Street Fighter Alpha Anthology

Written by James Dauer  on June 05, 2006

Final Glimpse: Because it's not enough to have just one Street Fighter game per console these days, why not have five or six?

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Fans of Street Fighter rejoice. Capcom will be releasing the god of all Street Fighter Alpha games within the next week. Street Fighter Alpha Anthology takes all of the games in the Street Fighter Alpha series (ie. Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold and Street Fighter Alpha 3) and smashes them into one shiny disc of arcade excitement. These aren't the modified console versions, either, but rather perfect arcade reproductions (however the console versions are also available, too- read on further). Players can choose from any of the said games as well as Capcom's bizarre Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix game, which is basically Puzzle Fighter minus the puzzles. Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix gives a very Japanese comic flair to Street Fighter style fighting, by letting players fight as super deformed characters from the Street Fighter and Darkstalkers universes, each with their own unique moves, that can be downright bizarre.

It's very hard not to get excited for this collection. While the presentation is a little on the bland side, giving players a simple menu to select which game they would like to play, the games themselves look arcade perfect. Other than just giving us straight arcade ports of their games, Capcom added a ton of bonus content in their Japanese release of the game including, unlockable modes, so you can turn any of the individual Alpha titles into any one of it's console incarnations. Street Fighter Alpha Anthology also holds an entirely hidden fifth Alpha title that lets players pit characters from all of the other Alpha titles against each other, much like the Street Fighter Anniversary game from 2004. In this hidden game, players can fight using any of the original С-isms' as well as four new ones which replicate the old movesets from Street Fighter 2 (basically, no super special moves, but powerful attacks) and even Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and Street Fighter 3: Third Strike. The entire anthology also features Survival Modes and Dramatic Battle modes for each game, letting players fight two-on-one battles to their hearts' content.

One nice technical benefit is that when a player picks a game, it only has to perform its initial load. Any battles made within a game have 0 load times, so players can select their character and get to fighting in no time flat.