What Is the Parry in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike?

Defense, played forward: a tap into the blow, timed to the frame, that erases the attack and steals its turn.

Every fighting game teaches you to block. Street Fighter III asked something riskier. Its signature system, introduced in 1997 and perfected in 3rd Strike, lets a player parry: deflect an attack completely by moving into it at the moment of contact. Samurai Shodown II is often credited with an earlier parry, but Street Fighter III built an entire game's balance around the idea.

HOW IT WORKS

Toward, down, on the frame

The input

Tap toward the opponent as a high or mid attack lands; tap down for a low attack. There is no parry button. The direction you would never choose while being attacked is the defense.

No damage at all

A parry negates the hit entirely, including the chip damage a blocked special or Super Art would still inflict. It is the only full defense in the game.

The reward

The attacker's move is deflected and left vulnerable; the parrying player recovers first and counterattacks. A parry is a reversal you perform with your feet.

The risk

Mistime it and you take the hit while walking forward, the worst state in the game. The system prices certainty: guess wrong, pay fully.

Air parries

Street Fighter III removed air blocking and replaced it with parrying in the air, extending the same gamble above the ground.

Multi hit attacks

Every hit of a multi hit move must be parried separately, each on its own timing, which is the fact the game's most famous moment is built on.

WHAT IT CHANGED

Defense as offense

The parry rewired the genre's safest habits. Fireballs could be walked through one tap at a time. Chip damage finishes, the guaranteed kill on a nearly dead blocker, stopped being guaranteed. Pressure became negotiable at any moment, provided the defender's timing was perfect, which is why 3rd Strike matches swing so violently and why its best players are described as readers rather than reactors. The fullest demonstration is documented on this wing's Evo 2004 page: fifteen consecutive parries, at one pixel of health, in a semifinal.

THE GAME ON THE SHELF

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike · Japan · PlayStation 2

The Japanese PlayStation 2 box for 3rd Strike, the game built around the parry this page breaks down.

The full story: the history of 3rd Strike on PlayStation 2 →

What Is the Parry in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike?

HOW IT WORKS

WHAT IT CHANGED

THE GAME ON THE SHELF

THE FIRST WORD