Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX Updated Hands-On

The year 2006 is shaping up to be a surprisingly Street Fighter-heavy year, with Capcom's venerable franchise putting in appearances on the Xbox 360 and now, Sony's PSP. We recently got our hands on Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX, the PSP incarnation of the third entry in the Alpha branch of the SF family tree. We've been hopeful that the project would turn out OK, and it appears that, barring anything disastrous, Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX is going to be a real treat for fighting fans.

For anyone having trouble keeping their Street Fighters straight, here's the skinny: The Alpha series began in 1995 and was set in the years prior to the classic Street Fighter II series. Besides obvious changes such as a new art style, the series featured a revamped fighting system that evolved with each installment. Street Fighter Alpha 3 hit in 1998 and has proven to be an enduring fan favorite, thanks to its refined fighting system, plethora of game modes, and the most expansive roster of fighters for the series yet. Given all this, it's no wonder that Capcom would choose Alpha 3 for conversion to the PSP. Rather than simply cranking out a straight conversion, Capcom has dressed up the classic game with a good sampling of new features--some of which were seen in previous home versions of the game, others of which are all-new.

As for the new features in Alpha 3 MAX, you'll find four new characters and several new Wi-Fi modes added to the original game's content. The new characters are drawn from two other Capcom games. Eagle, Maki, and Yun have been tapped from Capcom vs. SNK 2, while Ingrid is from the more recent Capcom Fighting Evolution. The Wi-Fi support will include four modes: versus, team battle, variable battle, and dramatic battle. Versus lets you take on a friend in your traditional one-on-one grudge match. Team battle lets you pick a three-character team, a la King of Fighters, and pit it against your opponent's trio of brawlers. Variable battle lets you pick a team of three, with up to two fighters controlled by human players and a third handled by the artificial intelligence. Finally, dramatic battle lets up to three players engage in two-on-one battles.

In addition to the new content, the game features the familiar world tour, variable battle, dramatic battle, reverse dramatic battle, survival, versus-100 kumite, final battle, free battle, and team battle modes. As far as control goes, the game offers the original six-button layout that uses the PSP's face and shoulder buttons, as well as the ability to remap things to your liking. The customization also features an easy mode to make inputting commands easier, as well as the option to assign rapid-fire functionality to the buttons.

Our initial go with this latest version of the game has gone well, thanks to its solid control and reasonable loads. Though you might expect the control would be a little twitchy due to the PSP's D pad, we've found it to be so far, so good. The fighting experience comes complete with selectable "-isms" to govern how your super meter fills up and your preferred method of using supers. You'll still be able to choose from two turbo speeds, and you'll still be able to play two-player, though you'll only be able to do it locally via ad hoc wireless connections.

Based on what we've played so far, Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX is shaping up to be a meaty entry in the fighting genre for the PSP. The control is tight and responsive, and the visuals are top-notch. Though the game's default is a full-screen presentation that stretches the image slightly, you can tweak it to the original 4:3 aspect ratio and even use some nice wallpaper for the borders, if black bars aren't your thing. We're quite pleased by what we've seen and are anxious to spend more time with the game to see how it holds up. Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX is slated to ship next month for the PSP.