Dreamcast Game #34: Street Fighter Alpha 3

ストリートファイターZERO 3, Street Fighter ZERO 3

Hello, I’m Cory Roberts, and… this is what you’ve all been waiting for… back by popular demand, we call it… Street Fighter Alpha 3! People wanted a Street Fighter game to be reviewed on Medium, so here it is for the fighting game fans everywhere! The Capcom 2D fighting game was originally released in 1998 and between 1999 and 2000 for the PlayStation and the Dreamcast. It is the third and final installment in the Street Fighter Alpha sub-series, which serves as a sequel to Street Fighter Alpha 2, and ran on the same CP System II hardware as previous Alpha games. The game was produced after the Street Fighter III sub-series started, being released after 2nd Impact, but before 3rd Strike. Alpha 3 further expanded the playable fighter roster from Street Fighter Alpha 2 and added new features such as selectable fighting styles called “isms”.

The game brings back all eighteen of the characters that appeared in Street Fighter Alpha 2 (this Medium post can’t list the characters here, because the game has the biggest roster). As with the previous Alpha titles, several characters were added to the game: Cammy, who was previously featured in the console-exclusive Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold, E. Honda, Blanka, Balrog (Japan version: “Mike Bison”), and Vega (Japan version: “Balrog”). New characters introduced in Alpha 3 include R. Mika, a Japanese female wrestler who idolizes Zangief; Karin, Sakura’s rival who was first introduced in the Street Fighter manga Sakura Ganbaru! by Masahiko Nakahira; Cody from Final Fight, who has since become an escaped convict; and Juli and Juni, two of Shadaloo’s “Dolls” who serve as Bison’s assassins and guards.

Notes

• R. Mika (Rainbow Mika) would return in Street Fighter V (originally voiced by Junko Takeuchi, who is best known for voicing Naruto’s titular character, she was voiced by Bonnie Gordon and Hiromi Igarashi in English and Japanese respectively)
• Karin Kanzuki would also return in Street Fighter V (originally voiced by Miho Yamada), as she is voiced by Aya Endo, who is best known for voicing Fumika “Fumi-chan” Kodama (“Katie Forester”) in Yo-kai Watch in Japanese and her English counterpart for her is Lauren Landa.
• Dee Jay did make a return in Super Street Fighter IV. Hōchū Ōtsuka originally voiced the character in Alpha 3 but was replaced with Kenji Hamada in SSFIV and SF6. Chris Cain provided the character’s English voice in SSFIV before being ultimately replaced with Zeno Robinson (who is known for voicing Goh in Pokémon Journeys and Taiga Kagami in Kuroko no Basket) in SF6.

Home versions

• Street Fighter Alpha 3 was initially ported in 1998 to the PlayStation, selling a million copies. This version replaced the “hit” sprites with “hit” polygons to focus more memory on character animations. Juli, Juni, and Balrog were added to the immediate regular roster, and they were given new character portraits and their own storylines. Dee Jay, Fei Long, and T. Hawk (the remaining “New Challengers” from Super Street Fighter II) were also included in the roster. Guile, Evil Ryu, and Shin Gouki (Japan)/Shin Akuma (outside Japan; the latter sharing a slot with his regular counterpart) were also added as secret characters that can be unlocked through the World Tour mode, a mode that allows the player to strengthen and customize their chosen character’s fighting style while traveling around the world. An additional feature in the Japanese version also made use of the PocketStation peripheral, which allows the player to build up their character’s strength. In this version, Shin Akuma serves as the final boss for Evil Ryu, as well as a secret boss in Final Battle. Due to RAM limitations, the unique pairings available for a complete campaign in the Dramatic Battle mode are Ryu & Ken and Juli & Juni; other character combinations can only be used for one-match battles. The AI for the Dramatic Battle and Survival modes is exceptionally poor with the CPU neglecting to defend against sweep attacks, perhaps due to RAM again. As is frequently the case with home versions of arcade games, the lesser amount of frames allows for certain combos, often infinite, that are not possible in the arcade version (particularly when using V-Ism mode and in Dramatic Battle and Survival stages). This version was re-released for download on the North American PlayStation Network on October 18, 2011.
• The 1999 Dreamcast version, titled Street Fighter Alpha 3: Saikyo Dojo (or Street Fighter Zero 3: Saikyō-ryū Dōjō in Japan), uses all the added features from the PlayStation version of the game but features a different World Tour mode. Guile, Evil Ryu, and Shin Akuma are immediately selectable, although the latter still shares a slot with his regular counterpart and is playable via a special button combination. An online mode was added, allowing the player to display their high score. In addition, a Saikyo Dojo mode was added, which pits a character that the player has built up in World Tour mode against a very strong opponent who had to be downloaded from the Internet and changed every week. The Dreamcast version was re-released in Japan in 2000 as Street Fighter Zero 3: Saikyō-ryū Dōjō for Matching Service as a mail-order title via Dreamcast Direct. The Matching Service version differs from the original with the addition of an Online Versus mode.

Gameplay

Street Fighter Alpha 3 discards the “Manual” and “Auto” modes from the previous Alpha games and instead offers three different playing styles known as “isms” for the player to choose from. The standard playing style, A-ism (or Z-ism in Japan), is based on the previous Alpha games, in which the player has a three-level Super Combo gauge with access to several Super Combo moves. X-ism is a simple style based on Super Street Fighter II Turbo (the term “X-ism” being a reference to that game’s Japanese title, Super Street Fighter II X), in which the player has a single-level Super Combo gauge and access to a single but powerful Super Combo move. The third style, V-ism (or “variable” style), is a unique style that allows the player to perform custom combos similar to the ones in Street Fighter Alpha 2 but cannot use Super Combos. In X-ism, the player cannot air-block nor perform Alpha Counters, and can only use 1 Super Combo move in its powerful Level 3 version. To activate V-ism’s Super Combo, the player has to press both kick and punch of the same strength. X-ism has the highest attack power but the least defense, A-ism has more attack power than V-ism and a similar level of defense. All three modes have variations of move sets for each character, adding considerable depth to the gameplay. In addition, there are hidden modes that add handicaps to the player as well as benefits (for example, Classic mode, which prevents the use of Super Combos but also makes the character unable to be knocked in the air and juggled).

Alpha 3 also introduces a “Guard Power Gauge” which depletes each time the player blocks — if the gauge is completely depleted, then the player will remain vulnerable to an attack. When broken the bar shrinks and is refilled to its new maximum, it can be shrunk several times. Worth noting, while in X-Ism the character has the least defense of all modes it also has the largest guard bar, and vice versa for V-ism with A-Zism being in the middle. Also, the guard bar varies between characters, Zangief e.g. has a very large guard bar. The guard bar does not exist in Dramatic Battle matches so no guard crushing is possible there.

The controls for several actions have been modified from the previous Alpha games. For example, the level of a Super Combo move in A-ism is now determined by the strength of the attack button pressed (i.e. Medium Punch or Kick for a Lv. 2 Super Combo), rather than the number of buttons pushed; and throwing is now done by pressing two punch or kick buttons simultaneously.

The now-closed GameRankings gave the Dreamcast version of 86%. On release, Famitsu magazine scored the Sega Saturn version of the game a 32 out of 40; they later scored it 30 out of 40. The PlayStation version also scored 32 out of 40 on release. The Dreamcast version scored slightly better, receiving a 33 out of 40. I never owned the game physically, except I borrowed Street Fighter Alpha 2 on the original PlayStation. Instead, I downloaded it from CoolROM (still alive) and burned it via the now-defunct DiscJuggler.