Tag Archives: Issue 52

Street Fighter Alpha Anthology & Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX — Issue 52

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Street Fight­er Alpha 3 Max (PlaySta­tion Portable)

Let’s get this out the way quick­ly: Alpha 3 Max is the best portable ver­sion of Alpha 3 avail­able. It’s even one of the best ports of Alpha 3 among the numer­ous ports of the game. It has every­thing that its big broth­er con­soles have and then some, with the mas­sive final updat­ed ros­ter that each suc­ces­sive entry has intro­duced, and improve­ments made to the dif­fer­ent estab­lished modes. 


The graph­ics are nice and large, and the music is still as top notch as ever. But there is a catch because there always is: This is only avail­able for the PlaySta­tion Portable. So, if you can track down that defunct sys­tem, get this to have it on the go and have a blast as only one can with Alpha 3 in its final form glo­ry. It’s worth a look just for the com­plete ros­ter alone.

Score: 4 out of 5

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Street Fight­er Alpha Anthol­o­gy (PlaySta­tion 2)

This col­lec­tion of Street Fight­er Alpha games is sub­lime, espe­cial­ly if you have a PlaySta­tion 2 lay­ing around. It fea­tures all the Alpha games, remix­es and arranged ver­sions, the Alpha 2 Gold revi­sion and a nice port of Super Gem Fight­er Mini-Mix. The best part of the col­lec­tion is that it plays nice­ly in every game. It plays like a dream and han­dles well with a good PS2 con­troller or joystick. 

 

Even bet­ter is the includ­ed Hyper Street Fight­er Alpha, which allows pit­ting dif­fer­ent Alpha char­ac­ters against each oth­er using that spe­cif­ic game’s mechan­ics and rule­sets. Think Alpha 2’s Rose ver­sus Alpha 3 V‑ISM Rose. That’s the hid­den draw of the game, one that’s not adver­tised and that you won’t dis­cov­er with­out time invest­ed. How­ev­er, with smooth play and con­ve­nience much like 30th Anniver­sary col­lec­tion, this is a must buy for the PS2 collection.

Score: 4.5 out of 5

Street Fighter Alpha 2 — Issue 52

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Clas­sic Cus­tom Com­bo action

Street Fight­er Alpha 2 still a com­mu­ni­ty fave

Good but not great. That’s what Street Fight­er Alpha 2 rep­re­sents for me. I don’t hate the game these days. After a mature return to the game after many years spent ador­ing Street Fight­er Alpha 3, I can hon­est­ly say the game is a good set­up for the king of the hill that is Alpha 3.

Because Cap­com has advised that Street Fight­er Alpha 2’s sto­ry super­sedes Alpha’s sto­ry, we’re not rehash­ing any­thing here. Just know that every­one is after M. Bison at this point because he’s up to no good as he always is and will be, and Aku­ma enters the chat because he sup­pos­ed­ly killed Ryu and Ken’s mas­ter Gouken. Every­thing that hap­pens in Alpha 2 sets Alpha 3 up in a way that explains why M. Bison is so pow­er­ful by the end of the series and why he’s sig­nif­i­cant­ly weak­er dur­ing Street Fight­er II. It’s com­pelling even if you’re a casu­al fan of Street Fighter.


The graph­ics haven’t made a sig­nif­i­cant leap between Alpha games and yet they some­how look clean­er. They’re chunki­er and larg­er, and you can tell they’re get­ting clos­er to the Alpha 3 stream­lined ver­sion that became the hall­mark of the Street Fight­er expe­ri­ence in the ear­ly to mid-2000s before the advent of Street Fight­er IV.

Thank­ful­ly, while there isn’t a big leap for­ward in the look between games, there is a siz­able improve­ment in the sound­track of Alpha 2. Quite a few tracks stand out and it’s worth hunt­ing down the playlist because there are some gems. It’s still not at the Alpha 3 lev­el but it’s get­ting there if you need reassurance.

What I did­n’t care for in Alpha has improved in Alpha 2: how it plays. The play feel has improved with the intro­duc­tion of Cus­tom Com­bos, and while clunky to exe­cute, it’s a nice change of pace for the series. They’re in their infan­cy here so don’t expect the absolute dom­i­nance of Alpha 3 V‑ISM but they are cool to see and it’s sat­is­fy­ing to get them to work con­sis­tent­ly in play once you know what you’re doing. Watch­ing high-lev­el play shows how Alpha 2 is meant to be played, and it demon­strates Alpha 2’s strengths: Nuanced strat­e­gy and a clean engine.

Alpha 2 does have its quirks, though. Some­times the game just does­n’t feel quite right and by that I mean, I don’t like how it feels some­times. It can simul­ta­ne­ous­ly feel slow and slug­gish but then it course cor­rects and the game plays like a dream. Com­bos work but then some­times, I strug­gle to get things going. I can’t place my fin­ger on it, even years lat­er, but there’s some­thing off about Alpha 2 but I’ve learned to accept it for what it is and over­all just accept Alpha 2. It may be because I did­n’t start the series until Alpha 3, but Alpha 2 does­n’t always feel right. I still pre­fer to play Alpha 3 in every respect, but accep­tance of Alpha 2 is a sign of maturity.

Alpha 2 is the mid­point of the Alpha series and that’s OK. It’s got its grow­ing pains but the growth is there and it’s still regard­ed as a strong fight­ing game. Alpha 2 has val­ue and as the mid­dle child of the series, it’s got a lot to offer and a cer­tain charm that is bright­ened by the fact that Cap­com learned its les­son and seem­ing­ly learned to count to three. Alpha 2 is a good bridge to greatness.

Score: 3.5 out of 5

Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors’ Dreams — Issue 52

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Start­ing at the beginning

Street Fight­er Alpha sets the tone for spin­off franchise

I promise I can see the poten­tial in the orig­i­nal Street Fight­er Alpha: War­riors’ Dreams. I can look down from my high perch of love for Alpha 3 and accept that the series came from some­where. After all, every series must have a start. But it’s a long hard stretch to say it’s an all-time great start.

Street Fight­er Alpha estab­lish­es the series’ sto­ry: After Ryu wins the first World Fight­ing Tour­na­ment (as depict­ed in Street Fight­er), he returns home to find his mas­ter Gouken mur­dered and sets out to get revenge. At the same time, Chun-Li, Guile and Char­lie — along with oth­er var­i­ous mem­bers of the cast such as new­com­er Rose — work togeth­er to take down M. Bison, who is work­ing to estab­lish his empire and achieve world dom­i­na­tion. Know two things about the sto­ry: One, it’s a sequel to 1987’s Street Fight­er and a pre­quel to Street Fight­er II; and, two, its sto­ry­line is sup­plant­ed by Street Fight­er Alpha 2. Cap­com deployed this strat­e­gy with the Darkstalkers/Vampire series as well, which was coin­ci­den­tal­ly cre­at­ed around the same time as Alpha. And this isn’t the only instance of crossover con­cepts, either.

Alpha plays and feels much like ear­ly Vam­pire as well. The new addi­tions of mul­ti-lev­el super com­bos and air block­ing are here, too, and like Vam­pire, rep­re­sent an upgrade from the days of Super Tur­bo. But, as much as I like the upgrad­ed mechan­ics, I don’t like how Alpha plays. It feels clunky and slow with a molasses edge to the movesets. While the series did even­tu­al­ly improve with time and speed adjust­ments, it’s painful­ly obvi­ous here that it need­ed a speed boost.


Alpha also resem­bles Vam­pire in pre­sen­ta­tion. The graph­ics are nice and big, and the sprites are nice­ly drawn. It’s an ear­ly ver­sion of the Alpha 3 pre­sen­ta­tion that we’ve come to know and love, and it’s pleas­ing to see it here. The music isn’t at the Alpha 3 lev­el yet, but there are a few tracks that might make you tap your toe. 

What I want­ed from the first game in the Alpha series shows up lat­er in the final game, but the start isn’t ter­ri­ble. It need­ed some work and giv­en that Alpha 2 made improve­ments on this sol­id foun­da­tion in Alpha, I think it’s safe to call this the beta of the Alpha series.

Score: 3 out of 5

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection — Issue 52

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A mild col­lec­tion of peak ear­ly Street Fighter

There was a time when all the ear­ly gen­er­a­tion Street Fight­er games weren’t avail­able in the same place. Us old-timers had to own mul­ti­ple sys­tems and col­lec­tions on those sys­tems to com­plete the library of fight­ing street games. But then along came the 30th anniver­sary of the land­mark fight­ing game fran­chise and would­n’t you know, Cap­com thought it pru­dent to offer a bonan­za of Street Fight­er. Whether or not it’s a boun­ti­ful buf­fet is still up for judgment.

Street Fight­er 30th Anniver­sary Col­lec­tion aims to do one thing: Give you all the Street Fight­er you can shake a stick at. Includ­ed out of the box are: Street Fight­er, all ver­sions of Street Fight­er II (includ­ing Tour­na­ment Bat­tle, exclu­sive to the Nin­ten­do Switch); Street Fight­er Alpha, Street Fight­er Alpha 2 and Street Fight­er Alpha 3 Upper; and, Street Fight­er III: New Gen­er­a­tion, 2nd Impact: Giant Attack and 3rd Strike. This essen­tial­ly cov­ers all the bases for ear­ly Street Fight­er, which is great. Give me every­thing in one pack­age and let me choose what I want to play. But alas, there is a catch: All the ver­sions includ­ed are the arcade ver­sions of the games. That means, for exam­ple, with Street Fight­er Alpha 3 you aren’t going to get World Tour Mode. What­ev­er you received in the arcade is what you’re get­ting here so I hope you like the vanil­la ver­sions because that’s what’s served here. That’s not a bad thing if you love Street Fight­er, and it’s the smart solu­tion because includ­ing the home addi­tions would have pushed this col­lec­tion to dou­ble discs or more.


The pack­age is fine graph­i­cal­ly. The games includ­ed are going to look exact­ly the way they did when they were released, which is exact­ly how they should here and isn’t the focus. What should be the focus is the sur­round­ing pack­age and it’s nice. The graph­ics look clean, and menus are invit­ing. How­ev­er, I do have a gripe with the menus: Cap­com is in dire need of a copy edi­tor. I found at least one error in the text (Aku­ma’s bio in Super Street Fight­er II X for the curi­ous), and this isn’t the first time I’ve found this type of thing (there’s an error in Super Street Fight­er IV’s text as well). 

As a for­mer pro­fes­sion­al edi­tor, this type of thing in video games gets on my nerves. Cap­com is a bil­lion-dol­lar com­pa­ny; hir­ing a copy edi­tor to spell check the menus and text should­n’t be a prob­lem. It reeks of slop­pi­ness, though I should­n’t be sur­prised as this is the same com­pa­ny that refus­es to trans­late the board game in Project Jus­tice or the dat­ing sims in both ver­sions of Rival Schools. But I digress. The pre­sen­ta­tion is good, and it looks fine on mod­ern systems.

The music is the same as the graph­ics: just as you remem­ber it and per­fect­ly fine. There is a sound test and that’s help­ful if you don’t already have any of the tracks in your music col­lec­tion. There are a few remix­es in the menus that you may not have heard before, but there isn’t any­thing note­wor­thy like say Mega Man X Lega­cy Col­lec­tion. The extras are mid, though some of the art­work and the offi­cial time­lines pro­vid­ed are neat. It’s just that there isn’t a lot of it and there should be with this many games included.

And just like the pre­sen­ta­tion, the playa­bil­i­ty is just as good as you remem­ber. I was able to fin­ish sev­er­al games in the arcade mode — once I adjust­ed the dif­fi­cul­ty, which is a god­send — and every­thing felt great even with a PlaySta­tion 4 Pro con­troller. I also jumped online to test the net­code, and it was decent. How­ev­er, with the supe­ri­or Fight­cade now in full swing, fight­ing online with 30th Anniver­sary has been made irrelevant.

This is the col­lec­tion to end all Cap­com col­lec­tions for their fight­ing games. Yes, Cap­com insists on releas­ing oth­er col­lec­tions with these games, but this is a good stop gap if you want the main­stream stuff all in one place. Come for the nos­tal­gia and the con­ve­nience and maybe stay for the extras. Three decades of Street Fight­er should be a spec­ta­cle to behold but it’s lack­ing in the knock your socks off draw-ins. It’s still a rad street fight, however.

Score: 4.5 out of 5