Take any of my ratings of non-Smash fighting games with a grain of salt, as they're usually based off a single run or two through the arcade ladder and general surface impressions.
Good stuff! If Street Fighter II was an instant hit that was refined into a masterpiece over several evolutionary leaps forward, Street Fighter Alpha is the first time Capcom got to apply lessons learned from the get-go. I am very much a fan of the new artstyle; SF2's fine, but it's never really clicked with me the way later titles do. I'm not at all surprised to learn this was developed over the course of 6 months, as there doesn't seem to be a whole lot more going on besides what you get on first blush - but there's a good foundation there. It'd be fun to run through the Alpha subseries in order to get a better sense for the progression down the line.
Good stuff! If Street Fighter II was an instant hit that was refined into a masterpiece over several evolutionary leaps forward, Street Fighter Alpha is the first time Capcom got to apply lessons learned from the get-go. I am very much a fan of the new artstyle; SF2's fine, but it's never really clicked with me the way later titles do. I'm not at all surprised to learn this was developed over the course of 6 months, as there doesn't seem to be a whole lot more going on besides what you get on first blush - but there's a good foundation there. It'd be fun to run through the Alpha subseries in order to get a better sense for the progression down the line.