My favorite Games of All-Time #4: Street Fighter Alpha 2 - Originally published on 1UP - July 28, 2006

Street Fighter Alpha 2 is the greatest fighting game ever made. That's all I should have to say about it. A decade after it's release it still had not been topped, not even by Capcom. But I can't leave it at that, I have to explain why it ranks so high on my list. Above so many fine RPG's, racing and adventure games.

The game meets all my criteria for what I consider a great title. It is a title that is easy to pick up and learn, yet impossible to master. If I could sum up the game in one word it would be "balance." I don't mean solely a balance between characters in the game. I mean a complete balance behind the development and execution of every element in the game... I should elaborate.

Street Fighter Alpha 2 (SFA2) is a title that works on multiple levels. The more you look into the details the more you will discover. From the control, to the graphics and sound, pay attention now. Peel back each layer of the game and you will discover something yet to be duplicated.

SFA2 picks up on the heels of the original Alpha. Many felt that the first Alpha was rushed for release, Capcom countered by updating the game and fleshing out the experience with new levels, moves and characters. The game was nothing short of perfect.

Capcom had recently lost a good portion of the Street Fighter II team and was nervous about the next fighting project. With a good number of former Capcom employees working on the Samurai Showdown series a rivalry was building. SF II was such an incredible game that topping it was going to be near impossible with members of the team missing.

In fact Street Fighter II was the reason that many left Capcom. Management kept pushing the developers for updates to SF II rather than allowing them the time to develop a proper Street Fighter III. Many elements that were supposed to debut in III were added in the final version of Super Street Fighter II. In protest many members of the team walked away. The rest as they say is history...

Okay, so it really wasn't cut and dry.

Noritaka Funamizu and Yoshiki Okamoto were the last senior men left from the original team. They knew that without Akira Nishitani (who left Capcom to start ARIKA and create Street Fighter EX), making a proper SF III would be next to impossible, the universe of Street Fighter had grown very quickly. Would SF III be a new beginning or would it return to the plot of SF II?

Rather than release part III, Noritaka turned the clock back and created a legacy that tied together the first two SF games. In a word it was genius. There was no way Noritaka could have developed a proper trilogy when a good portion of his team had jumped ship. What he gave us instead was an epilogue far more enjoyable than any Street Fighter before.

It began with a careful selection of characters.

Of course Ken and Ryu were in the game, they are the stars. Or as it turned out, Ken and Ryu are part of a larger world where the supporting cast influences their fate and the fate of the Street Fighter universe as well. These people include Nash (I use the original Japanese names), the soldier and best friend of Guile. Aside from being a great character, Nash was placed in the game to add depth and back story to Shadowlaw and the murderous Vega.

The women in the game were all strong characters. None of them had enormous breasts that bounced all over the screen. None of the women wore anything too revealing. The women, like all of the characters in the game, took on multiple meanings. Sex appeal was substituted for substance and history. Chun-Li, returning from SF II in a younger guise with her traditional kung-fu, Sakura as a parody of the girl fighters in SNK games. Rose as a mystic who reveals some of the origin of Vega.

Rolento, Guy and Sodom tie the Street Fighter and Final Fight universe together. Final Fight was originally titled Street Fighter '89 and all of the characters in the series were meant to replace Ken and Ryu as the stars of the universe. Instead there became a melding in Alpha and all of the characters were allowed center stage. Birdie was a returning character from the original Street Fighter. Dhalsim and Zangief were returning from Street Fighter II. These were all nods to the legacy of the series, the creators and even the people that left Capcom.

This balance of the new and old was brilliant. Between strong female characters and familiar male characters there was little more the game needed. That's when Capcom piled on the substance and turned a potential good fighter into the "greatest."

The move selection for each character was great. The special moves, super moves and combos were unique and balanced. Large characters actually had a fighting chance against smaller, faster characters. Those in the middle weren't impervious to either extreme in character or style. Unlike the latter games, the ones I mention in the Primal Rage blog as "combo pornography," Alpha had just the right amount of multiple hit combos and even defense against those combos.

I mention styles because each character in the game represents a particular form of the martial arts. Noritaka and crew went to great lengths to make sure that the characters not only looked unique, their style of fighting and associated strategy was unique as well. These styles balanced each other, moreover there was always more than one character to handle a particular form. Zangief's wrestling could be countered by Birdie's brawling or Sodom's hybrid budokan. Ken and Ryu's fireballs proved ineffective to Rose or Dhalsim's mystic powers... etc.

The final group of characters I mention help round out the plot of the series. Dan is another parody of the SNK characters, his pink uniform is a blend between Ken and Ryu's red and white uniforms. Dan, like Muay Thai fighter Adon, exists to be a thorn in the side of Sagat. Sagat being the original boss in Street Fighter and second-to-the-end in Street Fighter II. The "best" fighters in the game blend classic forms and mythology.

Gen is returning from the original Street Fighter and is on his last legs as a master of the old forms of kung-fu. His purpose, like the purpose of Ken and Ryu is to end the murderous spree of Gouki. Gouki was meant to be the original boss of Street Fighter III but was instead introduced in the sequel. Now with a stronger purpose in Alpha, Gouki serves as the true boss and best fighter in the game. Vega ties in the plot from SF II and shows how the tournament became a front for his criminal organization.

Still with me?

The plot of the game is complex. Whether stated or implied there are layers of subtlety in the story. Each characters plays their role, if you can actually allow yourself the freedom to get lost in the world of a fighting game. The beauty of the game being that the endings and relationships between characters were open to different interpretations. It is one thing to tell an audience what happens in the story, it is another to allow the gamer the freedom to explore the possibilities. That type of game design is unfathomable. Moreover it was easy to become immersed in the story thanks to the detail in the levels.

Each level in SFA2 has as much personality as the fighters. Some levels are an homage to the previous games. Some levels filled with characters and locations from Final Fight. These characters would return in Alpha 3 and the eventual SF III. There was even a level brought in from the Street Fighter II anime movie because it was so influential.

The art direction in the game was the icing on the cake. The immortal Bengus was credited for the look of the characters. At the time that Killer Instinct's SGi-workstation characters wowed audiences, Mortal Kombat 3's live actor models were different, as were Primal Rage's clay dinosaurs or Virtua Fighter 2's polygon models. The only way Street Fighter could compete in that arena was with sprites that oozed style and substance. Bengus' designs were pure genius. Always working behind the scenes at Capcom, Bengus was responsible for some of the best art and design ever to come out of the studio. His body of work went on to influence all of the artists working there and at rival companies for years to come.

His characters were all unique, colorful, bold-and-yet-subdued, just by looking at the designs you could tell a lot about them. They had a history, both the good and bad "guys" had a story to tell. They spoke volumes without saying a word. Such is the work of a talented artist, possibly the greatest videogame artist ever.

Bengus was responsible for the exaggerated, anime-look of the Alpha characters and the creatures in the Vampire (Darkstalkers) series. The sprites Capcom produced based on his work were nothing short of amazing. The characters were so universally loved that for the next decade Capcom would pull these sprites and use them on other games. This art, this game, influenced untold fighting games for many years after.

The legacy of Street Fighter has no equal. Street Fighter Alpha 2 made certain that Capcom would forever remain as the greatest company ever to produce a sprite-based fighter. Although the company has turned their back on sprite-based games, and has officially killed the 2-D sprite wing they cannot deny that it was the Street Fighter series that put them on the map. They cannot deny that Bengus carried them with his awe-inspiring art.

Street Fighter Alpha 2 will remain on my favorites list for all-time. I doubt that I will live long enough to see a better fighter. I hope that you get a chance to play it if you haven't already. Have a great weekend people! Next week begins the top-3, can you believe it?

I’d like to hear your personal top-10, top-20, top fighting games, top sports games, or top games in any genre. Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!