Street Fighter Alpha. Why?

So, in '94 Capcom released Darkstalkers that was made in new "cartoony" style that's being used in Capcom 2D fighting games since. The game had great animations, beautiful backgrounds, and flashy special effects. Later in '94 another game, X-Men Children of Atom was made using similar style and looking even better. By 1994 standards X-Men was a monster presentation-wise and no 2D game could come close.

Next, in 1995, a full year after Darkstalkers, Capcom releases Street Fighter Alpha, that is nice, but looks really worse than both aforementioned titles. Not only the animations are stiffer, but special effects look poor too, and the worst thing is background art. They look really low on color and are barely animated (except Charile stage). Chun-li stage in particular is laughable to look at. Why is that? Is there any story on SFA development? It looks like Capcom started making the game early in 1994, then abandoned it for some reason, making Darkstalkers and X-Men instead, then picked it up again in 1995, but instead of remaking some stuff with better standards set by themselves, Capcom decided to release SFA as is.

Well, I really like SFA, and it's still better than many of the 1995 fighting games, but I wonder why Capcom's flagship fighting title hadn't got the same treatment as X-Men.

What version of Street Fighter Alpha are you judging from? Well, I never was impressed by the first Alpha game. I am adding Children of the Atom to my watch list though, I cannot believe how many times I have done this and not found it for Saturn at the price I want.

Alpha 1. The second one fixed most of the issues (except the characters animation which is a bit stiff even in Alpha 3 compared to X-Men and Darkstalkers games)

Oh no, I meant which port or emulated version were you judging from. Yeah, I think Alpha 2 was a very large improvement over the first Alpha game.

Emulated arcade versions. Well, Saturn Alpha games are pretty much arcade perfect if you don't mind loadings, remixed music, and some loss of audio samples quality.
I am not sure if Saturn X-Men port retains the arcade's graphical intensity since I haven't played it yet.

The first Alpha was rushed presumably. Perhaps because Capcom were busy on DS and X-Men beforehand, or because they wanted to ride whatever momemtum of success was left from the SF2 Animated Movie, or (in the U.S) as a response to Midway releasing MK3. It had been over a year since Super Turbo was released, so they probably needed at least one SF game on the market that year. (SF: The Movie Arcade & Console don't count).

Alpha 2 was what the original was supposed to be, so much that storyline-wise it wiped A1 off of the official canon and took its place. Think of the original Alpha Capcom's equivalent of "King of Fighters '94": the non-canon first installment to a series that would improve greatly in its sequels.

If I remember correctly the Audio samples on the Saturn ports of Alpha and Alpha 2 are in fact Arcade perfect. They are taken from the Arcade Rom, where as the PS1 ports take them from the source audio tapes.

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Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

If I remember correctly the Audio samples on the Saturn ports of Alpha and Alpha 2 are in fact Arcade perfect. They are taken from the Arcade Rom, where as the PS1 ports take them from the source audio tapes.

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The quality of samples is lower on Saturn compared to arcade.

Let's not forget that emulation doesn't have arcade perfect sound either. If it did we would need future tech to run the game.

Alpha 1 was a huge disapointment. I didnt get to play it until years after it came out and I was surprised how shoddy it was.

I remember the Gameboy Color version being surprisingly good.

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Originally Posted by sheath

What version of Street Fighter Alpha are you judging from? Well, I never was impressed by the first Alpha game. I am adding Children of the Atom to my watch list though, I cannot believe how many times I have done this and not found it for Saturn at the price I want.

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What price are you looknig for? I bought my import for under 10 dollars a few years ago.

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Originally Posted by Orchid87

Emulated arcade versions. Well, Saturn Alpha games are pretty much arcade perfect if you don't mind loadings, remixed music, and some loss of audio samples quality.
I am not sure if Saturn X-Men port retains the arcade's graphical intensity since I haven't played it yet.

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The lower quality audio samples in the Saturn version are actually replicating the arcade's inferior audio quality. Crystal clear and arcade-superior samples like those in the PSX port are selectible. You can also switch the music to the arcade version and switch the blue transparency shadows back to blue shaded arcade style.

The reason the animation was poorer than those other games is because Alpha is based on SFII, which is animated at a TV quality 12 fps, the other series originating on CPS2 hardware are animated based on 24 fps feature film quality animation.

Capcom was definitely trying to make Alpha look and feel different from SSFIIT. At least they continued to evolve it the way that they did. Its too bad they went back to non-character specific stages for SFIV.

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Originally Posted by Da_Shocker

What price are you looknig for? I bought my import for under 10 dollars a few years ago.

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Yeah, I'd pretty much jump at a $10 COTA too. I'm seeing it import for less than $20, since I doubt I'll play it right now I'm not in any hurry.

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Originally Posted by sheath

What version of Street Fighter Alpha are you judging from? Well, I never was impressed by the first Alpha game. I am adding Children of the Atom to my watch list though, I cannot believe how many times I have done this and not found it for Saturn at the price I want.

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Why not get the superior Marvel Super Heroes? It has all of the characters from Children of the Atom, plus several other additional characters. It also supports the 4meg RAM cart, even though it's a North American released title. I got rid of Children of the Atom a long time ago. The only reason I would want to own it is more as a collector, than playing it when I have MSH.