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Review: Street Fighter Alpha |
The Alpha series sort of sits in the middle of Capcom’s efforts. On one side you have hints of the gratuity and insanity of the Versus series, and on the other; the simple, hardcore pleasures of the SF3s. Meaning you can either hate it for what is, or hate it for being too scrubby, or for being too boring. Whatever makes you happy.
I remember the first time I saw Streetfighter Alpha — in the basement of a big toy store in London, back in 1995. It’s flat-shaded anime style looks and smooth, detailed animation were impressive, as were the assortment of new features and characters. I picked Ken, fought Rose and lost pathetically … landing about 4 hits in the whole fight. This was a long time ago and, and … OK … I was an idiot.
But I’m not bitter, I read the magazine guides (this was before GameFAQs) and practised like hell. Then I got the Playstation version and the serious lovin’ began.
And five years later I find the Saturn version in the deserted corner of my local import shop, sporting an embarrassingly low price tag. What else could I do? It’s like ignoring a stray starving Kitten…
It’s interesting to be able to look at this game with the knowledge of the entire Alpha series. You can see what was kept, and what was removed — and how certain features, as well as characters have evolved throughout the years. It’s the most “pure” and “simple” of the Alpha series … no abusable CCs or VCs, no guard crushing or ISM selection. Although it was still a big change from SSF2T in many ways, the two following Alpha games show just how true to its roots Alpha 1 is.
For a start, the damage balance seems to be a lot better than A3 — decent combos do decent damage, the same goes for supers. There’s none of that “fireball = 2 pixels damage” business here, you have to be careful about getting hit, meaning there’s more caution, strategy and tension in a fight.
The engine has heavy juggle restrictions — with only super combos fulfilling the criteria, and even then you’ll only manage one or two hits. I personally think this is too severe, and while I’m not condoning the crazed juggling of SFA3 — I think the best juggle engine is the “logical” system of the SF3 games, where if the opponent is falling, and you are able to attack, it should hit, but the physics of the engine mean this only happens occasionally. It makes sense. I think it’s stupid to have a Dragon Punch pass through the sprite, merely because they’re falling. But this was a long time ago, so I’ll give them a break.
For most people, the biggest criticism about the engine is the chaining. Most characters are able to link two or three normal attacks together and if you’re skilled enough (I’m not) link into a special or super. The Shoto quadruplets have biggest array of chains (WHY?!)
But I can’t say this ruined the game for me. I personally found a Jump RH>Short>Level 3 super to be far more fortuitous than a Jump RH>Short>Forward>RH, and far more satisfying as well. Plus, the characters are well designed, each with a decent array of attacks – so it doesn’t end up like Vampire Saviour where all some characters can do is chain all day and night.
Well-designed the characters may be, but the total roster is pretty under populated. Initially selectable are Ken, Ryu, Chun Li, Charlie, Adon, Sagat, Birdie, Guy. Sodom and Rose.
Then there’s Akuma … who will zoom in and fight you like SSF2T if the conditions are met, M. Bison — and for those of us who have gotten used to the pathetic Bison of Alpha 3 — Mr. “I think I’ll crouch here for 5 seconds without blocking” — his incarnation here is shockingly tough and very cheap. The teleport>throw thing really got on my nerves.
SFA also marked the first appearance of everyone’s favourite battling buffoon, Dan. Well, he’s sort of a proto-Dan here. His big eyebrows and bow-legged stance haven’t appeared yet, and his taunt arm is obviously a semi-extended Shoto uppercut with no modifications. He doesn’t yell “Gar-Garcia!” when Gale Kicking, nor “Gadouken!” for his fireball. His AI is suitably pathetic though, as it basically involves doing repeated whiffed chains to nobody until he is put out of his misery. But it’s a start.
Thirteen characters. Hardly MvC2 is it? But there is an upside to this….. because of the reduction in selectable characters, it meant a bit more effort could be made, most specifically with the endings and the music, than they could if there were 50 characters.
The standard music is pretty good, a mixture of classic Capcom tunes (Ken’s, Ryu’s Chun Li’s etc.) and (what was then) brand new ones. The music is firmly old school Capcom, no gimmicks (Rap, D&B, Techno) just the sort of motivating, middle of the road sounds that make every GameFAQs reviewer say “nothing special. 7/10″
However, there is an option to select “REMIXED” music, and this is really something to write about. (like I am)
It’s essentially the same tunes, but arranged with proper instruments … the effect is simply awesome. Chun Li’s traditional anthem becomes infused with a laid back 70’s style groove, Ryu’s theme gains multiple layers from the new instrumentation and sounds simply fantastic. You’ll never use the “ORIGINAL” mode again.
Just listen to Chun Li’s ending … it’s .. beautiful.
And while you’re probably asking if they could make more effort with the music and story, why didn’t they do the same with the backgrounds? Well … um … you got me there. Some of the backgrounds are empty and lifeless .. Ken’s stage is just amateurish looking, and Sagat, Dan and Adon share one stage, just with different coloured lighting.
But they’re not a total disappointment — because some of them are excellent, and drawn in a different way to the rest of the Alpha series. They’re a lot less stereotyped and fantastic than the following SFAs … more based in the real world and in real places. (Birdie and Rose fight in the Coliseum in Rome — where Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris fought in “Return of the Dragon”) and they all just fit, and combined with the excellent music — it just gives the game a minimalist “coolness” and atmosphere that has never since been recreated. Besides, there’s just something unspeakably awesome about fighting in a deserted train depot. Maybe it’s just me…
The Saturn conversion is the best of the home console conversions. The PSX version was superb, but this just edges out in all areas… the characters are bigger, the loading is quicker and oh the pad is a joy to use.
The sound is perfect too, none of the garbled “underwater” feel that Saturn Alpha 2 would have, in fact, that you’ll actually *notice* the sound effects at all (as opposed to just hearing them) is a testament — they’re really loud and clear and crunchy.
The only difference between this and the arcade/PS versions is the super combo shadows. For some reason, instead of being all blue like the other versions, the trailing shadows are a sort of blue-y/transparent version of your character (colours and all.) It looks pretty nifty.
As for console-only extras … there’s the “Dramatic Battle” mode, where Ken and Ryu take on Bison (sounds like a Yaoi Doujinshi) …. and that’s it. Oh. This was the last SF game to reward you for finishing the game on the hardest difficulty without losing a round … so there’s some fun to be had there … but otherwise it’s a sorry sight.
While it lacks the amount of effort and style of Alpha 2, and the flash, large roster and extras or Alpha 3 — it’s got a special something: a combination of great atmosphere and solid, satisfying, more simplistic gameplay … if you look at it as a sort of “test run” for the Alpha series and can stomach the lack of glitz and characters … it’s a truly excellent game.
And I must have typed “Alhpa” or “Aplha” instead of “Alpha” about fifty times :/
