Street Fighter Alpha 3 (PlayStation) review "There are 3 main fighting styles in this game: X-ism, Y-ism, and A-ism. Each fighting style has its own combos, and attributes. X-ism is the most basic, and probably fit for beginners. If you're fighting with X-ism, your character has high defense, and has one big super combo."

Introduction:

The Street Fighter series has always been a huge name when it comes to fighting games. It's got tons of games in it now--they seem to go on forever. Street Fighter Alpha 3 features around 35 playable fighters, and a new World Tour mode. This game is one of the best SF's yet, and I'll tell you why.

Pros:

+ The graphics in this are pure 2D goodness. Some of the smoothest animation ever in a fighting game, and the characters react quickly to your controls. It's great. An excellent conversion from arcade. Nothing to complain about here. 2D, but who says 2D can't be great?

+ New World Tour mode where you fight certain people in your character's hometown, and gain exp and levels like in an RPG. A lot of strategy is involved, and you basically just travel around fighting people, while making yourself stronger, and earning new combos.

+ New fighting styles. There are 3 main fighting styles in this game: X-ism, Y-ism, and A-ism. Each fighting style has its own combos, and attributes. X-ism is the most basic, and probably fit for beginners. If you're fighting with X-ism, your character has high defense, and has one big super combo. While some of the more complicated movies like air-blocks aren't possible, the power and defense make up for it. Y-ism is probably good for more experienced street fighters. With not just one super combo, but a few smaller combos, and one large one, gameplay has more variety. Your defense and power isn't as high as in X-ism, but you can perform more moves. A-ism is probably the most complicated of all the isms, and fit for more expert Street Fighters. You can create your own combos, and your defense and power are even less than they are in Y-ism. Now this is just a brief summary of all the isms. You have to play the game to really understand the strategy, and how they work.

+ Tons of characters--around 35 I think. Plus a few secret characters. From Blanka, to Ryu, to Ken, to some new people. Each character has their own combos, and throws, etc... And you will have a lot of fun mastering each one.

Cons:

- Some of the combos seem very hard to execute, even on X-ism. Sometimes I get frustrated with the game because I just can't do that combo! Of course it's like this with many fighting games, but in SFA3, it seems more difficult. Also, the combos aren't as big as in some other fighting games, and they might disappoint some people, because they're not as impressive as in some of the earlier SF's.

Conclusion:

Other than the few picky problems I mentioned, SFA3 is a great game. There's a lot more strategy to it than other fighting games, because of the fighting styles, and it's quite difficult. Nice graphics, lots of characters, new fighting styles, world tour mode...This game's got it all! It's even called the greatest fighter ever by some people. If you like fighting games, be sure to check this one out.

Staff review by James Gordon (Date unavailable) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.