Street Fighter Alpha 3 was a great fighting game for it's time, perhaps not the most beginner friendly some would say, but still amazing in the gameplay department. However, I think it's time would took a deep look at Street Fighter Alpha 3, course it's not the playstation version, but perhaps a few things went overlooked that no one really mentioned, though does not alter the entertainment this popular fighting game provides.

Sound 4

I'll start off with the bad things first, so, the first thing I shall tackle is the sound department, mainly the music. The music in the game is as I would say, as bad as whatever Capcom made for Street Fighter X Tekken. It's terrible to my ears, maybe not to someone else's, but certainly to mine. As a musician, I try to give all music a chance, but, no matter how many chances I gave the game, the music is amongst the worst Capcom has produced. It's as if they weren't even trying or they one day just kicked out all their music producers and directors and realized, "oh no, we don't know how to make music. Well, who cares, the gameplay is amazing! No one will notice!" Yeah, perhaps the huge majority didn't notice, but I sure did. I'm sorry I've become all personal about these complaints, but this subject is inexcusable! Street Fighter II and Street Fighter Alpha 1-2 had songs many still remember to this day, such as Guile's theme! After all, "Guile's Theme Goes With Everything" As youtubers prove. The compositions for these previous songs I've even looked into myself through sheet music analyzing every part there is, and surprisingly, it's just so well made there are many ways to arrange the songs which Street Fighter Alpha 2 performed nicely. For instance, the transition from Sagat's theme in Street Fighter II to Alpha 2 was simply epic, especially the rival battle theme between Ryu and Sagat! Street Fighter Alpha 3 fails to do this and I'll tell you how. Have you ever noticed that some of the songs have no melody, or maybe the melody is just so overshadowed or perhaps, plain horrible. Not to mention, the sound instrument choice for the songs just didn't feel right. Sometimes, the songs all felt the same to each other in some way, and perhaps that was because of the lack of composition which led to a generic song with no life to it. Once again, Guile's theme is simply so inspirational and full of passion, and as a few youtube users commented, perfect for America's new National Anthem. Maybe Capcom wasn't feeling as inspirational and had a writer's block of some kind, but the music, is just not worth listening to. Maybe Capcom allows for their consumers to listen to their own music on their console rather than theirs because they simply stopped caring.

On the other hand, the sound effects and voice acting aren't as bad as the music. Ok, maybe some of the voice actors aren't that good, but that's what makes them memorable in a good way. Such as Charlie/Nash saying, "Too Easy" with a strange, low toned voice. Overall, the voice actors did a great job of all the grunts and K.O. voice effects. The sound effects are pretty dramatic on the other hand which makes the game interesting when you K.O. your friend. upon K.O. the noise effects slow down and become louder allowing you to just look at your friend and probably yell "OHH!" or "Wombo Combo" Or "OWNED" right in their face at the same speed of the slow down effect. It may be my imagination, but compared to a few other sound effects from Capcom fighting games, the hit effects have a lower stronger tone to it with a small echo making plenty of the hits seem deadly, especially on counter when they tone up the reverb.

Story - 4

Street Fighter Alpha 3's story for each character is basically, beginning and then end. There isn't much to talk about for this section considering that some or most of the stories are as generic and straight forward as becoming stronger, or proving who's the best, or defeating M. Bison. In general like the music, it's not something that affects the game play Street Fighter Alpha 3 possesses, but at least the stories aren't bad either. There are rival cut scenes where the character for example might get a bit of information about M. Bison. The game also features endings with a little artwork here and there, where the character might finish off Bison once and for all. However, the story could be easily overlooked for those who just enjoy the game play since back in the day, fighting games were just all about the fighting. Also, to add to that, if you only play versus matches against your friends, then you'll most likely never come across the stories in the game at all.

Graphics - 7

The graphics in the game as I'd put it are nothing to go crazy about. Street Fighter Alpha 3 proves that graphics don't need to improve drastically to make game play better. Though some of the graphics are recycled from Street Fighter Alpha 2, or at least that's how it looks, I first played the game for the first time before Street Fighter Alpha 2, so it was decent. The animations are ok, but I don't find myself going crazy over it or anything. It is better than what it used to be at least, and the fact that I don't notice the animations or character graphics in such a way that I'd point things out means it does a good job of not being irritating in any way. However, the stage designs are nice. There are some nice details to be found in each one, Adon's stage being pretty cool if I say so myself. None of the stages are really dull in anyway and are all colorful, but one again, nothing so outstanding.

Addictiveness - 9
Depth - 8
Difficulty - 8

Now we get to the really good stuff. Street Fighter Alpha 3 is most known for it's critically acclaimed impressive game play. Let's start off with the first noticeable aspect of the game. There are 28 characters in all, 3 that are hidden in the arcade game that can be playable through a simple code. That a big increase from Street Fighter Alpha 2 and the original Super Street Fighter II Turbo. With 28 characters, that already leaves you so much character strategies to learn to play as or against. The next think you'll notice is the ism select option. After selecting a player, you can choose from one of three isms: A-ism/ (Z-ism in Japan), X-ism, and V-ism. These isms will change the way you will have to play and the super moves you can do. Once again, even more to learn from the game and adapt to with different characters to find out what works best for you. Then while you're playing the normal arcade mode, there's about 10-11 stages, 11 if you fight against the hidden boss (which sadly I'm still trying to accomplish.) However, this game doesn't just have the usual arcade gameplay and that's it. There are two extra modes you can access by holding all punch or kick buttons before inserting coins and pressing start. The two game modes are Dramatic mode and Survival mode. Dramatic mode being the most unique of them all and other fighting games at the time allows you to play with a team partner either controlled by the CPU or your friend which is a lot of fun when trying to make new combos. The Survival mode which never seen included in any arcade fighting game is your usual survival game where you need to try to take as little damage as possible and beat as many opponents before you are eventually defeated. What a way to test your skills, especially on a difficult arcade fighter. It doesn't stop there. There are also three extra game play modes, two of which make the game harder if you are just that good at it. Classic mode will make the game similar the original street fighter II when there were no supers and add a few gameplay tweaks, while Mazi and Saikyo mode will literally just turn the tables against you and make it so the computer can defeat you more easily whether they only have one round to win or restricting you from doing cancel moves. These can be accessed by holding both punch and kick buttons of the same strength before starting the game. There is even what is known as Final Battle Mode which allows you to fight the strongest form of Bison and, that's that.

So already, it seems like there's a lot to do...but it doesn't stop there. The gameplay mechanics can also be quite interesting. I won't go too in depth because I'm not really an expert at the game and I'm not even able to do everything, but, at the same time, the gameplay mechanics could be tough for newcomers and those who've never played fighting games or aren't as good as street fighter. To get straight to the point to avoid pages and pages of explanation, I'll give you a brief idea of the unique factors of Street Fighter Alpha/Zero 3. There is the 'Zero Counter' that allows you to counterattack an opponent who keeps attacking you while you guard. This saves you from guarding too much because unlike the other Street Fighter games, you have a guard gauge that depletes and when it does, you're guard will be broken and your opponent can get free hits. Then there is also air blocking with certain isms that you can select from as well as air recovery which allows you to recover after a hit in the air. Recovering also applies to getting knocked down in general. You can also do juggle combos which is a lot of fun and leads to more creative combos to do devastating damage to your opponent. These are some of the new gameplay mechanics I came across while being taught by veteran players, but there may be more that I don't know about. As for isms, A-ism which is the main default ism features the usual Street Fighter Alpha super bar with three different levels of strengths. Everything I just mentioned is possible in this ism, however, it's noticeably a little weaker than X-ism which is the classic Super Street Fighter II Turbo fighting style. This allows you to only use one super of one level, do more damage, but you are unable to air block or recover from getting knocked to the ground like the usual Street Fighter II. On the other hand, V-ism, replaced supers for your own custom combo that you can cancel any move into any move and juggle the opponent infinitely. It works like A-ism otherwise, but just weaker damage, however, more fun to use for its custom combos which I'm sure derived from Street Fighter Alpha 2.

Now, it's that in depth or what!? What a way to make up for everything else in this game. If you think about it, it's quite balanced in terms of the new ideas introduced. I think Street Fighter Alpha 3 allows a chance for even new players to fighting games to learn how fun they can be with the different isms available for use, such as the easy X-ism. Though it would be lacking for a few gamers or perfect for advanced gamers who know the ins and outs of the game, there's not much to think about as compared to A-ism or V-ism with its many different functions to remember. However, all of these features should bring any, if not most 2D fighting gamers back for more action to figure out every little secret there is to every character. It's almost like a playground that allows for at least a good amount of freedom to experiment, even if it means having to use a second dummy player over and over to practice your techniques on without a computer to prevent that.

Though the difficulty can be adjusted from the service menu, technically, this game is actually very difficult and features cheap AI at times. Not to mention, there are options to make the game harder, but, if it's really so hard, why isn't there an option to make it easier. Naturally at an arcade, you wouldn't be allowed to go into the service menu to set up the games options to free play and easy mode. You'd have to stick with it and hope someone new to the game comes by so you can get better at the game if you're not as good. Even in dramatic mode, there may be another computer helping you out, but the AI can even beat both a strong AI and you to pulps. However, those who enjoy hard difficulty and trying to adapt to harsh environments will find themselves at home. Not to mention, if you really try to endure and practice very hard against even the cheapest AI in the game, it can be very rewarding to stand a chance against experienced players and higher difficulty computers while enjoying the game at the same time. There is also no excuse not to get better at the game, you have the service menu, free play, or unlimited tokens, so start practicing, and become a Street Fighter!

Now, why a 9 out of 10? I'm serious when I say the gameplay makes of for where it couldn't shine. If you don't like the music, go into the service menu, alter the sound, there you go. However, even I still keep it on because I always forget about it while I'm playing the game. I'm too excited to worry about this major issue that bothers me and rather just get straight to the fight.

Wow... really in-depth review there. I actually liked the music for this game though... is that a rare thing? I especially enjoyed Cammy and Karin's themes. I can listen to either on loop forever practically. I don't usually like Street Fighter music much either.

Crazy Li : Yeah, those are the only themes I can possibly enjoy, and Dan's theme a little bit. But I still don't like either over other themes in Street Fighter. Karin's theme I like less than Cammy's which could possibly be the best. I did like like songs from street fighter ex series.

 Shogun Gamer: very nice review I enjoyed reading it  and I do agreed the soundtrack in this game makes it kind of a bummer  keep up the good work  

SuperCrash64 : Thanks you very much. I'm starting to think maybe I was a little unfair with Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha, but maybe not.

 Shogun Gamer:I don't think your were  that harsh on that review    like I said nobody has the same opinion one just prefers to be different that others    i ll rate the review soon