well, i think i made it clear in the Crowded Street review that while i do love Street Fighter III, i don't see myself as being qualified to talk about it on a mechanical level. i love fighting games, but i suck ass at them. that being said, it's made its way onto my list of favorite games of all times for a reason, and that's partially due to its lineup of fighters. for a long, LONG time i always saw Street Fighter as being extremely boring and vanilla, especially compared to other fighting games i was interested in. (Darkstalkers, Guilty Gear) but one day i somehow ended up playing a bit of Third Strike, and my opinions almost instantly turned around as soon as i began to scroll through the cast. of course you got your Kens and your Chun-Lis, boring as hell. But then you got your guys like Necro and Twelve, who can contort and stretch their bodies in unique ways to either hit far off opponents or shapeshift respectively. Or how about Oro, these old, decrepit hermit who is literally the most powerful character lore wise, so he has to force himself to fight with one hand to make any fight fair.

however, out of this entire lineup, there was one character that always stuck with me the most. a mysterious fighter who only goes by the title of Q. he barely speaks understandable language, covers his face with a metal mask, wears a huge trench coat, and looks like he's being puppeteered around whenever he moves. he doesn't fight with a real, defined fighting style, instead opting for a "swing your arms and hope you hit something" approach. some attack animations look almost self destructive, such as his back Heavy Kick or sweep, and some literally ARE self destructive, such as his Super Art III, Total Destruction. he's only present in SF3's final revision, Third Strike, and has nearly no attachment to the story. when he's taken out with a light attack, instead of crumpling to the ground he seems to shut down, being locked in a deactivated pose. when he enters a match he jumps into frame with no words, only a huge impact and a threatening glare, and can sometimes be seen chasing off a group of kids. everything about Q is shrouded in an air of mystery, and that even extends to his Arcade Mode appearance.

Street Fighter arcade modes are usually nothing special. you fight a set of other opponents, usually under the guise of a fighting tournament, and then fight some ultra-beefed out boss fight at the end. in the case of Street Fighter II, if you are insanely cracked and can satisfy certain conditions, you fight Akuma instead of Bison as the final boss. Third Strike does something similar, if you beat the first 8 rounds without losing a round AND score above a D rank on each of those matches, you'll face Q. there's no other way to fight him in the arcade mode, you just have to absolutely own at the game to face him. he doesn't even replace the final boss like Akuma does, he's just another fighter you can face, and when he shows up it's with this unique graphic that appears nowhere else in the game. i'd imagine this would have been the coolest shit to find on your own in the arcades, and feels like a real life playground rumor that no one would believe, but trust me, it's real. Q is also the only character to not have a stage of his own, however he does get his own musical theme. it's completely unlike any other song in 3S, instead of being an upbeat, hiphop inspired DnB track, the Theme of Q is a funky, mysterious, somber track with curious synths, a surf guitar and a groovy keyboard in the third round variation. this whole setup makes me feel like Q is waiting for the right moment to make his move, and is searching for an opponent that will truly challenge him, though this is just a theory on my part.

and that's the thing, pretty much every aspect of Q has to be a fan theory, because Capcom has never elaborated on anything about him. he's never had another playable appearance, (sort of) his arcade ending barely gives us anything except "the CIA might be hunting him down?" and the guy barely says a word for us to get any read on his personality. now, notice how i said that he sort of never got another playable appearance. that's because another character with a lot of strange similarities to Q appeared two games later, in Street Fighter V. that's right, it's the self-proclaimed president of the world, G. while the big talkin', tophat-wearin', bombastic personality havin' G might not look like he has anything to do with our masked mystery man at first, it's when you look closer that you start to notice some interesting parallels. to start, the single letter name is a pretty big clue. but on top of that, some of his moves are very similar, he's got a dash punch, a command grab, his V-Skill is almost a perfect parallel to Q's taunt, and on top of all of this, the guy has a costume that's ABSOLUTELY got to be a reference to our favorite mouthbreather. but in the end it just doesn't add up, how did this guy who wants everyone to know he's the president of the world turn into this quiet, mysterious masked man who tries to stay shrouded in darkness at all times? we still have yet to see, but an interesting thing to note is that SFV's story takes place before SF3's, so maybe this is Q before being turned into what he is now? again, it really is impossible to know, but it's an interesting thing to think about.

now, up until this point i've basically only talked about Q from a design perspective. he looks cool, he's got some unique and interesting traits to his backstory (or lack there of) but how does he play? well, unfortunately he sits squarely at the bottom of the tier list with other nosebleeds like Sean, Twelve and Remy. but unlike those guys, Q has some actual redeeming qualities! (should be noted, i love Sean, Twelve and Remy, i just like Q more) Q may only have a few options for combos and a lot of his moves are rather slow, but don't get it twisted. there's a lot of technique when it comes to Q, and by far his biggest redeeming trait is his taunt. in SF3, every character's taunt actually has a secondary effect. some characters get a damage boost, some throw a unique projectile, Twelve gets to turn invisible which is funny, but Q by far has the best effect in the game. Q's taunt gives him a 12.5% defense boost each time he uses it, and it stacks up to three times, lasting until the end of the round. you can get REALLY beefy doing this, and can lead to you tanking what would normally be a devastating attack like it's nothing. Q also has one of the most satisfying techniques in the whole game: the Double Dash Punch. Q's command grab, Capture and Deadly Blow (or C&DB) grabs the opponent and launches them into the air with a brutal punch. this is already a great tool, but it gets even better once you realize you can follow it up with his dash punch, Dashing Leg/Straight/Head Attack. you can grab 'em with C&DB, swat them out of the air with a dash punch, and if you're really tricky you can sneak a second dash punch in there afterwards. it's SO much fun and super cool looking, augh, i love it. the final cool Q technique is the Kara Command Grab. listen, i'm no fighting game expert, and i suck at explaining things as is, but i'll try to explain what a kara cancel is. basically, you use the movement of one move to push yourself forward, then cancel that move by inputting a special move, giving you the range of the normal and the effect of the special. does that make sense? basically, it's a technique that gives Q a HUUUUUUGE command grab range. unfortunately, it's also extremely hard to do, and i suck ass at it! there's a great tutorial by my friend Brian M. on how it works and ways to consistently do it, but even then i still really suck at it. even so, it's a really cool technique that's awesome to see in action, and i do want to see if i can practice it a bit more at some point...

if this guy sounds cool to you and you wanna see some killer high-level Q gameplay, i recommend checking out TM, a seasoned Q veteran who absolutely wrecks house with the guy. there's also the aforementioned kara command grab tutorial by vileisland/Brian M., a good pal of mine and a huge Q/Twelve fan, Tonren/changemewtf, a really fun Q player to watch, Big Yellow's Q Video which goes more in-depth on the techniques and combos, and gavone/dumbass Q, who uploads really funny and cool replays with the character. i know there's more great Q players out there, but these are the main ones i know.