Friday, May 30, 2014

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...

Sunday, May 4, 2014

Making sense of Street Fighter pt.1 ...

I'm a big fan of Capcom games and the game that started my liking for most of the companies older out put was "Street Fighter II: The World Warrior". When I first played this game in 1991, I was amazed by the gameplay and concept. In this game were 8 unique characters beating the hell out of each other with crazy moves like fireballs, sonic booms and hundred hand slaps.

  Before SF II, the few fighting games that were available, including Street Fighter 1, were kind of boring and after Street Fighter II came a slew of other fighters, some good (Fatal Fury), some bad (Dragon Master) and some were just weird (Fighter's History). As all these were being released, Street Fighter (or the company that made the series, Capcom) decided to make improvements to the SF but not in sequels but in special editions of SF II. At first, this was ok, with two players able to play as the same character and being able use the four boss characters and in later games 4 new characters but it just left me, and I'm sure fans of the game, wanting a 3rd in the series. In 1995, there was a new Street Fighter game with a new design and better graphics but it was not sequel but a prequel. Not what I was expecting but anything is better than another SF II.
Street Fighter Alpha (Zero in Japan) takes place after Street Fighter I but before Street Fighter II, making it a side story. Alpha provided back stories for the few street fighter II characters that were in the game, brought back some characters from street fighter I, brought in characters from another Capcom game,1989s Final Fight, and provided two new characters who a important to the street fighter universe. The new animation was incredible, a show of the updated graphics system Capcom began using, and as mentioned earlier, the new character designs gave new life to the series, even if some were a little over exaggerated. Still, this was an amazing game that I know I was addicted to the first time I played it. Capcom went and on to release a sequel the next year, Street Fighter Alpha II (Zero II),doing the same in bringing back characters from previous games and introducing new favorable ones. But a couple of  years later, Street Fighter Alpha 3 was released and it showed, to me at least, that whoever was behind this game either got a little too ambitious or purposely made the game, storyline wise, weird as all hell.

To Be Continued