Tag Archives: quick hits

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

Mario quick hit reviews — 1Q2016 issue

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Super Mario Land
Mario’s first adven­ture out­side of the Mush­room King­dom just hap­pens to also be his first in the portable sphere. Mario Land is a ser­vice­able adven­ture filled with the weird and dif­fer­ent (Tatan­ga, any­one?), but it’s still good Mario. The mechan­ics resem­ble SMB, and the graph­ics keep things famil­iar enough despite space­ships and pyra­mids mak­ing an appear­ance. Keep this ear­ly Mario as an option on the go.

Score: 3.5 out of 5

Super Mario Land 2: 6 Gold­en Coins
Mario’s sec­ond hand­held adven­ture is a step up in terms of … every­thing. There are more pow­er ups, more stages and more ene­mies to take on, includ­ing Wario, who is intro­duced to the world at large here. The six tit­u­lar gold­en coins mean more places to explore and more to do, which is always help­ful in a Mario title. The con­trols get a lit­tle crisper and the graph­ics are gor­geous for a hand­held title. This is one to own, even if you’re not a super Mario fan.

Score: 4 out of 5

Mario Kart: Super Circuit
Mario’s first for­ay into the hand­held kart­ing side of things is a mixed bag. On the one hand, it’s Super Mario Kart final­ly on a hand­held sys­tem. That instant­ly makes it worth check­ing out by itself. On the oth­er hand, the dif­fi­cul­ty and rat­ing sys­tem make it a frus­trat­ing expe­ri­ence. If you’re used to the rub­ber band AI from the two pre­vi­ous titles, you’ll find it well worn here. And good luck get­ting the max num­ber of coins and stars pos­si­ble in the bid to max out the game. But, it’s still decent Mario Kart over­all and the game plays exact­ly like you’d expect. That’s a win­ning attribute that helps sal­vage this race.

Score: 2.5 out of 5