the play girlz gaming blog

Game Review: Street Fighter Alpha Anthology

by Erin on August 21st, 2006

I spent my weekend playing Street Fighter. Street Fighter Alpha Anthology actually, which is the latest in the never-ending string of franchise fun. I’ve been a huge Street Fighter fan since the original, which I am both old enough to remember, and also old enough to proclaim was one of the most purely entertaining games ever made. Street Fighter II was the first that I played in any length mind you, and play it I certainly did. It lacked the blood and gore of Mortal Kombat, a game that clutched successfully at Fighter’s coat-tails, but brought the arcade feel (not to mention Chun Li) right into my living room. It was a way for me to safely pummel my brother without getting in trouble; trapping him in the corner and Hyakuretsukyaku-ing him into oblivion.

I fell a bit out of touch with the games after Super Street Fighter II Turbo to be honest, having found it growing a little stale, and moved on to other game genres. Out this past June though, came Street Fighter Alpha Anthology from Capcom, and I saw it as a way to carpe iuventas. Now apparently, this anthology, which contained Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold, Street Fighter Alpha 3, and the inutterably odd Pocket Fighter, is a prequel to Street Fighter II, and sets out to explain the happenings in the Street Fighter world (these games have a plot? Who knew??).

I’ll be very up front with you dear readers: if you’ve played and/or already own the SFA series, there’s no compelling reason to go out and grab this one unless you a) are missing a game in the series and want to round out your collection, b) are one of those obsessive collector’s that has to have every single limited edition, director’s cut, or expanded version ever made, or c) are a real fan of the original couple of Street Fighter games and would like to get back into it. Obviously I fall into this third category, and despite my general dislike of amalgams, experienced a brief resurgence of flurried match mania. I have a serious thing for games that allow step-wise advancement. Whether this be a levelling up MMO nightmare, or the Tournament mode of fighter games such as this, I derive a good deal of satisfaction in being able to best the next boss, the next level, the next….whatever.

It was all there from the original games, from the distinctive sound tracks to all of the well-loved characters. You could take the more tradition Street Fighter Alpha approach, or test your tolerance of manic movement, blinking, and yelling by tackling Street Fighter Alpha 3. That being said, one feature that I absolutely enjoyed in all of the SFA games was the “Dramatic Battle” mode, where both players could work together to defeat a third computer-controlled enemy. Much like the progression in Tournament mode, players fought their way through a series of four to six (depending on which SFA you were playing) adversaries as a super powered team. Seeing that I hadn’t played any of the Alpha games prior to now, this was completely new to me and provided that spark of interest that kept me playing longer than I likely would have otherwise. Perhaps not so outstanding a draw to Alpha veterans unfortunately.

For a real treat (and a lot of WTF), make sure to try out Pocket Fighter which is, in my opinion, the most addictive title in the collection. Why? It’s very Japanese, very weird, and requires repeated play to get the hang of. Hit opponents to release red, yellow, or blue gems, which you can then collect to build up your gem power meter in each of the corresponding three colours. Executing the special moves often takes a little bit of fancy joystick wiggling, but persevere, and you’ll be rewarded with some of the pocket-sized power. I won’t spoil the fun save to say that you should make use of Flash Combos as much as possible, if only to watch your big tough Zangief play dressup.

The controls unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your stance, required all the mastery of a trained monkey. I found that I had lost a lot of my button mashing ability over the years and it was somewhat reassuring to be able to pull of some nice combos and special moves without having to think too much. What did rather disappoint me though, was the lack of variation between characters. If you could play Ken, you could equally well play Sagat, Ryu, Dan, et al. There was no satisfaction in playing and mastering each character in turn, something that I very much look forward to in fighting games. Otherwise why not just have a bunch of different coloured clones to choose from?

It was, in a lot of ways, like trying to back to Kraft cheese singles (which are delicious in their own right, don’t get me wrong), after being spoiled by the exhilarating nip of seven year old Steeltown cheddar. Simple, fast and easy. That’s likely the best way to sum up this collection of classic games. This anthology was great fun, for all of a week. My co-player and I ripped through all of the Dramatic Battle modes in a matter of a day or two, and toyed around with the versus mode as much as ego would allow, but the fact of the matter was that once we beat the Tournament and co-op modes, there was very little to hold our interest. As a collectible, or for grown up gamers trying to recapture their glory days, Street Fighter Alpha Anthology has some value, and as simple, enjoyable entertainment, the franchise has a feel that’s very difficult to surpass. Good, old-fashioned fun, but don’t expect to be blown away by novel or innovative entries; this is a true anthology where the games have essentially been packed together on a disc and released.

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POSTED IN: PS2, Review