2. Street Fighter Alpha 2 (1996)

As enjoyable as it was at the time, Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors’ Dreams was clearly unfinished. Only with Street Fighter Alpha 2, which debuted a mere eight months later, did Capcom’s anime-themed prequel series come into its own.

With Alpha 2 the base playable roster increased to a more comfortable 18, with some additional secret character variations hidden behind codes. Street Fighter II mainstays Zangief and Dhalsim joined the cartoony fray, as did military freak Rolento from Final Fight and the highly technical Gen from ye olde Street Fighter le first, both bringing original styles new to the series. The final fresh face, in her debut appearance, was one Sakura Kasugano, the vivacious schoolgirl who idolized Ryu. Combined with the returning Alpha players, this made for a superb cast.

On the gameplay front chain combos were out, everyone got a second alpha counter, and “custom combos” were the major new addition. Instead of spending your meter on super moves you could choose to drain it all at once to unleash free-form, rapid-fire chaos on your foes. As you’ve probably gleaned from prior entries, I don’t love custom combos, and in Alpha 2, their often severe, hard-to-avoid damage definitely steers the high-level meta.

But you know what? I deal with it, because Alpha 2 plays like a dream, smooth and fast. It’s well balanced, approachable for newcomers, and offers plenty of depth for vets. There are so many fun characters to master—I currently enjoy dabbling in Rose, Zangief, Sodom, Rolento, and even Birdie, seen here before his insulting Street Fighter V makeover—and the game’s gorgeous in every way, from sprites to stages to music. Capcom took a bit to rev up, but here it finally started firing on all cylinders.

Street Fighter Alpha 2 is one of the finest representations of classical 2D Street Fighter, and one of the games I most enjoy returning to today. It’s a class act, with few real flaws. — Alexandra Hall

Revisions:
Street Fighter Alpha 2 (1996)
Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold (1996)

Cammy infiltrates | Alpha 2

By far the most unlikely Alpha 2 home port was the 16-bit SNES version, which came on a massive 32 megabit (4MB) cart and, thanks to iffy programming, suffered lengthy pauses before fights .
Also, the later, less common Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold revision had no less than 12 hidden characters . Most were just variations on the normal cast, but one was the Shadaloo version of Cammy!