Making sense of Street Fighter pt. 2...

Oh, Street Fighter Alpha 3, where do I even begin with you...

Released in 1998, Street Fighter Alpha 3 (Zero 3 in Japan) was to be the final in the Alpha series (an updated version was released on Playstation Pocket years later). Like any good sequel, it upped the ante for the game, bringing in new characters alongside the remainder of whichever characters of Street Fighter II that weren't in the previous installments and providing different modes of combat systems for whichever character the player picked. This may all sound impressive but to me, besides the new characters, all the updates just made the game a bit confusing. When the game was ported to home systems, there were slight changes to every version. The Sega Dreamcast version had better hit sprites (don't ask) and slightly better animation while the Playstation One version, the one I owned, had many bonus levels and the remaining characters from the Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers. With all these different changes and modes, maybe the game designers should've paid more attention to the plot of the game and yes, I'm about to go into heavy detail about the plot of a video game where the key objective is to beat other people up.

Bison, from crime boss to Psychokinetic demi-god and back again

In SFII,  Bison (Vega in Japan) was the leader of the criminal organization, Shadaloo, using the tournament as a possible way of recruitment. After the release of "Street Fighter II; the animated movie" , Capcom decided to make the Alpha series to provide back story for some of the characters. For the first couple games, Bison's origin remained a mystery but two important characters were introduced that were tied to him, the fortune teller Rose, who is spiritually connected to Bison and Charlie (Nash in Japan), Guile's partner who Bison had killed, motivating his grudge.

Things became really interesting during SFA3 (not saying that SFA1&2 weren't interesting), when Bison went from a powerful fighter and criminal organization leader to demi-god. Bison is now trying to harness all of the world's psychokinetic energy through a giant machine. Rose, the fortune teller who's spiritually connected turns out to be the separated good half of Bison's soul and Cammy, who originally just worked for Bison, turns out to be a clone of him. If I didn't know any better, I'd say Bison had definitely had his feminine side. Not that there's anything wrong, it just feels extremely out of place for the series.

Rose, Bison's feminine side 

  In Rose's ending in SFA3, she kills Bison but collapses in the process. She is found by Guy, the game's resident ninja bad ass (those who've read this blog know I love ninjas), and taken to safety, not knowing that Bison's essence (don't ask) has possessed Rose, who later goes off and along with Shadaloo scientists  create a new, albeit weaker body and this is where Street Fighter II starts. Oy vey!

Oh, it gets better. So, SFA3 has pretty much everyone from SFII, with the Playstation one version has all these characters plus the remaining three remaining fighters from SSFII. All these characters and this is supposed to take place before SFII (Capcom's words, not mine), with all these characters coming back for that tournament?? Save me, retcon Jesus!!

Anyway, while that insanity was going on, Capcom had already began making up for this when after five years, they finally made a Street Fighter III, with newer characters and a new storyline that didn't involve Bison. Yet, the inconsistencies that plagued SFA3 will come back to rear it's ugly head soon.

To be concluded...