Regarding this post, I must state that while I am a casual/intermediate skilled player in the fighting game genre (at least in Tekken 7), I have never played Capcom's Street Fighter III: Third Strike, hence known as Street Fighter III, and have only recently done research on it. I will now attempt to analyze the events of what is commonly referred to as "Evo Moment #37" (thanks to Albert and Cavell for inspiration).
The above image displays the "Official Arcade Stick" for the SEGA Dreamcast Video game console (2th WAY, "Street Fighter 3 3rd strike 1 Handed Victory!! + Official Sega Dreamcast Arcade Stick Review"). From my understanding, this type of game peripherals is preferred over the conventional double joystick controllers as it emulates the experience of playing at the fighting game's arcade machine.
The basic fighter commands are as follows (game buttons are marked by the corresponding English letter positioned to the lower right): X for Light Punch, Y for Medium Punch, Z for Heavy Punch, A for Light Kick, B for Medium Kick, C for Heavy Kick, with the joystick used for directional input ("Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike"). The player must then combine directional input with almost simultaneous certain Punch/Kick combinations to execute certain "moves" or "combos" (combinations of moves) by the chosen fighter to fight the other player. The difference between the Low, Medium, Heavy Punch/Kick inputs are usually respectively increasing damage done by the move balanced by a higher "frame count" (the amount of graphical updates required to execute the move). In addition, the fighters have a fighter-specific "hit-box" utilized by the game's graphical engine to detect hits against them.
The above video is only used to help visualize the various hit-box placement (the different hit-boxes register a different amount of damage done by a certain hit) as well as the green hit-boxes used to register attacks (LennethEX, "Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike - Hitbox Test 1").
Above is the video of the event in question. Within the lower left-hand corner area displaying the players (both using Arcade Sticks), the leftmost is Japanese Daigo Umehara (playing as "Ken") and the other is American Justin Wong (playing as "Chun-Li"). The "background" displays the in-game events; the "health" of the fighters is displayed by the bright yellow strip above the fighter's corresponding icon, the time remaining in the match is displayed between them, and a "power-up" bar is below representing a resource (given by what the game) which can be used to increase the damage of a certain move or combo, or to execute a character-specific "super" combo.
I will now describe the relevant events marked by time stamps of the video:
0:10 - 0:20
Starting off, it is evident that Umehara is currently losing against Wong as he has lower health. Umehara then decides on an aggressive play, chipping away at Wong's health through both ranged and physical attacks. Wong responds with what is a called "turtleing," a completely defensive strategy where the player only "blocks" or "parries" (this has different meanings depending on the fighting game, within Street Fighter III, blocks prevent a percentage of damage while parries negates all of it). Umehara sees this and utilizes a "grab" (0:17), this is an unblockable or parryable attack and is meant to counter turtleing. Wong, now slightly below half health, jumps to increase the distance separating Umehara.
0:21 - 0:30
Umehara takes advantage of Wong jumping away with a punch and ranged attacks. Wong continues to keep a significant distance. But, unfortunately for Umehara, both players execute a "low-kick" with touching hit-boxes resulting in damage to both. Umehara's health decreases such that if Wong lands a hit or if Umehara blocks, he will lose the first match of the Street Fighter III finals. From 0:25 onwards, Wong, likely predicting that Umehara will attempt an "all-or-nothing" strategy, plays simultaneously defensive and aggressive by remaining in place but attacking. This allows for any direct hit, unless parried, to result in victory. A more esoteric example is Wong's low-kick (0:28), which if Umehara had tried to close the distance by parrying (executed by two quick distinct horitzontal imputs with the joystick, moving the player forward while nullifying damage), would have been an unavoidable hit while the parrying was executing. It is important to note that spectators of the event, positioned behind the players and camera, are audibly cheering Wong while a certain individual calls out for Wong to "time him out." As Wong had drastically more health than Umehara, he could have tried to avoid as much damage as possible to retain his health superiority and win at the end of the match timer.
0:31 - 0:40
Wong, presumably inspired by the cheering, decides to execute Chun-Li's super combo where the fighter dashes a normally impossible distance to kick for a total of seven times. However, Umehara, within the less-than-a-second time frame between the start and the hit of the first kick, parries it and even the other six kicks. He had to have known the timing of all six, and even the amount of time required to initiate the parry before and remain alive. Wong even follows up with an additional seven kick combo, which is also predicted and parried by Umehara. Knowing that Wong will keep the pressure, Umehara decides to jump in place (0:35). Wong follows up with a high-kick, attempting to finish the fight, but Umehara even predicts that (or even planned as it would limit the counter attack moves to a single direction) for Wong to do so and parries while in mid-air (0:35, which doesn't move the fighter). Then while Wong is stuck in the high-kick animation, Umehara does a falling-kick, low kick, punch combo (0:35-36). Knowing that Wong would then be "stun-locked" (a certain period after a hit where the player's fighter can't respond or execute any commands) and had low-enough health, Umehara then executes his own super to secure the win.
0:41 - 0:57
The crowd erupts in screams and cheering, while the camera's perspective expands while turning to reveal hundreds of spectators (evo2kvids, "Official Evo Moment #37, Daigo vs Justin Evo 2004 in HD").
The layers of meta-gaming required from Umehara to "turn the tide" of the match is incredible. While being cognizant of both fighter's body and attack hit-boxes in and outside of parrying, to the range, variety, and time of Chun-Li's move list (particularly her super), to knowing Wong had a tendency to turtle (supported by the announcer commentating "Justin's turtle style" 0:15-0:16), to even paying attention to the health bars and the spectators' cheering, displays Umehara's experience and knowledge of Street Fighter III. Umehara won the second match to unfortunately lose the final against Kenji Obata; there was no prize-money and was solely for recognition. It was also an international tournament that was hosted in Pamona, California (Evolution Championship Series 2004 (Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike)"). It is also important to note that ,according to the aforementioned wiki, Chun-Li is regarded to be the best fighter with Ken in the next lower tier ("Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike"), so Wong could have felt more confident than if he played as Ken or a similarly tiered fighter. What are your opinions of this level of metagaming? Have you had a similar experience, if so what were the requirements to be able to do so? How significant do you think were the cheers around the early 0:20s in determining the result of the match or even the next?
Works Cited
Evolution Championship Series 2004 (Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike). E-sports Earnings, 10 Nov. 2018, www.esportsearnings.com/tournaments/1590-evo-2004-sfiii-3rd-strike
evo2kvids. "Official Evo Moment #37, Daigo vs Justin Evo 2004 in HD." YouTube, Aug. 2015,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzS96auqau0
LennethEX. "Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike - Hitbox Test 1." YouTube, Dec. 2009,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KimKJCjfPFs
Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike. SRK, 10 Nov. 2018,
wiki.shoryuken.com/Street_Fighter_3:_3rd_Strike
2th WAY. "Official SEGA Dreamcast Arcade Stick (picture from video)" YouTube, Sept. 2013,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuu88CFibZY
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