Street Fighter Alpha 3

1998 · Fighting · Arcade

About Street Fighter Alpha 3

Street Fighter Alpha 3 (1998), Street Fighter Zero 3 in Japan, is the final Alpha game, a CP System II fighter with selectable "isms", a guard-crush gauge and a roster that kept growing across its many home versions.

Street Fighter Alpha 3 in Depth

In place of the earlier Manual and Auto modes, players choose one of three "isms". A-ism (Z-ism in Japan) plays like the earlier Alpha games, with a three-level Super Combo gauge and several Super Combos. X-ism, named after Super Street Fighter II X, gives a single gauge level and one powerful Super Combo, the most attack and the least defence, but no air blocking or Alpha Counters. V-ism has no Super Combos but allows Alpha 2-style Custom Combos, started by pressing punch and kick of the same strength. Every character's moves vary by ism. A new Guard Power Gauge drains as the player blocks; when it empties, the guard breaks and the bar shrinks. Throws now use two punch or kick buttons, and a Super Combo's level depends on which strength of button is pressed.

All eighteen Alpha 2 characters return, joined by Cammy, E. Honda, Blanka, Balrog and Vega, and by newcomers R. Mika, a wrestler who idolises Zangief, Sakura's rival Karin from the manga Sakura Ganbaru!, Cody from Final Fight, now an escaped convict, and the Shadaloo "Dolls" Juli and Juni.

Making Street Fighter Alpha 3

Capcom released Alpha 3 in arcades in 1998 on the same CP System II hardware as the earlier Alpha games, and Game Machine listed it as Japan's second most successful arcade game of September 1998. The PlayStation port the same year added Dee Jay, Fei Long, T. Hawk, Guile, Evil Ryu and Shin Akuma. Next Generation called it possibly "the most playable and innovative fighting game since the original Street Fighter II", and the Official UK PlayStation Magazine said it would outlast Tekken 3, faulting only its graphics.

The Dreamcast's Saikyo Dojo version added online score display and downloadable weekly opponents, and in 2001 Street Fighter Zero 3 Upper brought the home characters back to arcades on Sega's NAOMI board. Later handheld versions added Yun, Maki, Eagle and Ingrid, for 39 characters on the PSP. Game Informer ranked it the 18th best fighting game of all time in 2019.

Street Fighter Alpha 3 Trivia

The PlayStation version swapped hit sprites for polygons to save memory for animation and added a World Tour mode for building up a character.
In the Japanese PlayStation version a PocketStation could be used to train a character.
The Saturn version, released only in Japan, used Sega's 4 MB RAM cartridge to come close to arcade-perfect.
The Game Boy Advance version had so little room for voices that characters shared pitch-shifted samples, such as a higher Ken voice for Sakura.
The PlayStation version sold a million copies.