You wouldn't expect it, but this game is hilarious. In the introductory sequence, a character in a white ghi with noticeably short legs but ridiculously long, muscular arms is standing under a waterfall, slowly circling his arms around his body as he focuses his chi to the beat of some country-hick guitar strumming away in the background. It is Ryu. The next scene sees a similarly proportioned man with shock blonde hair and a red ghi, marching towards Ryu in the water with a stout resolve in his face, as though a large wooden object had been jammed up a very uncomfortable area. It is Ken. After a brief "howdy do", the two warriors perform a well-choreographed fight that eventually leads to the game's title screen: Street Fighter EX 3.

For the uninitiated, the Street Fighter EX series was a landmark in Capcom's history, as it was the first time in which they licensed their Street Fighter franchise to another developer. Arika, the developer in question, surprised everyone with a pseudo-3D fighting game that offered a solid 3D representation of the classically 2D characters, but retained the tight 2D gameplay of old. In spite of whatever criticisms there may have been for not incorporating some measure of 3D movement Arika nevertheless added its own new gameplay features. Of particular note was the addition of some excellent new characters, as well as the ability to chain combos and multiple super combos together.

Street Fighter EX 3 does not deviate from this approach. The substantive fighting controls and mechanics remain identical to the previous two games. If you've played either of the two games, the guard cancels, multiple super combos, meteor combos, and so forth will be quite familiar to you. There are 15 initial characters to select from, such as Ken, Ryu, Cracker Jack, Hokuto (babe!), and Sakura; as well as 9 unlockable characters such as Sagat, Vega, Area, and Kairi. There's also a new custom character called Ace who we'll discuss later.

The main difference Capcom sought to achieve in this game was to have multiple characters running around on screen. They have accomplished this in a very interesting way, and with varying degrees of success. Starting with your initially selected character, you'll be pitted against three CPU characters who appear on screen at the same time as you do. You must defeat them all. Once you've floored the last of them, you have the option of letting him or her join your team. From that point on, you'll encounter a series of two-on-two fights where you and your new partner take part in a tag-team matches not too much unlike the Marvel Vs Capcom games. Of course, you can continue to fight solo, but you'll still have to take on two CPU characters. In other stages, you and your team mate will fight a lone character, where both of you appear on the screen at the same time. As the game goes along, you can accumulate more team mates.

Part of the novelty of having a "team" of characters is that you can pick and choose which one you'll partner with. Each of them has his or her own life-bar that needs a round or two of rest to replenish. You therefore have to implement a little Olife-bar management' as you try to have your best characters peaking for the final showdown with the man in the puffy red costume, Vega.

In strict gameplay terms, save for the multiple character options, Street Fighter EX 3 doesn't represent anything we haven't seen before. Even Ace, the so-called custom character you create, is no more than a character who has earned his moves from a training mode equivalent. Unfortunately, there isn't very much to drive you to earn all of his moves since none of them are that good! Basically, he's filler.

The game has a couple of game modes on offer. First, there is the Original Mode, which essentially puts you through the story. Arena Mode is what you play when you've invited your friends over, allowing you to customise the multiplayer options, character sequences, and so on. Beyond that, it's the Character Edit mode referred to in the preceding paragraph and a training more.

Aesthetically, Street Fighter EX 3 looks like a highly polished, high resolution PlayStation game. You only see glimpses of the PlayStation 2's power when the multiple characters start jumping around on the screen, or when the camera zooms in on them and their features flawlessly scale into view. Obviously, the only strength being shown off here is the ability to maintain the integrity and flow of the game when there are many large objects moving around on the screen. And it's only a subtle strength, at that.

To its credit, we can't stress enough that the game does look highly polished. The Street Fighter characters have never looked so crisp and well-defined as they do now, nor have they ever been animated so smoothly. They look even more fantastic with the new lighting effects that supplement their special moves.

However, Arika don't seem to have gone enough as far as animations go. The character movements all ultimately look a little wooden. And given the fact that Arika haven't made very much of an effort to boost the texture detail on their clothing and whatnot, they ultimately look like a bunch of marionettes fighting on screen. It's actually quite hilarious in that context when you see all of the serious expressions on their faces as they move in for the attack.

To be fair, it's not entirely certain if increased texture detail would have been necessary for this game, as any increased degree of realism to, say, the fabric of Hokuto's kimono would have ruined the comic flavour of the Street Fighter mythos. None of this, however, excuses the instances of slow-down that's apparent when all four players are on screen. The slow-down is even more apparent after you finish the game, where you're pitted against a never-ending crowd of opposing fighters. Your goal is basically to rack up as many wins as you can, but with up to around 15 characters crowded on the screen, the game chugs up quite noticeably.

In the end, it should be noted that this review should not be treated as an evaluation of the PlayStation 2 hardware, its capabilities, and so forth. This is a review of the game itself. Numerous questions have yet to be answered in relation to the jag and anti-aliasing issues - but to be perfectly honest, they have very little role to play here. The game looks crisp and fantastic. This reviewer personally believes that issues have yet to be resolved between the PlayStation 2 video signal output and standard methods of video-capture technology: the screenshots look nothing like what they do on your television screen.

With that qualification, it should be said that graphics almost didn't matter in the evaluation of this game. All Arika served up was basically a rehash with a graphical update. The fighting strategies are largely the same; and if you're at all competent at Street Fighter games generally, it's possible to finish the game with one character within 5 minutes. Factor in all 24 characters, and that's around 2 hours of gameplay. Any sense of replay value would therefore be in the training mode and the multiplayer modes. This is therefore only enjoyable if you're a Street Fighter fan.

It's worth remembering that Arika did only have 8 months to develop Street Fighter EX 3, as was the case for every other PlayStation 2 launch title. Most games go through a 2 year development process. Quite understandably, given they were learning how to use a completely new kind of hardware, Arika realistically had no more opportunity than to create a very highly polished PlayStation game anyway. While this is a readily acceptable explanation, it is by no means an excuse or an alibi. Next time around, perhaps the higher-ups will give developers enough time to develop a game properly, for Street Fighter EX 3 shows off nothing of the PlayStation 2's true power.