link so much

-The plot feels really unique compared to 5 and 4. Much more dark and serious atmosphere, most party members already having Personas before the MC, Tartarus being the only dungeon and having to go through it the whole game, etc genuinely help to make Persona 3 feel new and fresh compared to 5 and 4. Some may say the pacing is way too slow and I can see where people are going with that, but honestly I like the pretty slow pacing of the story because it allows you to spend more time just spending your days however you want to, which contribute greatly to the game’s themes

-OST is definitely a downgrade in some areas compared to OG 3’s soundtrack, but I will say that the new songs added to Reload are absolute bangers. Color Your Night my beloved

-Combat may be slightly easier, but it feels more fun compared to OG 3’s combat. You can actually control your party members now and that’s just a legit godsend, and shifting to other party members is always really fun to do too, and the best part is it doesn’t give you free bonuses like in 5, meaning battles don’t get any easier by doing it.

Overall, I’m really liking this so far and I think it gave a stronger first impression than in 5 and 4. Can’t wait to play through the rest of the game to see how it turns out!

Yeah, this is very easily my new favorite game of all time now. There's so much to love about this game, from the smooth and clever gameplay to the nice OST, and don't even get me started on the writing man. The whole dynamic between Otacon and Emma, the new role given to Snake and how perfectly it fitted him, Ocelot and Solidus both being god-tier antagonists, the themes about misinformation being more easily spread through the internet and how we need to do something about it, learning to decide your own fate, and passing on stuff to later generations, and especially Raiden's whole character arc throughout the whole game. Just play it man, because this is just one of those games where you need to play it to believe it.