Bryan Cranston as Fei-Long in the SF2 Animated movie is still super funny to me.

Alpha 2 is probably the sf game that holds the dearest place in my heart.

Pretty interesting how the movie adaptations of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat shaped the future of their series.

God, I hope Sakura can make her way back in 6 somehow. I know 5 felt like it was sort of a coming of age for her, and I know how people feel about "too many shotos" when we already have Akuma coming next year, but Sakura is just such an excellent character for the franchise and one of my favorite in all of gaming. They took a school girl trope and did it RIGHT.

Max you better give the person whos making your legacy intros a bonus.

The input for the raging demon was from Morrigan's Darkness Illusion.

Alpha 2 for the PSX was one of the first fighting games I ever got REALLY into. The presentation, music, and character designs were so dope at the time. I had the strategy guide and everything.

I remember being blown away by the super combos in X-Men vs Street Fighter. Like Ryu’s hadoken, it became a killer ray of light. Lol

I grew up with Alpha 2 on the SNES (Yes. The bad version). Lots of great memories. I remember Ken's ending being my favorite due to the music

"In 1994 anime wasn't mainstream or well known at all" lol, it's always really funny and a little off putting as someone from México where we had tons of anime up the ass airing at prime time, especially during the 90s. As a kid I got a pirated copy of Alpha from a random street vendor at a corner, I'll never forget that.

Alpha 2 is one of my favourite games of all time. I started High School in 1999 and down the road from school was a Fish and Chip shop that had a Alpha 2 cabinet. After school dozens of us would crowd around and play till the bus came at 4pm. We did that for 2 years everyday but then the cabinet was gone after some drunk lunatic came in and smashed the screen with a baseball bat.

I wish they made more Street Fighter games look like Alpha.

Alpha 3 is etched in my brain, so many memories

I directly associate the alpha series with the dan legacy now my absolute favorite from this channel. Alpha 2 is absolutely my favorite street fighter in terms of style, aesthetic, and atmosphere I love it. It just feels so much like a young, carefree, optimistic, fun loving summer.

This is the irony. Street fighter pioneered and paved the way for such archetypes in anime. It's the complete opposite now.

As a semi-newbie to Street Fighter, starting at the tail end of 4 and on again, off again with SFV, I just found about Alpha a month ago and fell in love with the look and series!!

merging Final Fight with Street Fighter was the greatest gift to me as a fan of beat-em ups and Street Fighter.

I remember back in 1996 when I first watched people playing Alpha 2 arcade here in Manaus. They've put the arcade volume so high we almost got deaf every time someone activated the custom combo bars. Awesome!

The producer of SF6 Shuhei Matsumoto is a huge fan of Alpha 2, which makes a lot of sense given World Tour coming back as a main feature. even though there is alot of third strike DNA when it comes to SF3's aesthetics and tone, there is alot of what made Alpha 2 so great in SF6, with all that focus on character personality.

I thought the same exact thing when i saw SFA in arcade the first time. I was just like "why is it a cartoon now? That's weird as heck." By the time Alpha 3 hit, i was getting up at 5AM to record DBZ episodes and thought SFA3 looked so awesome. The anime hit me really quick 😅 Also, if anyone reading this hasn't experienced Hyper Street Fighter Alpha, maaaaan. You gotta get your hands on it any way you can.

I could never get over how SF Alpha felt like living in a middle school era where you have an origin story that had you fighting a rival. I love how every character story expanded before SF2

This animated movie was amazing, there is also Street Fighter 2 V with some of the same voice actors. The ending of that is awesome to. Super Street Fighter II The Animated Movie was and still is 👌🏼

Alpha 2 on PS1 was one of the first games I had on Playstation (along with Tomb Raider and MK Trilogy). Ryu's theme in that game (the arranged/SFA2 Gold version) is embedded into my brain. I still listen to that song on loop when I'm working on projects or at work sometimes. Definitely something I hold dearly in my heart, probably until the day I die.

Alpha absolutely grabbed me immediately. I didn't realise it was Street Fighter at first, but when I did my heart skipped a beat and my jaw dropped.

Alpha 2 Gold is the one I remember playing A LOT in the Alpha Anthology. Never got close to defeating Shin Akuma because he was an absolute monster.

The Street Fighter Alpha series are such a fun series of games

The one things that's been permanently embedded into my brain from this age of Capcom's fighting games are the sound effects, especially when the attacks connect. Iconic, if I do say so myself.

These games are legendary. My friends and I played them after school and had some of the best fights. Crazy fun.

Alpha 2 was the spotlight when I first played it. Like the artstyle and gameplay as they took the anime direction. The music was amazing including Kens theme was so smooth and jazzy.

The intro to Alpha 2 is still the greatest ever in a fighting game, I think. The 90s-style midi riff with the visuals is awesome!

Hello Childhood.

I'll always remember getting the PS1 with a copy of SF Alpha 1 as a gift from my Aunt and Uncle in the Summer of '97. I have Cerebral Palsy and had just went through a rather invasive surgery. Gaming definitely helped me pass time and ease the pain. Now I'm stronger because of it!

Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I remember just getting into anime when this came out, so the Alpha series redesign was exactly what I was looking for. The first time I saw it in a local arcade, it set up on a monster set-up; a literal giant screen monitor with a sit-down bench with a killer sound system that demanded the astronomical (at the time) fee of 50 cents. As soon as I found the Saturn version of it, I snapped that up. Never saw Alpha 2 in the wild, but once again, as soon as it was on Saturn, that got bought and played into the into the ground; so much so, I remember doing a recorded presentation for school on the difference between "polgyon graphics" and "cel animation". Of course, the main events being Virtua Fighter 2 and Alpha 2.

Played Alpha 2 to death when it was released on home consoles. Even my mom knows what Hadouken was, she heard it all the time while I was Playing.

I absolutely love the artwork that came from this series of games. I just got a poster of the Alpha 1 cover for my wall, and I plan to get one for Alpha 2 pretty soon.

In all my years in this earth, seeing that artwork of Ryu vs Akuma since childhood, I've NEVER NOTICED F-ING SAKURA IN THE BACKGROUND!!!! 😱💀

I wouldn't call SFII realistic, both the original SF and SFII look more like the Japanese interpretation of how American action cartoons like He-Man and G.I. Joe looked. Most Japanese developers tried to appeal to American players by changing their artstyles, but it seems like since the mid 90s all games managed to retain their Japanese looks, just compare the promotional N artwork for Final Fantasy IV to VII or the original Fatal Fury to Garou: MoW PS: I love how on the Japanese version of the Dramatic Battle there's a remix of the vocal theme from the SFII Animated MOVIE

I really do appreciate this detailed deep dive into what made these games different and what Capcom was thinking at the time these came out. So much of this series just blends together for ke so I like seeing the distinctions between versions and the reaction to them.

Alpha 1-3 is my Jam. I love all the SF:III's and everything but yeah Alpha series has the perfect speed and precision to me, personally.

I first laid eyes on a Street Fighter Alpha arcade machine at a pizza place in the early 90's. I was instantly enamored by the art style and the presentation. I was already hooked on Street Fighter II at home, but Alpha is what got me wanting to visit arcades as much as possible, where I discovered more Capcom games that were influenced by it, like Darkstalkers and Marvel Super Heroes (my favorite Capcom game of all time). Alpha was a literal game-changer for Capcom's approach to the whole genre.

The Alpha series is basically what got me deep into SF as a whole (before I got hooked on KOF and anything SNK). The first Alpha stole a lot of my time on PS, with Guy being my main even since. Then getting Alpha 3 years later and absolutely letting the game damn near take over my life 😂 but then playing Alpha 2 a few years later after that and it becoming my new favorite SFA game for probably the foreseeable future. A wild ride man!

Funny because in Europe I got into anime around 1993 & the fact that I was constantly importing games and seeing various anime in magazines so I had the exact opposite reaction when Street fighter alpha came out, I was blown away. To me the game looked like you could play an anime and it was essentially as if the art in a manual come to life (especially in Japanese sfc games) To this day I wish SF would go back to that over 3D dudes that look like their made out of clay. Alpha was the 2nd most played game on my Saturn when it came out.

I remember being 7 and walking into a rental store and seeing a big ass poster of alpha 2. I knew who Ryu was, I didn't know who Akuma was. I was scared but also super excited.

I remember getting SFA2 on snes for Christmas. Miracle game indeed 😢

I wasn't aware of the Street Fighter Alpha series after SF2 until I was at my friend's house during my middle school years. Never played the first Alpha game, but played Alpha 2 on the PS1. It was drastically different from SF2 to my surprise, but Alpha 2 brought me back to Street Fighter.

Good thing no one ever uses "this looks like a cartoon/anime" in a pejorative way nowadays, eh?

I never forget in 1995 being mesmerized at the graphics of SFA1, Darkstalkers and the Marvel fighters

The Alpha series (mainly 3) has always been my favorite. It’s anime like artstyle is definitely one of the main reasons (on top of the soundtrack). Bengus’s art illustrations for the characters and even Capcom’s other fighting games during this era like Vampire Savior, X-Men vs Street Fighter, MVC1-2, Power Stone, etc really just adds to that special “aesthetic” of Capcom’s CPS2-Naomi era of their fighting games if that sounds right/makes any sense

I enjoy alpha 3 a bit more personally. Plus that was the game that introduced Evil Ryu. That alone puts Alph 3 up there as one of the greats

"A CARTOON?!" Yes. A JAPANESE cartoon. Except actually smooth and lively because video game. Seriously, the lineless anime look is a beaut. Timeless. And the different levels of super moves are fun to explore. And TWO CHUN-LI LOOKS. And DAN. OYAJIIIIII

I remember the original SF1 in my local arcade, I was totally addicted and became the best player there. Only because I worked out you were unbeatable if you could do repeated dragon punches. In the first game there was no way to stop or counter them at all. If you timed it right you could beat some characters with just one dragon punch (Gen particularly I remember)

Ryu and Ken doing the charged hadoken in the intro are also inspired from when the two do it fighting M bison in the sf2 movie lol.

I've got about a 3 day age difference from Max and hearing him talk about the reaction to SF Alpha 1 brought me right back to when I first saw the game at SportsWorld in Paramus, NJ. I had been playing SSF2 as well as the Turbo version for years and had every move memorized, so I was super excited to see a new SF in the arcade. At around the age of 12 when I first saw it, not knowing anything about 2D animation or anime, and witnessing the increasing grittiness of the characters from SF2 vanilla to SSF2, my response was exactly the same: "What is this, this looks like a cartoon."

Played Alpha3 for 150 hours. Sweet video, sweet high school memories.

In France, Japanese anime were already a big success since 1980's. France is the biggest market for mangas after Japan. So, we were really happy to have this animé look when we discovered SFA.

Alpha 2 my beloved

"SF but anime" is the same kinda funny as "Zelda but anime". It's been anime since the start. lmao

Cant wait for the Alpha 3 video, been playing it non-stop since this mini-series started 😎

my brother and i really became friends over playing alpha 2. our parents divorced when we were young and somehow it worked out to where each parent got custody of one of us and so we didnt really hang out until we were older and 1 parent got custody of both of us. and it was playing alpha 2 for hours on end during weekends that we became homies. sometimes just hearing the alpha 2 intro gets me a bit misty as i havent seen my brother in years because life got busy.

when i first bought my ps2 i bought a couple of games with it, but the first one that i popped into the console and played was the alpha anthology, had so much fun playing those games, and it was the one game where me and all my siblings would play against each other

Street fighter Alpha 1 is one of my favorites. So many days playing this on my computer.

The beginning of the SF timeline story, SF Alpha series and the best moment the legacy of Dan presented by Maximilian Dood. My favorite SF Alpha games are Alpha 2 & Alpha 3 Max. Even the Udon Comics follow the Alpha series storyline to connect it Street Fighter 2

I watched that Chun-Li vs Vega fight at her apartment more than a couple times if I’m telling the truth. Also destroyed more than a few socks. *cough*

Kinda of a bummer that this one is shorter than the rest, but I'm glad you tackle the important aspect of of sf movie and how important the aspect of anime has been to series

Alpha series started remixing character themes for the home versions of the games. Alpha 1 gave you soundtrack options for an original or arranged OST. There was a notable difference in sound quality between the two. Alpha 2 for the home version had a remixed soundtrack by default, whereas the original soundtrack was largely Alpha 1’s music with minor changes. Alpha 3 understandably took a unique approach to character stage themes considering at this point, they made 4 different mixes of these themes (at least for the Alpha 1 characters).

BRUH!!!! The stage Akuma is fighting everyone on is the Coliseum from Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris's fight!!!! AWESOME!!!!

This was definitely an interesting period for fighting games. I loved the art styles

I remember playing Sakura as a kid and she was actually the first female fighting game character I ever really put time into and mained when I played alpha 2. Still a great character to this day.

I love the alpha series, and the sprites look beautiful.

Alpha 2 , SF vs. X-men and SF EX were my jam as a teenager, on my way to high school from the local train station I would walk past a shopping centre/mall with a video Arcade. I'd play Alpha 2 religiously going to and from school. Eventually I could beat the Arcade machine on one life ($1)... good times ❤

Alpha's character design was definitely inspired by Street Fighter II: Movie. The character designs for Vega (Dictator), Sagat, Balrog (Claw), and Bison (Boxer) were lifted directly from the character designs from the movie. Hell, it's the reason why Vega (Dictator) is a shorter stocky muscular character, and Sagat is no longer just a slim muy thai guy like he was in the SF2 games. Even Ken's design in Alpha is taken directly from the flashback scenes in the movie. Come on @Maximilian Dood

Yeah but I also really love Alpha 3 because of its HUGE roster! I'm surprised ya didn't mention that!

K.O. You lose! Is etched into my memory.

This was my favorite time for Capcom fighters because of the experimentation not just in Street Fighter Alpha, but in the fighting games in general. You had Darkstalkers and the Marvel series being developed alongside the Alpha games and there was a cross-pollination of elements and ideas that made each franchise stronger. From Darkstalkers came EX moves, chain combos, and guard cancel, which were utilized in Alpha. Even Akuma's Shun Goku Satsu input is from Morrigan's Darkness Illusion. From Alpha, we got the defined super levels 1-3, which made things WAY more versatile and easier to implement. Marvel gave us air juggles and double-button super inputs (and of course the Cammy Killer Bee sprite). It all just felt so good and organic. Even having Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo and Pocket Fighters incorporate the Alpha aesthetics and elements in a fun way made the series more relevant and prevalent than it initially appears.

I loved Alpha 2 and how the new characters added continued where the first one left off. You get 2 returning SF2 guys (Zangief and Dhalsim), a SF1 guy (Gen), a Final Fight guy (Rolento) and a whole new character (Sakura). Plus having Bison, Dan and Akuma already selectable. It was an amazing roster back then.

On Dreamcast back in 2000 in Super Street Fighter 2 X for matching service you can use Akuma WITH raging Demon Super combo. It was first time in Super Turbo you could play as Akuma with double Air fireball and a super combo bar to execute Raging demon. Dreamcast was fantastic.

Alpha 2 Gold was incredible. All the extra selectable characters made it a blast. Shin Akuma, Evil Ryu, Alternate Chun-Li (Street Fighter 2), EX Ryu, EX Ken, EX M. Bison, EX Chun-Li, Alternate Sakura, EX Sagat, EX Zangief, and EX Dhalsim

You forget to mention alpha 1 bring one of the most beloved characters in street fighter history, the one and only mighty Adon.

Alpha was made because of overstock on arcade board tech, so they needed to make a game that could run on both old and new tech, they were inspired by fan art to make alpha, the movie inspired parts of the game but not the actual full game

I had Alpha 2 on Saturn. No damned good at it but I just loved fucking around and playing the computer. The poster of Ryu facing off against Akuma is still one of my favorite pictures in history. I unironically look it up from time to time just to appreciate it

The art style of SFalpha seems to be due to the success of "reducing the number of colors and increasing the animation patterns" that I tried in the previous Dark Stalkers. However, it was more revolutionary that the art style was not changed for the North American market, rather than the technical aspects. Both SF1 and Final Fight are projects for the North American market. When I think about Nintendo in the early 80's, I don't think the jazzy background music and characters like Mario were intended for the Japanese market. It seems that the 90's was the beginning of North American consumers' acceptance of Japanese games as they were. In other words, if a Japanese character is created with the American market in mind, it will be Mario, and if it is created with the Japanese market in mind, it will be Sakura.

I've never played the Alpha series back then, but I've always liked the art style. Glad you're able to play it a bit in SF6

Max has got me back in to fighting games and RPGs so thank you :). Managed to find the pal snes version of alpha 2 boxed . Can't wait to see the artwork.

The ironic thing is that SF2 was/is ANIME AF - SF2 is basically one big homage/rip off of Hokuto no Ken and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, with some extra references like Gold/Silver from Golgo 13 and Yasunori Kato. SF2 was never *realistic*, it was just shaded differently. SF Alpha series just dialed back the shading to make it more like the SF movie, so it was still anime influenced, just a different anime than SF2 (those Rose = Lisa Lisa). Also, Final Fight was not "brought" into SF with Alpha - Final Fight and SF have always been part of the same canon since the inception of SF2.

Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold was my favorite, but the series was mind-blowing woth its art style and supers and more cinetmatic grandeur of the storys impact just made it feel bigger than a fighting game.

I still have the disk of SF Alpha 2 and my PS1. And it still works to this day

Alpha 2 was my first SF, played on my old XP computer.

That drawing of Ken in the thumbnail is giving me memories of DSP in his "Karen" Masters Halloween costume from last year.

"The backgrounds for Alpha are kinda uninspired" He says talking over one of the most iconic Street Fighter stages in history

Alpha 1 renewed my interest at the Arcades, and the chain combos made the game feel quicker. SF Alpha 2 was the reason I got a Sega Saturn.

Alpha has to be my fav sf series hands down.. alpha 3. Visual style I wanted for street fighter as a dragon ball fanatic as a young boy

Max… Start speaking for yourself, do not generalize the entire community when it comes to how you felt about an entire fighting game genre. We played so many damn iterations of street fighter II for what seemed like FOREVER… Then Alpha/Zero finally rolled around in 1995 and all of us at the arcade were blown away by it, everything from how beautiful the animation was to the Super Art specials and how they looked in comparison to how the super arts looked in SSFT2. I was downtown in NYC at the 42nd street arcades the first time Alpha dropped, THE CROWDS AROUND THE MACHINES, special characters being chosen, dramatic battles being performed, everyone having their minds blown & loving what we were seeing. It finally felt like out with the old & in with the new… I will never forget that era, I honestly believe it had just as much of an impact, if not a greater impact than SF III during its time of release, once again, due to the fact that you played so many versions of SF II for damn near 5 years straight. After the fluid animation of X-Men:COTA, it was amazing to see and feel a similar formula applied to the street fighter series & you know what… IT WORKED!!! We were all grateful in the summer of 1995. At least on the east coast we were, leave it to y’all to complain & show ingratitude 😂

Coming up Street Fighter Alpha 3 in 1998 but anime and japanese hype!

Alpha 3 was my favorite. I still have it

Back in 90s, Street Fighter Alpha 2 was a gaming renaissance. At this point Capcom's art direction was beautiful and felt like living art with Bengus,Ikeno, Nishimura and more showcasing their chops! The combo variety was majestic and the sound effects of activating your custom combos did feel like an ' anime' power up!😂 Lets not forget the hidden Evil Ryu would debut as well!! Truly this was a golden era as Alpha 2 Gold would add more to the variety with even more hidden versions of characters with a very sexy addition of Xmen vs Streetfighter Cammy!❤❤❤ Instant Love!!!

@Maximilian Dood i hope you figured this out the way i did in terms of analysis, but SFA was an incomplete game. By the time SFA 2 came out it was more of a reboot and then came SFA 3. If you think about it SFA 2 would be Alpha 1 and SFA 3 would be Alpha 2. I could be wrong. Always room for error

Alpha 3 Max was the 2nd SF game i played after SF2 and i was blown away!

I remember when I first saw screenshots of Alpha 2 in an issue of Gamefan magazine and being blown away at how absolutely beautiful it looked. I think it was the april 96 issue.

The fight between ryu and fei long still holds up till this day - the whole movie was perfect tbh

I couldn’t agree more with your perspective! I’ve always had a special place for Alpha 2! It’s my fav! And the anime, just WOW! I remember the first time I watched it… I was trembling with an excitement. When I die, I suspect Street Fight will be a part of my life flashing before me as I leave 😂