Street Fighter Alpha 2

This review is about the gog.com version of this game. Before I get into the pros & cons of the gog version, let me begin by saying that I am a big fan of the Street Fighter series and I think Street Fighter Alpha 2 is the best of the three Alpha sub-series games. That being said, there are problems with this version of the game available on gog.com. Though I would give this Street Fighter Alpha 2 a 5-star rating in the arcades, I only give it 3-4 stars for the PC version on gog.com. 1. This is not the arcade version of Street Fighter Alpha 2. This is the version that was released on PC back 1998 that was a port of the 1996 Playstation version. It is therefore not as spectacular of a game as it could be. If you buy the Street Fighter Alpha Anthology for Playstation 2, which is a port of the arcade version, you will see that this PC release is inferior in almost every way possible. The most notable problem is that the character animations are choppy in this version. In the arcade and PS2 versions, the animations are much smoother and speedier. This allows for more expert play because the difference between winning and losing each hit in a fighting game often boils down to just a few frames of animation. 2. The keyboard config does not work. I set my bindings, saved, and started a new game and my punches and kicks were still not associated with the keys I had assigned them to. The joypad configuration did work, however, for my Logitech controller, but I bought this game specifically to play on a laptop during bus commutes, some I am disappointed that the keys do not bind properly and I am going to have to do more work now to make that work (using xpadder or something). I cannot play fighting games that screw up the keyboard/controller configuration. The defaults on this game are particularly terrible in this version and are not set to have movement in the obvious spots of either WASD or up/down/left/right arrows. 3. The GUI is awkward. There is no way to configure buttons during gameplay. You cannot click on menu options with your mouse. You can accidentally mess up something in your button config to the point that you no longer have a way to revert it. There is no special move list that you can refer to during gameplay (though this is also true of the PS2 version). 4. The move input feels off. I played my PS2 version and the GOG version one after the other. I had more difficulty in consistently pulling off my special moves on the PC version than I did on the PS2 version. This could be a controller issue, but it felt like it was due to the game itself. 5. The soundtrack is better in other versions. This is based off of the arcade soundtrack instead of the Playstation release, which makes this a somewhat superior version to the Playstation version. Thankfully you get a soundtrack bonus for this gog.com edition that you can listen to on your own, but the instrumentation and quality of the tracks is still not quite as good as the Playstation 2 Alpha Anthology version. 6. The graphics are generally not as good in this version as the arcade or PS2 versions. They are more pixelated, and as mentioned before, the animations are choppier. The pixilation I could live with, but the animation problems affect gameplay. 7. In case you were wondering, there is not online play. This is not supported in other versions either, to my knowledge. Despite these complaints, this is still a fun release, even on this port. Street Fighter Alpha II is one of the great fighting games and added features such as a 3-level super combo gauge for power moves, alpha counters/reversals, air blocking, fall breaking, and a custom combo system. It’s really a fantastic fighter and despite my complaints about this version, it is still very playable. The bottom line: If you want an accurate arcade port of this, get the Street Fighter Alpha Anthology for Playstation 2, or consider emulation. If you are nostalgic for the handling of the PC or Playstation release, this is a good option. This is also good if you want to just own the soundtrack from the GOG bonuses. This is also the first game Capcom has released on GOG, so you might want to simply support them in joining the ranks here at GOG. This isn’t the best version of SFAlpha2 though, so be forewarned. Yet it is still a strong enough game to be playable and enjoyable even in this lesser port.

I've read some interesting reviews here. I've been a player of this game and all Street Fighter games ever since they first appeared. I also play just about all of the 2d fighter games out there (King of Fighters, Guilty Gear, there are too many to mention). My review is a little different. This is not a review of the game itself. It's an iconic and very famous game that has been played and loved for years so reviewing the game itself is pointless, but I will review this version of SFA2 and how it stacks up to other versions on other platforms. Honestly...it's a pretty damn good version. I've read a few reviews here that said they had problems with controllers and saving settings and play-speed etc. etc. Truthfully I didn't experience any of that. I loaded this game onto a pretty basic, bordering on obsolete laptop and it ran stable and perfect. There were a couple of quirky things. It wouldn't load from the desktop icon so I had to go into the game folder and create a desktop shortcut from there...pretty minor. Also instead of creating a 'program files' folder it created a gog folder on 'C' drive. All pretty minor stuff. I used a very generic USB game pad as a controller (an xbox 360 clone controller for pc). The game recognised the controller with no problems and I was able to reconfigure the buttons easily. One piece of advice, make sure you go into the menu and manually save your new controller settings otherwise it wont remember them next time...again pretty basic stuff that most pc gamers would do automatically anyway. Most people would say that consoles are the true home of 2d fighting games and they are 100% correct but there is another side to 2d fighting games that people don't necessarily talk about. The not strictly legal side. This is where a huge community 2d fighting fans have been playing these games on PCs for years because there was no other way to play them. So for that reason, PCs have just as much claim on fighters as consoles. I'm talking about mame and other arcade emulators. Users would load game roms onto arcade emulators on their pc so they could play arcade games that had been forgotten or left for dead by their makers. (I used to order a lot of Chinese takeaways from my local store and go there to pick it up just because they had the last arcade machine of Marvel vs Capcom 1 left in the area...that was in 2009. I would practice on my mame pc arcade emulator before playing the real arcade machine..good times) While that wasn't strictly legal it kept those games alive for a lot of people. I will admit right here that I played those games on mame. It wasn't because I wanted to break the law, it was because I wanted to play those games I loved but the arcade machines they came out on had long since disappeared. When I had the chance to buy those games on a console I would leap at the chance. Street Fighter Alpha 1, 2, &3 were among those games. I've now been able to buy many of them for consoles and on places like xbla. My point is that playing fighting games on pc (with a game pad or arcade stick set-up) has actually been going on for years..just not in a recognised way because of it's slightly illegal status. This version of SFA2 once set up is stable and smooth. The game pad is responsive and accurate. Executing combos and hyper combos was easy (if a version has poor control issues it can make some combos virtually impossible). The audio and background music is flawless. (I have a version of SFA2 for the ps-one and the audio tends to lag out of sync). I also have the street fighter Alpha anthology for ps2 and It may surprise a lot of people when I say that I found this Gog PC version of SFA2 more responsive and accurate with a game pad. The accuracy and responsiveness of this version is definitely on a par with the Mame emulated version but because it is a standalone retail version you get those extra features like altering graphical quality and difficulty settings. For that reason alone it's worth buying this game (rather than going the free emulation route). So....to sum up I'm going to give this version the maximum score of 5. I'm gonna take it with me on my laptop and plug in a game pad whenever I feel like a street fighter fix. There are still other great fighting games that are lost in the wilderness and can still only be played on arcade emulators. I'm glad to see the capcom are finally releasing Marvel vs Capcom 1 on xbla, but Dark stalkers/vampires Revenge will still keep my emulator busy...I don't see it as breaking the law..but keeping a forgotten game alive until the makers decide to save it. It's the same with many of the King of Fighters, fatal fury and samurai showdowns. So from a fan of these games, buying this game is a solid choice. It's a good stable version of a great game. SFA3 would be a welcome addition (if a retail pc version exists..hell I didn't event know there was a retail PC version of SFA2 till I saw it here on gog and I'm a huge fan of these games!) Another solid 2d fighting game here on gog would be 'Guilty Gear X2 reload'..although the gog version had some quirky menu issues (I had to use control, alt , delete to exit the game) it is still a good pc fighting game. If you are a fan of 2d fighters SFA2 on gog is a no-brainer. For those that say 'why would you buy SFA2 when you could play the latest SF4 turbo or Ultimate Marvel vs Capsom 3?'..well, perhaps they just don't understand. Hell I play all of those latest SF games but there is still something special about having a classic Street fighter session.

The beauty of a service such as GOG is that it provides a home where PC games of old are restored and curated into pieces of software that can be accessed in modern systems. Games that never saw a release outside the PC environment can finally have a second chance at life for the PC audience it was intended. Fighting game ports are not for such an audience. Not until very recently, with the advent of easy to interface controllers such as the Xbox 360 gamepad and USB enable fight sticks plus HDMI output for HDTVs that playing fighting games on a PC has become a viable option. It is no surprise to state that the PC has been a hostile and unwelcoming environment for the Fighting game genre. For years, the amount of worthwhile fighting games that were available at any give time on the platform could be counted in single digits. Be it for the inadequacies of the interface, be it for the lack of dedicated controller standards, playing fighting games on a PC in the heyday was an exercise in frustration. To be honest, anyone with even a passing interest in fighting games would most likely own a console to play the games in the genre, one genre that, due to its roots cemented in Japanese development, had always favored the console as the recipient of such entries. Fighting games on PC where simple hand-me-down ports of those titles. The very nature of the fighting game was to incentivise the 1-on-1 rivalries between players, a set up that could comfortably and successfully be achieved when two friends would get together, sitting side by side on a couch, each holding a controller while playing on a large TV. Transfer that rivalry to a PC circa 1997 and you get two people hunching over a keyboard with barely any room to move their hands while literally rubbing shoulders and asking themselves why didn't they just buy the console version. The main problem I have with this release is that don't know who is this supposed to be aimed at. Anyone who has a passing interest in Street Fighter Alpha 2 probably already owns this game on a console, which has been made available multiple times over the years, from the SNES to PS3 via PSN. It is not the best looking nor the best playing version in comparison to the consoles, nor is it part of a compilation as Street Fighter Alpha Anthology on Playstation 2 was, which contained all the variants of the Alpha games plus extra content. This release has no 360 controller support added and no out-of-the-box way to play against online opponents. It is just the same outdated port for the PC of a game readily available elsewhere. What PC gamer would want this over say Street Fighter IV which does take advantage of modern PC hardware, making it better looking than the console versions, has native controller and fight stick support plus online play? Old PC games are worth reviving because these were only available on PC, console ports do not apply to this formula, much less lesser fighting game ports. While I'm glad Capcom is stepping into GOG to make their modern PC catalog available in the future, this first offering is a meager one and a disappointment to say the least.

I don't really mind bad ports. Nier:Automata was still 10/10 for me on launch even without F.A.R. Bayonetta on PS3 was okay, sure some levels were hard to play, but it was still fine. Good ol' FF7 for PC (circa 1998) was pretty broken, but I still liked it. It's fine, they're fine. This is not fine. I couldn't get it to work at a reasonable speed unless I turned off V-Sync, which resulted is INSANE screen tearing. Ryu's pants were about 15 meters away from his torso. It was literally unplayable. And I don't mean literally as figuratively, I mean literally as literally. And that's when the game didn't crash on start. Really, just get an emulator, this port is bad and Capcom should feel bad.