Street Fighter Alpha 2

Street Fighter Alpha 2 ranks among the peaks of the fighting-game craft of the nineties, and its presence on the SEGA Saturn was a small holiday for fans of the genre. Capcom here built on the first installment of the Alpha series and honed it into a form that players cite to this day as one of the best representatives of the classic two-dimensional fighter.

The gameplay rests on the proven foundations of Street Fighter but adds mechanics characteristic of the Alpha line. Key is the Custom Combo system, which allows you to chain devastating series of strikes, and the three-level Super Combo gauge, which gives fights tactical depth. There's an expanded roster of fighters including characters that bridge the story line between the first and second Street Fighter. Each combatant has their own style, special moves and characteristic aesthetics.

In development terms it was a title from the workshop of Capcom, master of the genre, which dominated the arcades in the mid-nineties. The Alpha series was distinguished by a bold, almost comic-book artistic style and lively animation that gave the fighters a distinctive character. The console ports on the Saturn benefited from the fact that this hardware was, thanks to its architecture, generally strong at working with 2D graphics, and so the home versions could come close to the arcade original.

Culturally, Street Fighter Alpha 2 is an important link in the long history of the most famous fighting-game brand of all. The Street Fighter series shaped the entire genre, defined one-on-one competitive gaming and raised generations of players in arcades and at home. Within this line, the Alpha 2 installment represents the moment when the mechanics and balance reached a very high level.

For Saturn owners this game was one of the proofs that the console could host top-tier 2D fighters and thus compete with other platforms. Today it's a title that fans of the genre recall with respect as one of the classics on which they learned combos, timing and the art of reading an opponent.

Why play: A top-tier 2D fighter from Capcom with the Custom Combo system, one of the jewels of the genre on hardware that suited 2D graphics.