PlayStation 2

Street Fighter Alpha Anthology

Overall, Street Fighter Alpha Anthology is a terrific value, but I wish Capcom had put a little more effort into it. The instruction manual is confusing as hell, combining the instructions for all of the games. They didn't even bother to list each fighter's moves, so you'll need to go on-line to research the super combos. No history of the games is included, or even a lousy description! There's an option to install to hard disk, but I don't see the point considering load times aren't even a factor. Despite Capcom's laziness, there's no questioning the fun these games provide, especially with a sturdy joystick in hand (I recommend the X-Arcade). Each game is fully configurable, and high scores are automatically saved. If you have any appreciation whatsoever for 2D fighters, Anthology should be at the top of your list.

THIS is the way Capcom needs to treat their arcade ports. We can always use more games in a collection, and the fact that the game is a little skimpy on extras (thus toning down the whole anthology aspect), it's still a killer collection done right.

Street Fighter Alpha Anthology is how a retro compilation should be done. It's reasonably priced and provides a comprehensive compendium of these superb games, with plenty of content for both hardcore and casual fans, and accurate conversions of the arcade originals. An absolute bargain.

Every one of the games residing on this collection are playable, resulting in a fantastic union that any 2D fighting game fan should pick up. Tears of joy, nostalgia or both are sure to follow.

Once upon a time, Street Fighter II dominated the gaming world. If you had any interest in the fighting genre during the last decade, this legendary brawler had the power to grab your attention, keep your eyes glued to the screen, and play an untold amount of hours against friends and computer-controlled enemies alike. There were tournaments to win, characters to master, and plenty of other in-game aspects that made this fighter pure bliss. However, Street Fighter II couldn’t hold onto its reign forever; gamers’ expectations gradually increased, new ideas were implemented, and the 2D fighting game genre was slowly but surely being ushered out of existence. In the midst of all this uncertainty, the minds behind the game had a difficult problem to overcome: creating a new Street Fighter game that not only stood up to the demands and expectations of newer games, but still retaining all that was good and righteous about the first batch of brawlers.

There once was a time when you needed a Sega Saturn to enjoy Capcom's Street Fighter Alpha series in semiaccurate arcade form in the comfort of your living room. The PlayStation version, while acceptable, was half the version its Saturn counterpart was, and the Dreamcast version of SF Alpha 3, while visually robust, had control issues that kept it from being the perfect port. Now that Capcom has magnanimously assembled a comprehensive Alpha collection for the PlayStation 2 that includes Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold, Street Fighter Alpha 3, and they've even thrown in Super Gem Fighter Minimix (aka Pocket Fighter) to boot.

Unless you're totally averse to 2-D graphics, you definitely need to add Street Fighter Alpha Anthology to your game library. Thirty dollars brings home five wonderful fighting games, each perfectly reproduced from the arcade without any animation removed or pesky load times mucking things up.

A good package of great fighting games that has it where it counts. A no-brainer purchase if you're interested in 2D fighters, worth a look for anyone else.

One day Capcom is going to release a true Street Fighter collection. There will be no more all Street Fighter II versions with some combined abomination and a release from the III to placate fans; nor will there be absences of materials and modes that fans have become used to. No, one day there will be an almighty package that includes all things Street Fighter and then, and only then, will those still interested in the series be able to enjoy themselves without fear of having to dole out another $30-40 for an as yet unannounced follow-up in the semiannual collection packages series. It’s impossible to deny these games though, and you would be doing yourself a disservice in trying to do so.

Ultimately Street Fighter Alpha Anthology is a treasure trove of SFA memorabilia. Sure, there is quite a bit more Capcom could have done to get the collection just right, but what they have given us is very good. If you really like Street Fighter Alpha, then there is no reason you should pass this game up. If you haven't played much of the Alpha series, but are just a fan of fighters, you still owe it to yourself to play these great games, and at such a bargain price, it won't perform a shoryuken punch on your wallet. Now let's just wait and see if Capcom ever decides to release a Vs. compilation...

To many people, the Street Fighter series brings back memories of the times you were in elementary/middle/high school, when you'd hang out at the donut shop after school, putting your quarter up on the machine and waiting patiently to either cream or get creamed by your opponent. To me particularly, the Street Fighter Alpha series brings me back to this shady and dark arcade, its only source of light emitting from the screens, located in an ethnocentric mall. It smelled of deep-fried sesame breads and coffee, but I always remember waiting for my turn to play Street Fighter Alpha 3. These memories and connotations are now made more readily available to us by Capcom's swift decision to anthologize the series in a PS2 disc and calling it Street Fighter Alpha Anthology (or Street Fighter Zero: Fighter's Generation in Japan).

Overall, the Anthology is a really solid collection, although it draws most of its strength from Alpha 3, which is really superior to all the previous iterations of the series. Having the original arcade versions of them is another royal flush for fans of the series, as they’re quite hard to get, along with the rarity of half of these titles. I’ll end by saying that if you want to play the best fighting series ever made, Street Fighter, and you want to play it right, faster than the original and EX 3D versions, along with it being quite a lot more technical than those two, of which the EX series usually ends up being clumsy in comparison, play the Alpha iterations. You won’t regret it.

The latest collection of Capcom classics holds true to the company's habits of faithful recreations of popular games. The Alpha series is now available on one handy disk, and it's all as you'll remember.

Although the Street Fighter Alpha Anthology probably won’t make any SF disparagers have a change of heart, there are plenty of unlockable features and gameplay modes to keep veterans busy for a long time. This collection is the quintessence of 2D fighting, and with the slim price of $29.99 USD there’s no reason for hardcore fighting fans to not have this anthology in their possession.

All three of the SFA games are fantastic fighting experiences, but I would have loved to see some semblance of added content with this title. Capcom's other collections included interesting videos and extras to complement the ports, but this one is extremely bare-boned. If that doesn't bother you, don't hesitate to drop the $29.99 for some classic fighting games.

Ah, the days of wailing on opponents stuck in screen corners. Has it really been slightly more than a decade since the original Street Fighter Alpha came out? Pinch yourself, then pinch yourself again, because Capcom’s gone and released the ultimate Alpha anthology, and yes, it holds up just fine if you’re partial to fighters that don’t flash polygons and swooshy 3D camera angles, and which (mostly) forego depicting women as nimble-limbed exhibitionists of bouncy over-the-shoulder-boulder-holders. In fact as nostalgia grails go, Street Fighter Alpha Anthology’s as good as golden.

In spite of the rallying cries among hardcore gamers across the Internet, a fresh supply of '90s-style 2D fighting games continues to go fairly unheard. Sure, there's Guilty Gear, but the amount of learning required to play it would be better spent working on a Bachelor's Degree. However, the most popular publisher, Capcom, hasn't thrown a fresh bone out in quite some time. On the other hand, they've been awfully consistent in creating compilations destined to ensure that gamers won't have to track down that missing, scratched copy of Street Fighter Alpha 3 to have a go. So, with Street Fighter Alpha Anthology, direct ports of previous Alpha games get their first lumping together. Granted, it's not a reinvention of the wheel, but as a whole, 2D fighting fans should be happy with the offerings here.

There's a small selection of games out there that remain timeless -- software that continues to be as much fun today as it was a dozen years ago despite further advancements in technology and innovation. Super Mario Bros, Pac-Man, Tetris... these are all great examples of exactly the sort of game I'm talking about. Luckily for fighting fans, Capcom's Street Fighter Alpha series falls into that same category; though this offshoot franchise may not get as much respect or recognition as Street Fighter proper in most historical circles, hardcore fighting nuts can tell you that the Alpha (Zero) series more than holds its own against the mainline collection of SF games.

Street Fighter Alpha came out at a time when the world was waiting for Street Fighter 3. No matter, as gamers ate up all the spot-on gameplay and retro-fabulous vibe. Capcom has been gracing us with a lot of compilations lately, and Street Fighter Alpha Anthology follows in their fantastic footsteps. It will leave you wanting in a few categories, but it's still a no-brainer for brawler fans.

My first experience of the Alpha series of games was on the original PlayStation and I loved them. Despite rarely having human opposition I was still able to hone my dragon punches to a supremely dangerous level. I even bought an arcade stick so I didn’t have to fight with the pad to pull off all the tricky moves. I’m glad I did get that old stick because it works just as well on my PS2. Now at last we have all the Alpha games in one tidy arcade perfect package and Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix as a bit of an added extra.

Alpha 3 was always my favourite; I did of course love the original Alpha title but found it was held back a little by the small character roster.

To say that the success of Street Fighter II and its upgrades was a tough act to follow would be a gross understatement. Back in the early '90s, you couldn't walk into a convenience store or video arcade without hearing the telltale sounds of Capcom's legendary fighting game. Faced with the demand for new installments in the series, Capcom did something smart: The company created a prequel, 1995's Street Fighter Alpha (or Street Fighter Zero, as it was more intuitively named in Japan).

On paper, Street Fighter Alpha Anthology sounds likes a dream. It includes all three Alpha titles, as well as Alpha 2 Gold and Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, a simplified cute fighter with characters from franchises like Darkstalkers.

Si cette compilation avait tout pour elle sur le papier, proposant une réunion de quelques-uns des meilleurs épisodes de la saga Street Fighter, le fait de n'intégrer que les versions arcades de ces derniers nuit quelque peu au plaisir sur le long terme. En effet, privé de nombreux modes, vous aurez tendance à revenir sur vos pas assez souvent, et conserverez surtout les softs au cas où, si l'un de vos amis nostalgiques débarquait par le plus grand des hasards. Toutefois, à 30 euros il serait dommage de passer à côté de quelques petites perles. Si toutefois vous n'avez pas déjà les opus d'origine. Dans ce cas-là...