Its crazy to think that it has been 30 years since Street Fighter Alpha was released. Street Fighter Alpha was the first major installment within the series come out following the massive commercial success of the legendary Street Fighter II series which began in 1991. Street Fighter Alpha was arguably one of the most popular video games of ’95 and featured better graphics, new characters and the return of Super Combos. The Super Combo mechanic was something that was introduced in Super Street Fighter II: Turbo from ’94 and was a feature that Capcom had revamped in Street Fighter Alpha 2. The Super Combo Gauge featured in Street Fighter Alpha added more depth to the overall gameplay. Players did not need to completely fill their Super Combo Gauge to perform Super Moves in Street Fighter Alpha. Instead, players could perform different levels of Super Combos which would do more or less damage depending on what button combination was used.

Street Fighter Alpha had a really small roster of characters which featured the returns of familiar like Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Sagat and M. Bison. Street Fighter Alpha also saw the introduction of brand new characters like Rose, Charlie, Birdie, Adon and Sodom. Street Fighter Alpha also had two hidden characters Akuma from SSFII:Turbo and a marshal artist who wore pink by name of Dan. Each character in Street Fighter Alpha had their own ending in Arcade mode and the game was not as difficult as some of the Street Fighter II games. However, there were hardly any game modes other than Arcade, Versus and Training. Street Fighter Alpha was not meant to have depth but it was start of the legendary Zero series. The soundtrack for Street Fighter Alpha is highly underrated and the game deserved to have more commercial success. Street Fighter Alpha is a game that often gets overlooked because of how popular its ’96 sequel was. Street Fighter Alpha is still a fun arcade fighting to play 30 years later but its far from the best that Capcom has produced during the 90’s.