Capcom CPS-3

The CPS-3 was Capcom's last and most extravagant dedicated 2D board, and also its least widely used. Introduced in 1996, it paired a CD-ROM for bulk game data with encrypted flash SIMMs, an elaborate security scheme meant to stop the piracy that had plagued its predecessors. That security was formidable, and it came with the same cruel catch as before: a security battery that, once dead, locked the board until the community later found ways to resurrect it.

What the hardware bought was breathtaking animation. Freed from tight cartridge limits by its CD storage, CPS-3 could hold vastly more frames per character, and Capcom's artists filled that space with some of the richest hand-drawn motion ever seen in a game. The board debuted with the fantasy fighter Warzard, known in the West as Red Earth, and hosted the two-part JoJo's Bizarre Adventure fighters, but its crowning achievement was the Street Fighter III trilogy. Culminating in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, it offered animation and a parry-driven depth that many devotees still regard as the pinnacle of 2D fighting design.

As hardware CPS-3 had a distinct character: expensive, exclusive, and single-mindedly devoted to making sprites move like nothing else. It was arguably overkill for its moment, a lavish 2D machine arriving just as the industry pivoted hard toward polygons, which is why so few games were ever made for it.

Commercially it was a modest performer, hampered by high cost and a tiny library, and Capcom did not return to bespoke 2D arcade boards afterward. Yet its historical stature is outsized. 3rd Strike became one of the most enduring and revered competitive fighting games ever made, sustaining tournaments for decades, and the platform stands as a beautiful last statement of the hand-drawn arcade tradition, the moment Capcom poured everything into 2D craft one final time before the medium moved on.