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Street Fighter Alpha 2
(continued)
For the most part, character artwork was retained from Street Fighter Alpha, and was
added wherever necessary (mostly just to the new characters). Thankfully, every one of the
SF Alpha backgrounds was dumped unceremoniously, so SF Alpha 2 was the first SF series
title since SF2 to improve dramatically on the series' visual look with backgrounds that
looked as good as the characters. Rolento, who had attacked characters in Final Fight
while they rode on an elevator, now fights SFA2 characters as they ride an elevator up the
side of a building - a spectacular Fujitsu sign is forever memorable about that stage.
Dhalsim, appearing in India, is flanked by a number of wonderfully drawn elephants, no
longer restricted to symmetrical mirror images as they were in the SF2 games. Ryu and
Ken's new stages pay homage to their SF2 roots, with Ryu off in the distance from his old
castle on a snow-covered hill, and Ken inside of a luxury boat as a birthday party takes
place for his girlfriend Eliza. Capcom's famed Strider even makes a cameo appearance in
Ken's background, holding a teddy bear (presumably a gift for Eliza).
Street Fighter Trivia
Rumor out of Capcom had it that Strider's
inclusion in Ken's background was a tribute to a former Capcom employee who had been
involved in working on a conversion of Strider for NEC's ill-fated SuperGrafx console. The
story has it that NEC placed heavy pressure on the Strider team to cram more detail into
the SuperGrafx conversion than had been fit on the 8-megabit Sega Genesis cartridge, and
that the Capcom employee cracked under the stress and wound up in a mental hospital.
Strider's SFA2 teddy bear was supposedly a reference to the employee's intractable
condition. Strider was cancelled for the SuperGrafx and an unimpressive port was released
years later for the PC Engine.
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Ryu vs. Dan in Street Fighter Alpha 2
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The largest gameplay change with this "sequel" was the removal of the chain
combo and the addition of a custom combo attack, which is triggered when the player hits
two punch buttons and a kick or vice versa, simultaneously. A circular flash of light
beams out from the character, who is then able to string together a number of standard or
special attacks simultaneously with incredible speed. If successfully blocked (a difficult
feat), the moves take off as much damage as a single strong attack, and if dodged, the
moves are entirely worthless and waste the character's super meter until rebuilt. While
controversial, the custom combo gave novice SF players an opportunity to compete, while
still permitting experts to find ways around getting hit. At their absolute maximum,
custom combos can juggle a character and remove less than half a life bar. New alpha
counters for each character were also added.
Continued
Street Fighter, Dark
Stalkers, Final Fight, Star Gladiator, and all related characters and likenesses are TM
& © Capcom Entertainment 1997. All rights reserved. Marvel Super Heroes, X-Men, and all related characters and likenesses are TM & © 1997 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.
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