PS1

Street Fighter Alpha 2

FightingArcade

Space needed: About 348 MB
Time to beat: about 1 hour

Overview

Street Fighter Alpha 2, known as Street Fighter Zero 2 in Japan, Asia, South America, and Oceania, is a 1996 fighting game developed and published by Capcom for arcades. The game is the sequel to the previous year's Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors' Dreams and features a number of improvements, such as new attacks, stages, endings, and gameplay features. It was ported to the PlayStation, Sega Saturn and Super Nintendo home consoles globally in 1996, and later a Windows port. It was followed by Street Fighter Alpha 3 in 1998.

Street Fighter Alpha 2 retains most of the new features introduced in the original Street Fighter Alpha, such as the three-level Super Combo gauge, Alpha Counters, Air-Blocking, and Fall Breaking. The main new feature in the game is the inclusion of the Custom Combo system (Original Combo in Japan), which replaces the Chain Combos from the first Alpha. If the Super Combo gauge is on Lv. 1 or above, the player can initiate a Custom Combo pressing two punch buttons and a kick or one punch button and two kicks. The player can then perform any series of basic and special moves to create a Custom Combo until the Timer Gauge at the bottom of the screen runs out.

In terms of plot and settings, both Street Fighter Alpha and Alpha 2 are sub-sequels that are set six months after the events of the original Street Fighter but also four years before the events of Street Fighter II, and alternatively six years before the events of Super Street Fighter II, Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, and Ultra Street Fighter II and thus the game features younger versions of established characters, as well as characters from the original Street Fighter, the Final Fight games and a few who are newcomers to the series. Just like the first Alpha game, each character has their own storylines, final bosses (including rivals) and endings.

Street Fighter Alpha 2 was first unveiled at the February 1996 AOU show in Tokyo.

Street Fighter Alpha 2 was released under the title Street Fighter Zero 2 in Japan, Asia, and South America. The North American and European versions of Alpha 2 feature three additional characters who were not in the Zero 2 version: Evil Ryu and alternative versions of Dhalsim and Zangief known as EX versions, where they use their movesets from the Street Fighter II series and do not have access to the Super Combo gauge. These three characters were selected by Capcom USA.

In Japan, Game Machine listed Street Fighter Zero 2 as the most successful arcade game of April 1996, outperforming titles such as Virtua Fighter 2. Street Fighter Zero 2 went on to be the highest-grossing arcade game of 1996 in Japan. Game Machine also listed Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha as the second most successful arcade game of September 1996.