Handheld Wars #191 - SSF2 Turbo Revival Vs. SF Alpha 3

Street Fighter 2 is a game that goes well with any game system, one could consider it essential like Tetris.

The later iterations of Street Fighter 2 also fall under the same category, they are just the same game, but with extra content, similar to what DLC is today, you could say they are the Super, Hyper, Turbo packs.

The Alpha games are a separate category of Street Fighter games, they are the Zero games, and belong to the Marvel Vs. Capcom series. They are fantastic as well, and highly recommended too. You can't go wrong with any of the three Alpha games, and the third is the one with the most characters, which makes it a bigger mayhem.

Plus having those games on cartridge form is always a cool thing.

Thank you for fixing the title, Armored Core.

This WHO DEFEATZ is another no-brainer for me: I'm going with SF Alpha 3, no contest here (for me at least).

The SF Alpha series is basically a direct-upgrade to the SF 2 formula, so therefore I consider the Alpha series to be strictly superior to any version of II on principal.

I own the PS version of Alpha 3, and even though it's without a doubt the worst home-console port of the game, I absolutely love it to death. It obliterates Super Street Fighter II Turbo in every way; more variety, more characters, deeper fighting mechanics, better fighting mechanics, better visuals (obviously), and I would argue that even the art-direction of the Alpha games is vastly superior to 2's since, despite being rather streamlined by comparison, it uses a creator-driven anime style instead of the horrible americanized, focus-group-tested, semi-realistic character design template that II had, where the fighters (especially the american fighters like Guile, Dee Jay, M. Bison, Blanka and T. Hawk) had these huge, cleft chins and pronounced cheekbones that was half-hazardly mixed with realistic details and realistic inking. The characters in SF II literally looked like someone on Deviantart made a realistic portrait of the crappy, cartoony deigns from the lame SF II cartoon:



*cringe*

You see Deviantart users drawing realistic versions of cartoon characters all the time:




Whenever I see fan-art like this, it reminds me of the approach Capcom took with designing/localizing their franchises like Street Fighter and Mega Man at the time. Remember those unsightly american box-arts of the early Mega Man games on Game Boy and NES? But I still think SF II is the worst example of this because Capcom took that marketing philosophy and directly applied it to the game itself, so you couldn't just look past the ugly box art, you were forced to put up with the in-game sprite-art, too...






tl;dr: Everything is better in the Alpha series. If you want a good, creator driven version of Street Fighter II, just play one of the Alpha games. Even Alpha 1 is a million times better than Super Street Fighter II.

The only area where SF II might be better than the Alpha games is the music, but I think that's subjective. I personally find the music in SF II to be more memorable and iconic than the music in Alpha III, but I haven't played Alpha I or II, so I'm sure there's a lot of music in the Alpha series' OST that I haven't heard yet.

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What the hell are you talking about, Strat?? The Alpha series introduced barely any original characters. Almost the entire roaster was composed of fighters carried over from SF 2 (ALL of them in this case) and many from SF 1, and a couple from Final Fight, so there's no way what you're saying is true. SNK fighting games weren't even a thing until after SF 2 became popular, and all three of these series came out before that happened. Nice try, though, you SNK fanboy.

There are a small handful of original fighters that debuted in the Alpha series like Gen and Rolento, but I've never heard anybody accuse those characters of being rip-offs of SNK designs. In fact, Rolento was inspired by one of M. Bison's soldiers in the first live action SF movie starring Van Damme.

Oh, and Dan wasn't plagiarism; he was a PARDOY of SNK fighters. BIG difference.

Anyone who thinks Capcom is derivative of SNK needs to be punched in the face ASAP, because in reality the exact opposite is true. Everybody with a brain knows that. SNK was the laughingstock of the 90s fighting game scene for the rate that they pumped-out derivative fighting games filled to the brim with characters that were clones of Capcom fighters.

It's now Feb. 17th 2022 and I still think you're in denial about this. You're completely full of poppycock. I can prove you wrong in an instant on how several of SNK's early fighting game characters were simple rip-offs of Capcom. Have a look:


Proof that Joe Higashi is a rip-off of Adon:






Now compare that to Adon, who debuted in the first Street Fighter





Joe bears an uncanny resemblance to Adon, wouldn't you say? Outfit is basically the same, hair is similar, same sighting style, near-identical idle animation, etc.


Now let's compare Ryo to Ryu or Ken Masters:








And here's Ken Masters:





EXACT same outfit, just with subtle variations, strikingly similar facial features (especially the brown eyebrows with blonde hair) and even the idle animation is similar!



There's also Chan's uncanny resemblance to Zangief's design, but I just decided to post about the Ryo and Joe designs because time + Chan's design controversy isn't as significant as the other twos.

Capcom would later go on to make parodies of SNK fighters with Dan and Remy, but those were PARODIES, not plagiarism. Dan and Remy are supposed to be joke characters.

I'd be very interested in reading that thread you made about this subject, since SNK was widely criticized for their knock-off approach to making fighting games. 

I was under the impression that Alex was based on a young Hulk Hogan. His fighting style is nothing like Terry Bogard's. Alex uses a grappler/wrestler style whereas Terry uses a brawler style akin to Axel Stone or some similar hybrid-style brawler. Actually, now that I think about it, Axel is really more of a boxer-type fighter compared to Terry's blend of punches, kicks, charging slams, etc. I'm not even sure you can define T. Bogard's fighting style. I'm not a martial artist, but Terry's neither a kickboxer or a wrestler, that's for sure, and he's definitely not a boxer, either. He's some weird variation of a standard brawler.

My point is that Alex is NOT based on Terry given that his fighting style is almost exclusively based around wrestling moves. And, aside from his blonde ponytail, I wouldn't even say his design is based on Terry's, either. Alex's physique is MUCH more top-heavy, being very bodybuilder esq., whereas Terry's build looks leaner and definitely is more akin to a traditional boxer's build, like Dudley for example, allowing for more mobility and such.

If you need any further proof that Capcom based Alex's appearance on Hogan, there's even an intro cinematic that plays when he's paired against Hugo which references Andre the Giant's infamous stare down against Hulk Hogan when the two once fought:




I've never heard anybody accuse Capcom of stealing Terry Bogard's design until now.

As for the other accusations you made (aside from Remy), IDK. I don't have enough experience with SNK fighting games to know whether or not Sakura, Karen, or any of the other Alpha fems were rip-offs of SNK fighters. I might get back to you on this once I look into it a bit more.