Street Fighter Alpha 3 Review

Well usually I don't write reviews for fighting games because I'm particularly not a fan of most of them, but I decided to chip in on this one since it's really good. Street Fighter Alpha 2 and 3 took an approach from Super Street Fighter 2 to introduce super gauges. The story is basically a mixed hash of characters that are trying to either take out the Shadaloo, or particularly on a quest to avenge their loved one, or some other personal journey. There is really not much to it being that some characters are in plans with the evil organization Shadaloo and the others are anti-shadaloo. Then you also have characters that fight to be the best in the world of street fighter alpha. That being said let's move on.

The visuals are really hightened up in this game. The 2D effects are brilliant and the characters just flow naturally to their basic wardrobe or hue. Like i said, this is a very colorful game. Very awesome blue super wave that notes when you are using a super contrary to the input motion that you make. Honestly I cannot fathom any atrocious artwork in the game. The anime looking quality is pure 100% top notch. When using moves, guards, attacks, counters, holds and throws the sound and special effects are amazing. Sorry to harp on, but i'll continue.While the graphics are really good, technically the game shines in it's fighting system. You can block attacks by hitting the direction opposite your opponent. Also there are six different quick hit attacks that you can make. short jab, medium punch, fierce punch, short kick, fierce kick and roundhouse kick. Each hit knocks off a little bit at a time and you keep fighting each other until someone gets KO'd ( life bar empty) and the other person wins. The technicality comes from mastering different rotation input effects, and directional inputs to do more damage. Sometimes it will take a lot of practice to learn these moves if you aren't a street fighter player. Mastering most moves takes time, but pays off in the end. That is what is technical about it.

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Supers most of the time require two inputs of the move a character can make with a direct special move. Unlike specials, supers usually have a magic wave noting that you will do the attack before it happens for a split second and also it takes from your super gauge so you will not be able to use the supers until your super gauge is filled. Noticably these gauges fill when you either get hit, block or fight with normal or special attacks. and also you have three different fighting styles.X-ism (simple) A-ism (alpha) and V-ism (variable). It's up to you which one you want to use. If you do win a fight in the game, there will be a symbol that pops up noting which hit you KO'd your opponent in. V is a victory hit and usually a standard attack. A cherry means you killed your opponent with a weak hit. S means that you won with a special. A small C that is next to the symbol means they got killed while blocking. A lightning bolt, X or V respectively means you hit them with a super, which is also humiliating to the other opponent because that means a background flashes green, red or blue depending on the ism as they ultimately get punished. The only supers that are not on the same wave length is akuma's demon rage and
guy's ninja lights out super since they must also be at level 3 to use them. They are both different. So basically there are about five supers you can kill your enemy with in a finish attack.

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Ultimately this game is really good if you practice, even though I'm not top tier I enjoy this game much more than super street fighter 2 the new challengers. A 10/10 for the true streets of fighting.

About two days ago I actually finished street fighter alpha 3 playing as zangief against the 10th person, Bison. The trick to this fight is that you can only fight him once and if you lose, you lose the whole game and have to start back on fighting the 1st person. I am not a lover of savestates and cheats so having to finish this awesome game against Bison with the epic ending was that much more rewarding.

Almost all the time I've caught my opponents in siberean suplexes, zangief cyclones and at X-ism level. Managed to pull off AND land a final atomic buster (FAB) which is a super alpha move that damages more than half of your opponents. It has a mix of rolling suplex and then a mix of two smashing cyclones.