So I was looking through my old reviews when I stumbled across the review for Street Fighter Alpha 2 by Capcom for the Arcades. To make a long story short, I actually completely disagreed with my own review. I didn’t even think that was possible, but it was. I complained on such stupid things, and you could tell I didn’t put in the time to do research. Therefore, I’ve gone back and redone it so that it’ll be something I can be proud of.

Name: Street Fighter Alpha 2
Game Ownership: Yes (in Alpha Anthology)
Game Status: Beat Bison with several characters.
How it was Acquired: Bought it, MAME
Condition when Bought: New
Game Type: Fighting

Preliminary Comments:
Rant: Yay! Old-school charging-Kikouken Chun Li is back!

Rant: Boo! Charlie isn’t so horridly overpowered anymore!

Fact: There was an upgraded version of this game released only in Japan called Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha which featured some new characters and different hidden modes.

Fact: The console version of the upgraded game contains Cammy as a secret character.

Fact: In Ken’s stage, you can see a large variety of cameos such as Strider Hiyru, Morrigan, Devilot, and Linn Kurosawa.

Graphics - 8.0
Hah! Gone are the old days of recycling SFII sprites! Let a whole new generation of sprite recycling commence!

Just like most of their other fighting games, Capcom reused the same sprites from the predecessor, Street Fighter Alpha. There are a few noticeable touch-ups to the returning characters as well as a few more frames of animation to make them look better, but mostly they’re exactly the same as in Alpha. The sprites themselves have the same anime-inspired style that was seen in the predecessor, which is a good or bad thing depending on your preference. I myself love the anime look of the game. I’m not too crazy about how some of the characters turned out (such as Ken, Ryu, or Bison), but others came out looking great (such as Charlie, Chun-Li, Adon, etc.). The characters looked much sharper compared to Street Fighter II, and they have much nicer animation as well.

Something that I didn’t like in Alpha 1 was that there were some really boring stage backgrounds, and many of the stages were shared by more than one person. Why do we have Sodom and M.Bison sharing a train yard as a stage? Furthermore, what does a train yard have to do with either of them? The stages in the first Alpha seemed like filler and didn’t look like they were really worked on that much. Luckily, Alpha 2 makes several large improvements in this area. First off, everyone has their own stage. Even the more unpopular characters have their own stage, and the stage is greatly tailored to them. For example, Rolento’s stage is very similar to his level in Final Fight, and Guy’s stage has a large number of Final Fight characters that can been seen in the background. In addition, there are many backgrounds that are much more lively and exciting. For instance, Charlie’s stage takes place in a parking structure in a city with many neon lights (I assume New York City) while, get this, his fighter jet flys unmanned in the background. How exciting and insane is that?

A small thing I’d like to say is that the opening sequence is probably one of the best opening sequences I’ve ever seen. The opening music is just awesome, and the sequence itself looks great. With that said, I think it could have been done a lot better. It opened great with Akuma standing in the burning fire and with several characters performing their super combos while great pictures of said characters move by. Those parts were probably the most exciting parts of the opening. After that part, however, the opening sequence just becomes a slide show of pictures. Other than Dan jumping in at a great time, the sequence then just shows Ken and Ryu taking about 15 seconds to shoot a hadoken. The slide show just kills all the excitment that the first several seconds built up. You watch! One day I’ll figure out how to animate stuff, and I’ll show you how incredible that opening could be!

Sound - 8.0
Out of all three Alphas, this one probably has the best soundtrack. The themes for characters that were in the original Alpha have been upgraded for the better. The themes for characters that didn’t have themes before, like Adon and Charlie (especially Charlie), are just awesome. Unfortunately, even with the sound upgrade, I’m still not a big fan of a lot of the remixes of classic themes. I think Ryu and Ken’s new themes are just a crying shame, and Bison’s theme just got completely butchered to me. Sure, they complement their stages well, but they are nothing compared to the originals. Some would like to blame the change of instruments, but I don’t think that was the case. A perfectly fine Ryu theme was made not that long after for X-Men vs Street Fighter using similar sound technology, and Zangief’s new arragement is one of the best themes in the game. The soundtrack probably didn’t create as many incredible hits as the original SF2, but the few they did produce are great and can be raised up to the greatness of past SF themes.

Sound effects are at a higher quality when compared to Alpha 1. Things such as character voices and the sounds from taking hits sound much clearer and nicer. A lot of the inbetween filler music was actually really good as well. Small, unimportant songs like player select and the little themes that play before and after matches are really good and fit the mood well.

Story - 7.5
The story is a bit confusing because it is a retcon of Alpha 1. In other words, Alpha 1 never happened, and only the events in this game are considered official. Despite this, several things in the game can actually be connected to events in Alpha 1, but you’re not here to see those comparisons. You’re here to know the story as it stands!

Like in Alpha, the game takes place before Street Fighter II but after Street Fighter. The game attempts to tie together the events between these two games into something that makes sense. Unlike SF and SF2, there is no tournament, and each character is going off on their own agendas. For example, Chun Li is searching for who killed her father, and Charlie is trying to capture M.Bison and end Shadaloo. The story for each character can be seen in their endings, which I’m sure you wouldn’t want me to spoil for you, so I won’t. However, I can still talk about a few broad points.

Perhaps the best part of the story is that not every character’s last boss is M.Bison, a characteristic that this game shares with Alpha 1. I never liked how in the original SF2, everyone had to fight M.Bison for no real reason, and many had their own ending which had nothing to do with Bison or Shadaloo. In Alpha 2, characters fight last bosses that actually matter. For example, Dan fights Sagat in order to avenge his father’s death. It’s just a little detail that helps out the game.

Unfortunately, the game’s story falters in two areas. First, a lot of the endings have many glaring spelling and grammar errors. I would have liked to think that these errors would have disappeared by 1996, but I guess not. Second, the hidden mid-bosses that each character can fight don’t make much sense. Something like Chun Li sparring with Gen, an old friend of her father, to find out about her father’s fate makes sense. However, Charlie fighting Rolento because Rolento wants to stop him does not. The reason why there were several strange pairings was because there were several characters that were designated to be generic stock characters. For example, Rolento was supposed to be the “corrupt army officer,” which is why he tried to stop Charlie from capturing M.Bison. I didn’t like this kind of generic casting since Rolento isn’t even involved with Shadaloo. In fact, he tries to take it over in Alpha 3. I felt these two problems with the story were a big obstacle to the game’s story and kept it from being the best it could be.

Fun - 8.0
The style of gameplay in Alpha 2 has gone back to the more traditional style from Super Street Fighter 2 as opposed to the chain-attacking, Darkstalkers-inspired gameplay of the first Alpha. Certain mechanics from Alpha 1 are still there such as air blocking, a three-level super meter, and the Alpha Counter. However, there was a new type of combo introduced called the “Variable Combo” which gives you a certain amount of time to perform your own combo. It’s a pretty interesting idea, but it introduces a problem that almost breaks the game. Certain characters can do variable combos that can do a ton of damage, and they’re almost unstoppable. If you’ve ever seen a combo video for Alpha 2, then you could see what I mean. However, the thing that actually keeps this feature from crushing the gameplay is that the variable combos are really hard to do. They require a lot of practice to do well, and there aren’t that many chances in actual gameplay for these combos to occur at the magnitude as would be shown in a combo video, so I guess it isn’t too much of a big deal.

Something interesting about the game is that this game has had a few updates in the form of Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha (or Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold in the US). One of the special features of these new updates are the inclusion of two new modes, both of which were availible in the original Alpha, but are now in Alpha 2. The first mode is Survival Mode, where you fight every character in the game one by one. The second and most interesting mode is the Dramatic Battle Mode. In this mode, you team up with another character, either human or computer controlled, against four opponents. In this mode, both of you have an unlimited super meter, but share one life bar. This mode gives you and your partner to gang up on some of the more annoying characters in the game (Adon, Sagat, M.Bison, and a more aggressive Akuma). It’s a fun little mode for you to mess with when you’re done with everything else.

The selection of characters has been increased from Alpha 1, which was one of Alpha 1’s biggest flaws. Notable new additions to the SFA cast are classic competitiors Zangief and Dhalsim as well as fan favorite Sakura. For the first time ever, there is a non-unbeatable boss version of Akuma, and Dan makes his presence felt more than before. If you play the special extended versions of Alpha 2, you can get alternate versions of characters such as the Zangief that plays like SF2 or Evil Ryu. If you consider these extra versions, then the game has a pretty nice selection of characters for you to play. Of course, it would be nicer if they were actual, differentiated characters other than just different versions of the same character, but we should be used to several versions of one character by now *coughRyuKenAkumaDanSakuracough*.

Perhaps the one thing I like about this game more than any other Street Fighter is the presentation. Never before in fighting games have I seen presentation done as well as Alpha 2. I just don’t know what exactly it is about it. Maybe it’s because it takes place in the 80s, and I love the 80s. Maybe it’s because I just like the art and the music, which work together in that 80s theme. Maybe its because the endings had some really good art and were good despite some spelling and grammatical errors. Maybe it’s because the game overall didn’t feel rushed or stale like the other two Alphas. Maybe it’s all of these combined?

Difficulty - 7.5
With the return to the more traditional gameplay, the AI plays a bit more like a mixture of Alpha 1 and SSF2 Turbo. There really isn’t that much that has changed AI-wise. Ken’s still gonna do three Shoryukens for no reason. Sagat is still gonna spam high and low Tiger Shots, then hit you with Tiger Uppercut when you jump over them. Zangief is still gonna be able to piledrive you with little to no effort. It’s still really easy to trick a computer character to get hit by a fireball. Everything you remember about Street Fighter AI is still here. I guess the game could be criticized for not really doing anything new for the difficulty, but I don’t think it’s really that much of a problem. Street Fighter is more of a competitive game anyway, but I still think you still should have enough fun playing the comps even if you don’t have anyone to play against.

Replayable - 8.0
Out of all the Alphas, I feel this game was the best. You know what else? I think it’s one of the best fighting games ever made. Sure, perhaps there were some things done in succeeding SF games that might elevate their gameplay above this game, but none of them had the complete package. There was always something wrong with presentation or music or graphics or variety or gameplay or what have you. I think this game was probably as close to perfection as Street Fighter ever really got.

Posted in Arcade |