Street Fighter Alpha 2

• 1. Introduction

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  Street Fighter Alpha 2 made its public debut at the February 1996 AOU show in Tokyo. It arrived less than a year after Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors' Dreams, its direct predecessor. Among the new characters was Sakura, a face that had never appeared in any Street Fighter game before. Japanese trade magazine Game Machine listed it as the most successful arcade release in Japan for April 1996. By year's end, it would hold that title for all of 1996. Capcom senior planner Shinji Mikami had a specific philosophy about how the fighting system should feel. That philosophy had reshaped the combat from the ground up.

• 2. A New Way to Fight

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  Capcom senior planner Shinji Mikami was clear about what the team had prioritized. "When we were trying to get the balance of Alpha 2 right we only concentrated on Alpha 2," he said. "That's the one that's important." His diagnosis was that players had relied too heavily on special moves. In his words, the development team "wanted to focus on the importance of the normal hits and not just the specials."

  The Custom Combo system, called the Original Combo in Japan, replaced the Chain Combos that had defined the first Alpha. To trigger it, a player needed the Super Combo gauge at level one or above. The input was either two punch buttons and a kick, or one punch button and two kicks. After activation, any sequence of basic and special moves remained available until a Timer Gauge at the bottom of the screen ran out. Only Guy and Gen retained the ability to perform Chain Combos, though only to a limited degree.

  Each character gained a second Alpha Counter in Alpha 2. Where the original had given every fighter a single defensive option, the sequel assigned one activated by a kick and another by a punch. Shin Akuma, a more powerful variant of Akuma, replaced his counterpart as the game's secret opponent. Unlike Super Turbo or the original Alpha, Shin Akuma appeared before the player's final match rather than as an alternate final boss.

  New characters from outside the Street Fighter II cast filled out the rest of the roster, drawing on other Capcom games entirely.

• 3. Characters Old and New

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  All thirteen characters from Street Fighter Alpha returned, with M. Bison, Akuma, and Dan now immediately selectable rather than hidden. The additions drew from across Capcom's catalog. Dhalsim and Zangief arrived from Street Fighter II. Gen, an assassin who had appeared in the original Street Fighter, rejoined the lineup after a long absence. Rolento, a member of the Mad Gear gang, had first appeared in Final Fight.

  Sakura Kasugano was a Japanese schoolgirl who had witnessed one of Ryu's battles and decided to take up street fighting. Her presence brought a very different kind of fighter into a roster built largely around hardened warriors and criminal organizations. The game also offered a "classic-style" alternative Chun-Li, dressed in her Street Fighter II outfit rather than her Alpha design.

  In Japan, the game was released under the title Street Fighter Zero 2, rather than Street Fighter Alpha 2.

• 4. Two Games, Many Names

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  The Western and Japanese arcade editions of Street Fighter Alpha 2 were not the same game. Capcom USA had requested three additional characters for the North American and European releases: Evil Ryu and EX versions of Dhalsim and Zangief. Those EX versions used their movesets from Street Fighter II and had no access to the Super Combo gauge. The Japanese release lacked all three.

  Japan received its own expanded update, Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha, which added EX characters for Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Sagat, and M. Bison. All were based on their Street Fighter II: Champion Edition versions. Custom Combo activation also changed. Players now triggered it by pressing a punch and kick button of the same strength at the same time. The move required only half a level of Super Combo gauge rather than a full level. Ryu gained the Shakunetsu Hadouken. Dhalsim gained the Yoga Tempest. Zero 2 Alpha also added a survival mode and a 2-on-1 Dramatic Battle mode.

  Evil Ryu appeared in both the Western arcade version and Zero 2 Alpha, but the two presented him differently. In Zero 2 Alpha, he had distinct dialogue exchanges and a different ending from his Western counterpart.

  Zero 2 Alpha's console release carried different titles in each region. It was Alpha 2 Gold in North America, Alpha 2 Prime in Europe, and Zero 2 Dash in Japan.

• 5. The Console Ports

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  The Sega Saturn and PlayStation versions of Street Fighter Alpha 2 both launched in 1996. The Saturn port offered Evil Ryu, EX Dhalsim, and EX Zangief, which were absent from the PlayStation version. It also included a survival mode, an art gallery, and a streaming ADPCM soundtrack that looped correctly, as in the arcade. The PlayStation offered its own arranged soundtrack in XA-Audio format. Both versions made Shin Akuma selectable through a secret code. PlayStation players traced the letter Z on the character select screen; Saturn players traced an X.

  Alpha 2 Gold, the console version of Zero 2 Alpha, was released as part of the Street Fighter Collection on PlayStation and Sega Saturn. That compilation also included Super Street Fighter II and Super Street Fighter II Turbo. Alpha 2 Gold retained most features from the Zero 2 Alpha arcade but omitted the 2-on-1 Dramatic Battle mode. It added Cammy, based on her design from X-Men vs. Street Fighter, as a hidden character in Versus and Training modes.

  The Super Nintendo version, also released in 1996, was published outside Japan by Nintendo after Capcom stepped back from SNES publishing. It used an S-DD1 chip for on-the-fly graphic decompression but still produced loading times between matches as audio loaded onto the sound chip. Critics found the audio quality exceptionally poor, the animation choppy, and the game speed slow. Shawn Smith and Dan Hsu of Electronic Gaming Monthly called it the worst Street Fighter game on the Super NES. Capcom eventually sold large shipments of cartridges at a loss outside the United States to clear unsold warehouse inventory.

  A Windows PC version arrived in 1997, based on the PlayStation port and using the arcade soundtrack in 22 kHz WAV format. In Japan, Capcom bundled it with the original Street Fighter Alpha. The Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection, released in May 2018, brought an arcade-perfect version to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Steam, and Nintendo Switch. This version did not carry over the code adjustments from earlier home ports.

• 6. Critical Recognition

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  Gamest, the Japanese arcade magazine, awarded Street Fighter Zero 2 the Best Game of 1996 title at its Tenth Annual Grand Prize. The game placed first in Best Fighting Game, ninth in Best Graphics, sixth in Best Direction, and fourth in Best Video Game Music. Dan Hibiki and Sakura Kasugano appeared on the cover of that issue. Dan ranked first and Sakura third in the magazine's Top 50 Characters of 1996, with Ryu at thirteenth.

  Maximum magazine gave the arcade version five out of five stars, calling it "Capcom's best fighting game to date." A reviewer for Next Generation awarded three out of five stars, praising the large character count, smooth animation, and innovative backgrounds. He called the Custom Combos "an unprecedented, new, and complex innovation in Street Fighter gameplay." He found some aspects of their execution odd, but concluded it was "a fine new addition for true hard-core gameplayers."

  The Saturn version tied with the PlayStation release of Tomb Raider for Electronic Gaming Monthly's Game of the Month. EGM reviewer Sushi-X noted that both console versions were strong. He cited the Saturn's advantages: frames of animation absent from the PlayStation version and the Saturn-exclusive illustrations mode. EGM later named the Saturn version the 36th best console video game of all time, choosing it specifically for its superior graphics. The Saturn port sold over 400,000 units in Japan.

  Manga Entertainment, A.P.P.P., and Group TAC developed two animated OVA adaptations using the game's cast. Street Fighter Alpha: The Animation appeared in 2000 and Street Fighter Alpha: Generations in 2005; both were co-produced by Kaoru Mfaume. All of the game's characters except Gen and Dan also appeared in the Canadian-American cartoon Street Fighter: The Animated Series. Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha, the expanded Japanese update, went on to rank second among all arcade games in Japan for September 1996.