After all these years, the Alpha series still remains as fun as they did you first put in the quarter.
The collection here gives you Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold, and Street Fighter Alpha 3. Graphically, the games are all almost identical, featuring the younger more anime-esque versions of everyone’s favorite characters. The main difference between the games here are the fighting mechanisms and the character selection. The first game was released in 1995 and featured a mix of characters from Street Fighter, Street Fighter 2, and Final Fight. In addition, some new characters were introduced as well. The game borrowed some concepts from the Darkstalkers’s series, such as air blocking. As the games went on, more characters were introduced and the fighting engine was tweaked each time a bit for balance. Alpha 3 had a huge character list, some of whom were made their first appearance in the Alpha series there.
The games here are actually ported from the arcade versions of the games, and as such are reproduced quite well for the PS2. The arcade versions of course do not have some of the same features as the console versions did, but there are plenty of gameplay modes available here. Graphically, there is some blurriness here and there, but overall these games still look fantastic. It lends credence to the fact that animation really doest stand the test of time, where as 3D graphics tend to show their age more rapidly. The sound here is also good, featuring everyone’s favorite battle cries and punches and kicks. The soundtrack is also done well, though there are a few tunes that don’t stand out. Many of the songs here are redone versions of music from previous Street Fighter games, so you they are good. The presentation does feel a dry, as Capcom didn’t include any information on the games. As such, you pretty much are buying this set just so you can play the games on your PS2. No pictures, promos, or interviews are included with this set. This is a dissapointment, as these games have a lot of history and it would have been neat to see someone talking about them.
The standard PS2 controller works well for these games. You can use the directional pad or the analog stick to move the characters and the face and shoulder buttons to execute the various moves. I play this game using a Street fighter game pad that looks similar to a standard Saturn controller, but the stock PS2 one works well too. The downfall here is that there is no moves list included in the game or the manual. This is another setback, since including a moves list would help people tremendously especially since this could be the first time many people are playing these games. Still, chances are that if you are thinking about buying these games, you already can pull off a Hadouken A neat inclusion of the game is something known as Hyper Street Fighter Alpha. This addition, which is based off of Street Fighter Alpha 3, allows you to play as characters as they would from previous alpha games if they were included in said previous games. So you can have a Street Fighter Alpha 2 version of Ryu fight his Alpha 3 self. Hyper Street Fighter Alpha also includes some mechanisms from other Capcom fighting games. You can have a character behave like he would from Super Street Fighter 2 turbo or from the Capcom Vs. series. It is a pretty neat inclusion whose only downfall is that it is only meant for two players. There are other unlockables, such as different versions of each game, so you can see how Capcom tweaked them with each release
This set also lacks online capabilities, which is a bit disappointing considering just how fun these games are with another person at your skill level. What it boils down to is that this collection is a great addition to your fighting game library. Sure, I’ll admit that the Sega Saturn versions of the games still remain the best to play. But at 30 dollars, this is a no brainer. The Saturn versions are hard to find, expensive (especially Alpha 3), and have loading times. The thing here is that this set is a great thing to have, because after all these years these games are still a blast to play and look great.