The Street Fighter Alpha Trilogy

Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie had released in Japan in 1994 to great popularity. For fans, it was a treat to see a feature delve into the stories surrounding our favorite characters in beauteous detail. And it still left the fans the franchise still had wanting more, and Capcom decided to respond with Street Fighter Alpha, a game that let us play in the world the movie only gave us a glimpse of in flashbacks.

Though it's the ostensible successor to Street Fighter II from a gameplay perspective, Street Fighter Alpha actually takes place before that series, but after the original Street Fighter. Alpha also had a different aesthetic to it, eschewing the gritty look of II and going for an anime-style design. It was also one of the first time the announcement of a brand new Street Fighter series didn't set the arcades on fire; Alpha's announcement drew very little buzz and not enough excitement to bring everyone who had left the series because they thought it couldn't count to three.

Fans themselves, however, were delighted at the new look. Street Fighter had almost faded into a niche franchise, though its then-current audience was a niche that usually watched anime. The game had some noticeably younger characters from Street Fighter II, some returning characters from the original Street Fighter. There were only two new characters in the first game: Rose, a woman created by the good that the series' mainstay villain M. Bison excised from himself, and Dan, who was created as a parody of both Ryo Sakazaki and Robert Garcia from SNK's Art of Fighting franchise.

Overall, though, the first Street Fighter Alpha game was pretty underwhelming. Its cast of characters was colorful figuratively and literally, but they were a far cry from the epic cast included in Super Street Fighter II Turbo. But it was the gameplay that made it not quite up-to-par with the best of the Street Fighter II titles. Executing charge techniques as part of a combo was a little difficult, and mystifyingly the game overall moves much slower. It was an OK start to a promising concept, but not good enough to draw away criticisms from the game.

Alpha saw a console release on the Playstation and Saturn in February 1996. With new technology, the game was probably the first great arcade-to-home console transition for a Street Fighter game, the Saturn version being the better one (with a better controller to boot). Unlike Street Fighter II did for the SNES, Street Fighter Alpha didn't have the potential and buzz to sell a console. Still, for current Saturn and Playstation owners, this was the only Street Fighter game to tide them over for a while. No, Street Fighter: The Movie - The Game of the Movie doesn't count.

At least until Street Fighter Alpha 2 released later in the year. Basically, Street Fighter Alpha 2 is what the first game should have been. Sure, it may not look like that big of a leap from the first game, but Alpha 2 actually refines the formula established in the first game very well. It avoids the mundane and sluggish feeling of the first game with the addition of a more upbeat soundtrack and faster gameplay speed. The game also adds one new character named Sakura, who's obviously designed to appeal to anyone with a Japanese schoolgirl fetish. Also, Akuma was finally nerfed down to the level of any other characters.

Alpha 2 also succeeded more in bringing the respective plots of II and Alpha together. Considering the lack of story in the first game's endings, the second game has conclusions that almost get the job done. Alpha 2 also didn't have as much of a presence in US arcades, another sad sign of Street Fighter's lack of draw power. It also saw a quick arcade-to-home release, releasing only six months after its arcade release (faster than Street Fighter IV) for Playstation, Saturn, and Super Nintendo in fall of 1996. You could've predicted the PSX and Saturn release, but the SNES release (published by Nintendo in the US) surprised us because of its existence and because it was a respectable port to boot.

Though Alpha 1 and 2 released close to each other, Street Fighter Alpha 3 didn't release until 1999. Alpha 3, as far as storyline was concerned, was Capcom's way of saying that Alpha 2 was not the definitive game to bring Alpha and II together, but Alpha 3 was. And it did, because the game has the most expansive storyline of any Street Fighter game around until Street Fighter IV. Alpha 3 decided to give more refinements to the formula, giving the gameplay a new sense of intensity. Heck, it was probably a little too intense. While Alpha 2 reveled in its own sense of subtlety, Alpha 3's presentation was way over the top with new juggling moves, a louder soundtrack, and a semi-witty announcer.

Alpha 3 has probably had the most single ports of any game in the franchise, with versions existing on the Playstation, Saturn, Dreamcast, Game Boy Advance, PSP, and Playstation 2 (through the Street Fighter Alpha Anthology). It's no surprise either, since the game is loaded with a plethora of fan service. Including the home versions, every character from Street Fighter II was included, and the game also has ISMs that allow characters to play in either Alpha style or Super Turbo style. It's still the pinnacle of a Street Fighter game in terms of characters, the PSP version having the most for a total of 36.

The Street Fighter Alpha franchise had a nice life, though it never achieved the popularity that Street Fighter II would. But the series established a number of great characters and elaborated on the back story the majority of dedicated fans had been speculating about for a while (only the dedicated fans cared about story in a game like this). But us fans also appreciated the gameplay that was refined and enhanced from Street Fighter II, along with the novelty of actually getting somewhat of a sequel after II was released five times. It was popular enough for the franchise to go on.