I mean, it’s balanced, almost universally loved, and has numerous detailed guides written. What’s the reason? I’d like to hear ST players opinion on A2 too.
Not being a wiseacre here, but are you relatively new to fighting games?
Alpha 2 was pretty well loved. It was a favorite and topic of discussion spinning out of alt.games.sf2 and onto internet message boards. It probably isn’t addressed much in recent years because of the decline of the fighting game genre (over the past twenty years), and a lacking mainstream online incarnation. Only the hardcore will play on Fightcade, despite how easy it is to get running on even potatoes these days.
Legacy titles struggle to maintain player bases in commercial releases, but commercial releases are the most relevant to the average player. I wish there were a good Usenet archive online still to link to old discussions. If anybody knows of one, let me know. This old fogey would like to revisit the glory days of Usenet game chatter.
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Haha, no, I’ve been into the fighting games since SSF2 and MK2 were new in arcades. I was never into super competitive level of play though, more like a casual fan who can still learn a thing or two from the pros.
What I’m trying to say is that ST is still quite popular, while A2 is mostly forgotten, despite being considered just as good. I guess that I should’ve probably asked about ST longevity instead.
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No worries.
Were you at all active in online communities of the olden days? If you weren’t, then you may not have seen the discussions.
Again, I think it’s due mostly to lack of good online edition of A2 and a concerted effort to cash-in hard on all things SF2. Sadly SF2 has become the Ur text of Street Fighter, relying heavily on it’s roster for characters, and even rehashing the character themes and stages ad nauseum.
I get it, but being objective about it - I also remember that every character that wasn’t Ryu, Ken, and Sagat in SF2 was a new character. That’s what I enjoyed about SF3, although I think that in addition to inner brand competition and external competition, is why people rejected SF3 initially.
There was a video I watched a bit of recently where some crazy Tekken fan tried to argue it was the only series that successfully replaced it’s lead protagonist, but I’d argue that they were able to do that because Tekken characters are so thoroughly forgettable that you could safely replace Kazuya with Jin and nobody would care. Tekken never had the cachet that Street Fighter did. For that matter, even my beloved Virtua Fighter falls victim to that somewhat.