i'm in an extremely weird place with this game. i think, if i'm being honest, i had a better time with both alpha 1 and alpha 2 as games, but i think alpha 3 is inarguably better than both of them. in a sense, this rating feels a bit insincere.
to start with the good, alpha 3 has the largest roster of the three games, and it brought back some favorites like e. honda and cammy while introducing some fun new characters like karin and cody. i know quantity isn't always better than quality, but every addition to this roster has iterated on itself, and i really enjoy how meaty the game got compared to alpha 1's paltry cast.
alpha 3 also introduces isms, which are 3 different ways of building super and using it. i'll be honest, all i know about this is that A is the default one you had in the past two games and one of them (i think V?) breaks the game on a competitive level. i respect this system more than i actually like it, and it feels very proto-CVS2 (aka my favorite fighting game ever), which is ultimately a good thing. i will say i'm slightlyyyyyyy not a fan of Aism starting you at full super meter every match, it makes the first super feel unearned and like you can just throw out a random level 3 and see if it sticks.
on the downside... holy shit is this game a step back from the balancing that alpha 2 brought back. remember how bison was actually fairly reasonable to fight against in alpha 2 and got toned down from his aggressive AI? well alpha 3 fixes what wasn't broken and now makes bison better. now both of his supers do like 60-70% of your HP, and one of them hits full screen. important things to note: bison is a CPU so he doesn't need to charge at all for those supers despite the inputs being charges and also he starts with a full meter as a result of how the game handles isms. okay fine this sucks but let's get to the worst part: if you lose to bison... you just CANNOT even continue. like you get auto game over'd. what a bafflingly terrible decision. even as a flagrant quarter-eater design choice, that's gonna burn a lot of good will with people who play this game ignorant of that.
i should disclose that i'm playing the SF anniversary version of this game rather than the home console release, which apparently means that the AI is ludicrously more difficult and that "can't continue after losing to bison" thing happens. it's also shitty how if you switch characters in arcade, your run restarts from the very first fight with no warning, demotivating you from trying other characters. this is almost a review for SF anniversary at this point, but god damn i wish that they had given the home console releases in the collection rather than just slapdashing the arcade modes into one package. i appreciate it either way but it's a mess, if only for reasons like this.
back to positives, i really enjoy the introduction of the guard meter here, it adds a layer of strategy to the offense vs. defense approach and makes footsies more tense. another thing: the arcade modes have more story and characterization to them, which is a nice touch. i'm not a super big fan of "now EVERYONE'S final fight is against bison", if only for aforementioned reasons, but the characters get dialogue w/each other and you get more of a feel for who these people are, if only a little bit. again, it's nothing groundbreaking, but for the late 90s, this is treading new ground and i respect what this game did for fighting games.
as a last major point, this game doesn't recycle the old themes in alpha 1 and 2, and instead opts to just redo the entire OST... which fucks outloud. alpha 3's OST blows the prior two out of the water and i cannot get enough of some songs present here (as i'm typing this review, i've had https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5JFGrysqm8 playing in the background, which has to be easily one of my new favorite final boss themes). let it be said: street fighter has some songs that bag severely, and this game gives you plenty of examples to work with.
i still feel sort of... weird giving this a 4.0/5.0. it feels a bit cognitive dissonance-y, because i did get genuinely frustrated while playing this game, but i appreciate so much of what it did and i've enjoyed watching high level competitive play of this game so it's like... i can't help but have a fondness for this game in spite of its egregious flaws. a large part of why i didn't enjoy this is more rooted in SF anniversary than alpha 3, so it feels unfair to dock it for that. if i had been playing this with friends, i'd have had a blast. this is a quintessential street fighter game to play, and i think it should be one of the first in the series that you play if you're looking to see what makes SF so much beloved.
to start with the good, alpha 3 has the largest roster of the three games, and it brought back some favorites like e. honda and cammy while introducing some fun new characters like karin and cody. i know quantity isn't always better than quality, but every addition to this roster has iterated on itself, and i really enjoy how meaty the game got compared to alpha 1's paltry cast.
alpha 3 also introduces isms, which are 3 different ways of building super and using it. i'll be honest, all i know about this is that A is the default one you had in the past two games and one of them (i think V?) breaks the game on a competitive level. i respect this system more than i actually like it, and it feels very proto-CVS2 (aka my favorite fighting game ever), which is ultimately a good thing. i will say i'm slightlyyyyyyy not a fan of Aism starting you at full super meter every match, it makes the first super feel unearned and like you can just throw out a random level 3 and see if it sticks.
on the downside... holy shit is this game a step back from the balancing that alpha 2 brought back. remember how bison was actually fairly reasonable to fight against in alpha 2 and got toned down from his aggressive AI? well alpha 3 fixes what wasn't broken and now makes bison better. now both of his supers do like 60-70% of your HP, and one of them hits full screen. important things to note: bison is a CPU so he doesn't need to charge at all for those supers despite the inputs being charges and also he starts with a full meter as a result of how the game handles isms. okay fine this sucks but let's get to the worst part: if you lose to bison... you just CANNOT even continue. like you get auto game over'd. what a bafflingly terrible decision. even as a flagrant quarter-eater design choice, that's gonna burn a lot of good will with people who play this game ignorant of that.
i should disclose that i'm playing the SF anniversary version of this game rather than the home console release, which apparently means that the AI is ludicrously more difficult and that "can't continue after losing to bison" thing happens. it's also shitty how if you switch characters in arcade, your run restarts from the very first fight with no warning, demotivating you from trying other characters. this is almost a review for SF anniversary at this point, but god damn i wish that they had given the home console releases in the collection rather than just slapdashing the arcade modes into one package. i appreciate it either way but it's a mess, if only for reasons like this.
back to positives, i really enjoy the introduction of the guard meter here, it adds a layer of strategy to the offense vs. defense approach and makes footsies more tense. another thing: the arcade modes have more story and characterization to them, which is a nice touch. i'm not a super big fan of "now EVERYONE'S final fight is against bison", if only for aforementioned reasons, but the characters get dialogue w/each other and you get more of a feel for who these people are, if only a little bit. again, it's nothing groundbreaking, but for the late 90s, this is treading new ground and i respect what this game did for fighting games.
as a last major point, this game doesn't recycle the old themes in alpha 1 and 2, and instead opts to just redo the entire OST... which fucks outloud. alpha 3's OST blows the prior two out of the water and i cannot get enough of some songs present here (as i'm typing this review, i've had https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5JFGrysqm8 playing in the background, which has to be easily one of my new favorite final boss themes). let it be said: street fighter has some songs that bag severely, and this game gives you plenty of examples to work with.
i still feel sort of... weird giving this a 4.0/5.0. it feels a bit cognitive dissonance-y, because i did get genuinely frustrated while playing this game, but i appreciate so much of what it did and i've enjoyed watching high level competitive play of this game so it's like... i can't help but have a fondness for this game in spite of its egregious flaws. a large part of why i didn't enjoy this is more rooted in SF anniversary than alpha 3, so it feels unfair to dock it for that. if i had been playing this with friends, i'd have had a blast. this is a quintessential street fighter game to play, and i think it should be one of the first in the series that you play if you're looking to see what makes SF so much beloved.
Reddish
2 years ago