365//365: Day 139 – Street Fighter Alpha 2 (SAT)

The Street Fighter franchise can never be considered a one hit wonder. Just about every game in the series has been an instant classic in both arcades and hone consoles. While nothing can really emulate the feeling of being in an arcade, putting down quarter after quarter and playing your friends, as well as random challengers, it was always a thrill to bring home the experience that you more than likely put down triple the retail price for, into the machine it was ported from. Sometimes these home conversions did not go over smoothly, thanks to certain hardware limitations. While the Sony PlayStation featured just about every arcade to home console port of each Street Fighter title during the 90′s, they were often plagued with excessively long load times, and missing frames of animation, in order to fit the limitation of the systems RAM. In Street Fighter Alpha 2′s case, it did make a difference in the fun factor of the title, whereas the Sega Saturn port, thanks to its stronger 2D capabilities and system power, was able to release the title with little in the way of sacrifices.

Which is welcome news, as Street Fighter Alpha 2 is definitely one of the most enjoyable Street Fighter titles to ever hit consoles.

There are noticeable load times with the Sega Saturn port of Street Fighter Alpha 2, however they are not nearly as long as the Sony PlayStation version. The only real slow point comes in the initial load from character select to your first opponent. Form there on in, the load time is just about halved. It definitely helps cut down on the annoying wait between rounds, when all you want to do is bash your next opponents brains in.

The rest of the package manages to be as faithful to the arcade as possible. The visuals, colors and animation retain as much authenticity to the arcade as possible. The animation is fluid, with no sacrifices to be seen. The backgrounds share the same plethora of activity and animation that the arcade has. For a mid 90′s 2D fighting game, not only does the world look complex and seaming with life, but the colors are vibrant and it feels so natural. Controlling each character has that similar feeling of seamless fluidity and grace. Each character has responsive controls, and even with some of the more awkward motions you have to input, the Sega Saturn controller enables you to input these motions with stunning accuracy.

The colors are vibrant and the animation remains nearly intact, helping give Street Fighter Alpha 2 an impressive visual presentation.

The roster featured in Alpha 2 did not feel overwhelming, or lacking in numbers. If anything, it was a near perfect blend of styles and characters that really couldn’t have benefited for any other additions at the time, or even to this day. Dhalsim, Gen, Zangief, Rolento and Sakura were the best choices Capcom could have made at the time, mixing together several very distinct play styles. With the addition of alpha counters not solely bound to just a kick or just a punch, depending on your character, helps open up twitch gameplay as well. It was always frustrating to try and pull off an alpha counter in the previous title with a punch, when the character you chose bases their counters off of a kick. Doesn’t sound like a major addition, but this really does balance things out some.

The one thing that the Street Fighter series has suffered with over the last decade and change, has been some pretty bland and uninspiring music selections. While the original Street Fighter 2 titles did feature some memorable songs, most Capcom fighting game titles after that suffered from a soundtrack that drowns its self out with its own mediocrity. That’s definitely not the case with Alpha 2. As with the previous title, the music is some of the best throughout the fighting game genre. An absolute masterful blend of remixed Street Fighter 2 tracks, as well as original tracks, help push out more emotion to each fight. In fact, there really are no dud tracks in this line up of audio awesomeness. Even Dan’s theme sounds epic, and probably could be one of the best character themes ever.

Unfortunately, the sound effects suffer somewhat. Although the accuracy is still apparent, there’s a very audible lack of quality to the vocals, as well as the sound effects. In some ways, this works as a double edged sword – since the effects are as weak as they are, and since the soundtrack is that impressive, it drowns them out, to an extent, however when you do hear them, you’ll notice the sound effects do sound like they were recorded in mono. As it stands, the arcade version could quite possibly be the single greatest audio presentation to a fighting game ever, however the Sega Saturn port has the dubious distinction of having top quality music, and piss poor voice and sound effect quality.

18 characters to select from, with another handful of characters being secrets, including the video game debut of "Evil Ryu".

One other thing that never really came off as a great idea, had to do with custom combos. Pushing two punches and a kick down simultaneously with a super bar at level one or higher, triggers the ability to chain together just about any hit and special move together, hence a “custom combo”. While the system was fleshed out more during the next installment, Alpha 2 really didn’t push this tactic forward as an innovative and practical way of defeating your opponents. Often enough, the timer runs down so fast, that you really have no options outside mashing fierce repeatedly, and then unleashing a shoryuken or flash kick at the end.

While many clamor over Street Fighter 4, Street Fighter Alpha 2 feels like a much tighter game than 4. While the roster may not be as large, the picture might not be as pretty and the options may not be as plentiful, the core game is definitely more appealing and entertaining. Street Fighter Alpha 2 was the last Street Fighter title that really tried hard in every aspect, up until Third Strike. The characters and stages look finely detailed, the musics one of the best ever in a fighting game and the gameplay is still that top notch experience that only Capcom seems to know how to convey with each release. If you have a Sega Saturn and enjoy fighting titles, add Street Fighter Alpha 2 to your collection. If you only have a Super Nintendo, stick to your copies of Street Fighter 2. If you only have a Sony PlayStation, hunt down the first Street Fighter Collection, just for Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold. It’s not as well made as the Sega Saturn version of Street Fighter Alpha 2, but it’s a lot better than the somewhat lackluster standard version.

Rating: 9.2