A True Fighting Game with a Big Heart, Street Fighter Alpha 2
Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha (Japan) or Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold (U.S.)

“Caring for every field that matters in a video game, struck me right in the heart. This is a true fighting game.”

-Try this Alpha 2!-
So essentially, this will be my Alpha 2 review. As much as I'd want to also review Alpha 2, I can't, because this is the same exact game with selectable modes (WHAAAAAT!?), more EX characters, a few new moves, and tweaks or balancing to the general system and characters in the game. Essentially, it's "Street Fighter Alpha 2 Upgraded Edition!" Some people might think, Pffft, Street Fighter Alpha 2 isn't as great Street Fighter Alpha 3. Maybe that's true in a few ways, but in a way, Street Fighter Alpha 3 feels like a different game when comparing game mechanics in some way to Alpha 2. Without isms, the game is more traditional Street Fighter 2 but with more supers, characters, and concepts such as the Alpha Counter and the Custom Combo. So technically…they are almost two different games kind of like the difference between Soul Calibur 2 and Soul Calibur 5 (Soul charge and straight forward fast gameplay vs. Soul Calibur meets street fighter, very different.)

Depth and Addictiveness 9:

Let’s discuss the Street Fighter Zero 2 part of the game before we go Alpha or Gold. At first when you play the game, you would never guess there is a dramatic or survival mode added to the game making it seem like the same exact Street Fighter Alpha 2. The game has 18 characters to play as which is a very nice amount of characters to learn from. There eight default rounds in arcade mode and nine rounds with the more powerful, hidden, Shin Akuma/Gouki, who actually has the nerve to beat you up before the final boss. By satisfying certain conditions before the sixth round, your character will fight a rival, who interrupts what would seem like a normal round, and the final opponent being their enemy or final goal character (such as Sakura wanting to fight Ryu). Other than that, there isn’t much else to do besides play the game, master characters and their combos, create cool custom combos, hope to pull off awesome juggle combos, and play at higher difficulties. In general, the simple gameplay is what made Street Fighter accessible and overall just fun to play. Games don’t need to overdo things to create perfection.

Now as for Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha, the expansion added selectable modes, EX characters, selectable Classic Street Fighter II costume for Chun-Li, two new hidden stages, additional colors for Sakura, and Evil Ryu. Out of all of these, the biggest addition to the game is the new modes to choose from, not to mention one of the reasons to play the game on the Arcade or own the PS2 Street Fighter Anthology. For those who have played Street Fighter Alpha 3, or even EX 3, you will know of the mode Dramatic Battle which is essentially a 2 on 1 battle where you and a computer controlled character or a friend can fight. This mode is pretty fun on its own considering the fact that you and a friend could team up together to pull off awesome combos with your combined power…though, that doesn’t mean the enemy will be simple to beat either. In this mode, the enemy is probably three times as powerful being able to singlehandedly destroy two players with increased damage and stamina. Attacking from both sides won’t work either since once the enemy blocks one attack, he/she blocks all the rest. Regardless, this is a very fun mode to play Street Fighter Alpha 2 style since you not only get to have super moves, but custom combos as well. Unfortunately, the fun only last for four stages…darn.

Two other modes included in the game are Survival Mode, and Shin Gouki Mode. Survival mode for those who don’t know allows you to test your might against an endless amount of matches in which you must keep defeating opponents while trying to stay alive since your health will only recharge a little bit after every battle. This is a great way to master most fighting games as well as to teach yourself not to panic in situations that you’d be one hit or combo away from a K.O. but you’d be able to win the round if you do happen to pull through with skill and concentration alone. I’m not exactly sure, but In Street Fighter Alpha 2, I think you only fight all 18 characters and that’s that. Shin Gouki Mode simply allows you to fight the all mighty and powerful Shin Gouki/Akuma and no one else. So if you ever need to practice against the hidden boss so you can defeat him upon playing in arcade mode, this is the mode to use.

To Select each Mode:

After inserting a coin, or if you enabled free play,

Dramatic Mode: Hold all three kick buttons and press start

Survival Mode: Hold all three punch buttons and press start

Shin Gouki Mode: Hold both medium punch and kick, then press start.

With a little homework and research, I found the tweaks made to the game slightly change the way the game would be played, or even how you might play as a certain character. Some characters received buffs, and some received nerfs. The game system itself might have been balanced out, but, that’s pretty hard to say considering that it makes a few things a little harder. To start off, Custom Combos, which are now executed by pressing heavy punch and kick, noticeably aren’t as strong as they used to be in the Alpha 2; not that this is bad since at least players who are better than others won’t annihilate their opponents with a Custom Combo too powerful (apparently this isn’t true for all characters.) The Zero Counter, which allows you to knockback an opponent attacking you while you guard, was also weakened and costs 1.5 levels of your super bar. This in a way is a drawback almost and makes Zero Counters more of an emergency technique rather than something you could use to surprise your opponent with. Perhaps many players were using Zero Counters far too often?

The character tweaks in the game only affect certain parts of gameplay such as a few characters having new moves, like Ryu’s Shakunetsu (fire) Hadouken, or Guy’s Level 3 super throw, Bushin Musou Renge. Sadly, it seems there are only 6 characters in all with new moves, so it’s nothing so special, but it’s nice to have at least. Other character tweaks would be a character’s attacks becoming weaker, or his super move becoming stronger, or losing range, or maybe even having better or worse recovery on certain moves. One I can mention, which I personally was affected by, was Ken’s Shinryuken super used in combos. The range has been decreased, going from a vacuum-like effect to, you have to be pretty close to the opponent to ensure it hits. This changed some of his combos, or if not, made them harder to pull off when a player felt like using a Shinryuken to finish off their combo. For me, there was this one cool trick you could use where you could do a sweep kick, roll right after, and go into a Shinryuken. With the tweak, I’ve had trouble with the timing to pull it off at times, but that’s Street Fighter for you.

Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha still remains an excellent game and is still a fun addition to the series, as well as being the only tweaked/DLC Alpha game. Between Street Fighter Alpha 2 and Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha, I find the extra features offered in Zero 2 Alpha make it worth playing over the original, but if ever anyone needs to go back to the first game for those little things that make it count in a match, then that’s pretty easy to do on VIzzed.com after all. This is the reason I give the depth 9/10 simply for the factor of tweaking what many others might have really liked about the original. It might not have been necessary, but the game either way remains plain awesome and always fun to come back to any time.

Difficulty 7:

“Difficulty 7!? Street Fighter is so easy!” That’s what a veteran would say, but how about someone who thinks Street Fighter is very hard, or has never laid their hands on Street Fighter before, or pulled off a hadouken? (Pronounced: Hah-Doh-Ken) We have to admit, Street Fighter isn’t for everyone and when I first played, trust me, I was no good until I practiced and finally learned what the heck a combo or even a special move was after Marvel vs. Capcom 2.

Generally, the difficulty of the game is adjusting to the gameplay, the A.I. which for veterans wouldn’t be too difficult a challenge (you won’t find yourself at many continue screens), and learning combos, if not, special moves for those who are new to the series. I still struggle with combos when it comes to more advanced techniques such as a jumping heavy, light punch, low kick, low kick, super move. It’s these combos that will simplify defeating computers on the fly. However, one noticeable thing the computer opponent loves to do is punish you for any attacks you whiff or little things you might not catch onto until they hit you for it. In other words, be sure before you act, but don’t give them the chance to get in your comfort zone. Towards the middle to the end of the arcade mode, the computer will really go at you like a shark when you least expect it, so watch out. Other than that, the game isn’t that incredibly difficult, unless you’re playing on 8 star difficulty against Shin Gouki, or any character for that matter. Don’t see higher difficulty as a bad thing either; see it as a way to gauge how far you’ve come as a Street Fighter.

Story :

I’m leaving the story blank since the only place to find the true story is on Wikipedia, manuals, or in the street fighter manga and etc. However, I can tell you a few things just to get you started perhaps. The Alpha series takes place before Street Fighter II, or basically the first series of Street Fighter when Ryu and Ken still recently lost their Master Gouken and went off to compete in the Street Fighter Tournaments. Throughout their journeys, Ryu fought a powerful Maui Thai King named Sagat whom he was defeated by. However, his greed to win the match overcame him with the killing intent also known as the Satsui no Hadou (dark/evil energy), causing him to use a forbidden shoryuken, the Metsu Shoryuken, on Sagat. This in turn left Sagat with a terrible scar which was also a scar on Ryu for his sin that he nearly killed someone in battle with a technique his master never wanted him to use. Ryu trains to fight against the killing intent within him which at times takes over him making him into a dangerous weapon to anyone nearby. On his journey, he also defeats M. Bison, in turn influencing a high school girl to learn martial arts and fight identical to him because she had the courage to stand up to M. Bison when Ryu was nearly defeated. This girl, Sakura, plays a huge role in the Street Fighter Alpha and IV series as a character who supports Ryu and reminds him that fighting for your dreams is stronger than giving into the killing intent (or etc like that). The story I gave you is only a very short version of the main idea behind the major main character, Ryu, but it might not be as accurate as I wanted it to be.

Though Street Fighter is mostly based around Ryu, all characters have their own story, and some who reappear in most Street Fighter games like Chun-Li or Guile have more major stories that tie in with Ryu, or the villain M. Bison (or each other since they have similar goals.) At the end of arcade mode for each character, you get to see the character’s ending and their resolve to their goal.

For some who are new to Street Fighter, the first thing I suggest you do before playing and saying “you’ll figure out the controls on your own”, is to go to gamefaqs.com, go to the FAQ section, and open up a move list guide. In Street Fighter, is doesn’t really matter if you learn the controls, because special moves are in fact a part of those controls and standing a chance against plenty of things in Street Fighter. Of course, it’s possible to beat an opponent without special moves, but it’s also a lot more fun having special moves to your disposal. After all, sometimes you just feel like spamming hadoukens to keep your opponent away from you, rather than allowing them to get in close and toss you all over the place against your own will.

Graphics 10:

I have to say, Capcom really hit the nail on the head. I thought Street Fighter II had some awesome stages; alpha 1 was ok but nothing too unique; but Street Fighter Alpha 2 made the stages so interesting and surely enough told a story about the character almost. For example, Sakura’s stage takes place right in her backyard of her house. In a way, if Ryu had come by and was spotted by Sakura, she would surely invite him over and challenge him in the backyard of her home, it would really happen (and funny enough, in one of the animated Alpha movies, it really does happen.) The stage design overall is outright interesting and some include cameos from other capcom games. Two I could name off the top of my head would be Guy’s stage, and Ken’s stage. In Guy’s stage which takes place in Metro City, already being a reference to the game he crossed over from, Final Fight. There are cameos of Mayor Haggar, Cody and the Mayor’s Daughter, and villains from the Skull Gang such as Poison and Hugo (Andore). In Ken’s stage taking place on his private yacht; it features a birthday party he set up for his girlfriend Eliza and invited plenty of recognizable Capcom characters such as Linn Kurosawa from Alien vs. Predator, Felecia Hsien-ko(Lei-Lei), Mei-Ling, Lord Raptor (Zabel) and Morrigan from Darkstalkers, Captain Commando and Sho (Ninja commando) from Captain Commando, Michelle Heart from Legendary Wings, Strider Hiryu from Strider, Unknown Soldier 1P & 2P from Forgotten Worlds, Pure from Capcom World 2, Biff and Jumbo from Slam Masters, and the CEO/Chairman of Capcom…dressed as a butler (Yeah, I was surprised when I researched that one). Is that a lot of Capcom cameos or what!? Every stage is pretty interesting and is true to the character’s background and appearance.

Sprite wise, everything turned out well and perhaps it’s just me seeing things but I swear the sprites look better than they do in Street Fighter Alpha 1. There was certainly an improvement from the original Street Fighter II series, but the art style changed if I am correct. The colors seem to pop a little more on the characters, not to mention, the sprites were also recycled into the cross over games such as Marvel vs. Capcom. But in general, everything seemed to have been done right in Street Fighter Alpha 2 and overall just seems to win my favor against other fighting game graphics. It might just be the simple design style that really brings the game out as compared to KoF’s more detailed designs which I must say are amazing, but the characters felt a little darker to me, but it is a darker game. It just didn’t make me feel that good feeling I get when playing Street Fighter Zero 2.

Music 10:

The CPS2 arcades were a big hit, playing from Street Fighter 2 to Street Fighter Alpha and other great games that followed along. At the same time, music improved with each game released and different instruments were used out of the midi sound system they had to work with for each game. The music in Street Fighter Alpha 2 was essentially memorable like the themes from the Street Fighter 2 series. Sakura’s theme for instance, was remixed later on in Street Fighter 4 simply because the song was inspirational and true to her character, not to mention, the fact that Capcom remixed themes from Street Fighter Alpha 2 meant it had to be the best music for any characters coming from the Alpha series. Veteran characters that have been in Street Fighter 2 had their themes remixed slightly, but it’s hard to explain in what way since every character either had an extension to their theme, a new original part, or a part taken out. For instance, Chun-Li’s theme has a bit of jazz fusion incorporating jazz chords for the sake of making the music sound “Cool” (a term I can’t explain), but at the same time, they took out the other half of the song to replay the same first melody a second time with different chords that add tension to the song. (Listen to the song yourself; you’ll see what I’m talking about. This is the best way I can explain something musically without using lots of words that no one would understand)

An example of add a new original part to a theme would be Ken’s theme (which was composed differently than the original also.) In ken’s theme, the melody would play up to a certain point to which it could end and sustain a note for awhile to allow a back part to play with it with a dual melody answer and call. Then after the chorus (the melody part I just spoke of), the song enters a new verse in which the song does something entirely different than the original verse, and…I’m probably losing you, but, in short, Capcom built about music that was already good and made it worth listening to again in a new way.

The voice acting in the game has certainly improved from the original. For me, it’s easier to hear what the characters are saying, such as Ryu’s “Tatsumaki Senpuu Kyaku” (Each word is Whirlwind Tornado Kick.) Back in Street Fighter 2, it was a little difficult to hear the pronunciation and lead to Egoraptor’s popular flash video joke, “I’D LIKE SOME POUND CAKE!” So an improvement on clearer audibility in voice acting was certainly successful. The sound effects have changed from the older Street Fighter series also and possibly give a different feel to the game. There’s nothing like that echo effect when you K.O. your opponent.

Closing words:

If you’ve never played a Street Fighter Alpha/Zero game, I really suggest starting with Zero 2 alpha first before moving on to Alpha 3. Both games actually have a different feel from each other as well as a different charm that separate the two slightly. Yes, I gave this game a 9.7/10 which may seem a little unfair, but I really see a potential in the game that Street Fighter Alpha 3 also has, but this hits every aspect of beauty in pretty much every field. A fighting game with simple and traditional, yet fun gameplay, but also has great music and stages! This is my rating, this is my review, this is me telling you from a critically opinionated view of what I feel matters most in a game, and that’s pretty much everything! The one thing I don’t appreciate is a focus on one aspect of a game and out ruling music and graphical appeal. A game that gives its creator’s heart out to the players is one that cares for everything placed in a game. Street Fighter Alpha 2 is an example of just that.

Fun fact:

Street Fighter Alpha Anthology featuring all three street fighter alpha games featured two hidden games, Gem Fighter, and Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold, which included Cammy and Shin Akuma (not included on the Arcade port)

Overall 9    Graphics 10    Sound 10    Addictive 9    Depth 9    Difficulty 7

A True Fighting Game with a Big Heart, Street Fighter Alpha 2   Shogun Gamer
Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha (Japan) or Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold (U.S.) “Caring for every f...
      Review Rating: 4.7/5     Submitted: 01-17-13     Updated: 01-17-13     Review Replies: 4

There are no submitted threads for this Game

There are no submitted Guides for this Game

There are no users who own this Game

floobadoo 06-28-13 - 01:18 PM
 I'm fine with playing this version, but what happened to street fighter alpha 2? i can't find it?
Will1 04-07-13 - 06:51 PM
 Is it me or is this game really hard.
Shogun Gamer 09-29-12 - 08:58 PM
 if you press start twice on ryu, you get evil ryu, start once on any characters from street fighter 2,you get classic character
Shogun Gamer 09-29-12 - 08:57 PM
 darn, this version doesn't have cammy
Shogun Gamer 09-27-12 - 04:42 AM
 If I'm correct, is this also the expansion to the second game?
Shogun Gamer 09-27-12 - 04:32 AM
 For those of you who want to set up a gamepad, the buttons go in this order for attacks. light punch, medium punch, heavy punch, light kick, medium kick, heavy kick. I set mine up to the usual street fighter
Shogun Gamer 09-27-12 - 04:28 AM
 This one works!