Hey whats up BBH. Hell yeah, I love 3 Count Bout. Back in the 90's as a kid I always thought this game was a sequel of some sort to Fatal Fury 1 and I was waiting for Raiden to appear as a hidden character or a secret fight
I know that many have used autofire to break the game, but I unfortunately didn't have anything like that back in the day so I used the following strategy that helped me 1cc the game back then.
Naturally, as a big Terry Bogard fan, I went with Terry Rogers since I was hoping that there was some sort of relation/connection lol Either way, it turned out to be a great pick since his moveset ended up being really solid.
Up close, Terry Rogers' renzoku version of his "open hand punch" (forward+rapidly hitting A to trigger the move) is easy to abuse when just outside of auto-grapple range and above or below the opponent. However, the enemy can escape the multi-hits and avoid the knockdown property of the move so the majority of my damage was dealt using his "flying side kick" attack (C+B or A) and his "jumping shoulder tackle" (forward, forward A or B) followed by a downed attack on the opponent. Be careful, his flying side kick has a long recovery when missed so I tend to use it when the AI is trapped in a corner or I am just above or below them. To escape damage I relied heavliy on the following move:
Terry Rogers' slide: Forward or Back+AB
This move was key for staying mobile and escaping close damage. It causes Terry to perform a very quick slide that can also be canceled into from an active dash (forward, forward) if needed. This will allow Terry to run in (forward, forward) but then cancel and slide out of range if you need to escape or bait the opponent into making attack animations that have openings, which we can quickly punish with Terry's "jumping shoulder tackle" or the "flying side kick" depending on the situation.
Regarding grapple strategies, though far from a guarantee, as a kid, I was able to win grapples by rapidly hitting the button as fast as possible by trembling my hand while barely depressing the buttons. This lessened the distance that the button needed to travel in order to repeatedly depress the input/cherry-switch in the control panel. Damaging your opponent just before the grapple is initiated gives an advantage so land attacks first. Also, if Terry wins the grapple by a big advantage you can quickly press down A+B and he will perform his special "Fire Suplex" grapple (the name is cooler than the resulting animation) just be careful that you are not too close to a wall or the ropes which can break the animation otherwise going for the pile driver (down+B) does great damage too.
With that said, since winning the grapple was not always guaranteed I still tried to avoid grappling the AI when possible by sliding away when close to avoid the possible damage.
Don't hesitate to climb up on the turnbuckle, oil drums, or the crane hooks in the backstage environments and abuse the flying attack any time that the enemy is in position at mid-screen (except against Brab.Man/Blubber Man; you'll want to shoulder jump tackle him anytime his knife attack animation ends). You can also still climb up on the turnbuckle even in the ring with the electrified ropes. This can be a major way to do damage on the earlier enemies who tend to recover quickly to escape your down attacks. If your opponent attempts to climb up on the turnbuckle simply use Terry's sliding move to quickly slide away (usually makes you go off screen); this will cause the AI opponent to abort their move and climb down, once they get down hit them with a free "jumping shoulder tackle" (forward, forward A or B) and set them up for multiple flying side kicks (C+B or A) if you have them trapped/cornered.
Also, I constantly shifted up or down to stay just above or below the opponent so I could slide away and perform a dash attack if needed. The characters all primarily play the same and the game can be similar to Art of Fighting 2 in that some opponents can be baited into performing the same attacks over and over, which you can then repeatedly punish with any move that causes a knockdown (jumping shoulder tackle or flying side kick).
Lastly, Master Barnes can be trivialized by simply spamming Terry’s standing B kick and moving/alternating between the top-most and bottom-most part of the ring. Barbes will continuously attempt to perform his multiple kick attack but the longer range of Terry’s kick will interrupt the attack and keep Barnes just out of range. When Barnes has enough distance he’ll attempt to close the gap with a flying attack, simply move to the top or bottom of the ring to avoid it and go back to using Terry’s standing B kick. Rinse and repeat.
