Doing a little research into the SF series and while I know a fair bit about the SF2/3/4 series I don’t know a great deal about the Alpha series.
Can anyone shed some insight into the following questions.
Which Alpha game is regarded as the best and why. Checking around the internet and I get the impression Alpha 2 is favoured over Alpha 3. There also seems to be a preference for Alpha 2 over Alpha 2 Gold and Alpha 3 over Zero 3 Upper. Would that be an accurate statement?
Which game in the series had the best competitive scene?
How popular was the Alpha series compared to SF2 and SF3?
Zero 3 Upper is an arcade port or the Alpha 3 console release. Did it change any of the system mechanics from the console version or was it the same game?
Is the Street Fighter Anthology on the PS2 arcade perfect in relation to the arcade releases of Alpha 1 2 and 3?
Checking around there also seems to be several arcade board revisions for the Alpha games. Was there any major changes in these revisions in Alpha 2 or 3?
Finally I’m aware there is regional differences regarding EX characters between Alpha 2 and Zero 2, as well as character and balance changes in Zero 2 Alpha but is there any other regional differences in terms of gameplay (like Zangeifs headbutt stun in Super Turbo). Am already aware of name changes (like Charlie = Nash in Japan etc)
Alpha 2 is probably a better game because Vism is whack and leads to all sorts of craziness (unblockables, OTG throws, infinites, so on and so forth) that make stuff like Valle CC look totally fine. Alpha 3 in Aism/Xism is an awesome game though
Alpha was super popular compared to SF3 because it came out before the 3D fighter became the thing to do.
Alpha 3 Upper didn’t get pretty much any competition just because all the competition was in the arcade back then. Console ports that were vastly different from the arcade used to be a big no-no in the competitive community. Having played it quite a bit though for fun the biggest difference is the removal of crouch cancel infinite’s from V-ism and several other glitches involving unblockables were fixed also. This changed the tier list up a lot and made A-ism very viable and a lot of people that played upper felt A-ism was stronger than V-ism for a lot more characters than in Alpha 3 vanilla. Though a lot of people didn’t think it was super balanced either because some of the characters that were already effective in A-ism became downright frightening.
A2 may have been the best, but A3 was way more interesting and had a whole lot more options. If it wasn’t for crouch cancel infinite’s and unblockables galore I think A3 would be remembered much more fondly. Crouch Cancel infinites really were beyond stupid. Upper fixed the majority of the issues people had, which was just that V-ism was broken as shit.
There were a few other things that people (especially those who liked A2) didn’t like about A3. Many hitboxes were made worse in A3 for one. And then there was how fireballs dealt less damage based on distance. It came to the point where, at full screen, it was better to get hit by a fireball since it dealt as much damage as blocking it, and gave more meter.
Eh, not really hitboxes are still pretty good in Alpha 3, far better than they are in SF4. Looking through the hitbox viewer most are the same or similar, obvious hitbox nerfs to things like chuns cr.rh but its not an overall across the board nerf to hitboxes.
Also Alpha 2 had its fair share of busted stuff, i like both games but id say A3 was the better of the two though i can see why people who want a more “traditonal SF experience” might like Alpha 2 more.
Been playing both of them against the A.I at the moment. Obviously can’t draw much conclusions from that, but I’ve noticed some pretty wack hitboxes. Bison’s S.HK seems to whiff through characters alot. Think I noticed Sagat S.HP whiff through characters as well.