Its hard to believe that its been 30 years since Capcom released Street Fighter Alpha 2 worldwide. Street Fighter Alpha 2 is one of Capcom’s most iconic arcade fighting titles of the 90’s and was the game that arguably revived the declining popularity of the SF franchise towards the mid 90’s. The Street Fighter II series from ’91-’94 were all classics but SF Alpha II took everything to a whole another level in terms of gameplay, graphics and replay value. Street Fighter Alpha 2 felt like a more polished version of its ’95 predecessor SF Alpha: Warriors Dreams and had more mainstream success also. Street Fighter Alpha 2 had a base roster of around eighteen different characters including the return of familiar faces including Ryu, Ken Masters, Chun-Li, Dhalsim, Zangief, Sagat, M. Bision and others. Street Fighter Alpha 2 also saw the return of other characters who were introduced in the original Alpha game from ’95 including Adon, Charlie Nash, Rose, Birdie, Dan Hibiki, Sodom and Guy.

Street Fighter Alpha 2 saw the inclusion of some new characters including Sakura Kasugano, Rolento and Gen. For those who purchased the Gold Edition of Street Fighter Alpha 2 Cammy White was hidden character. Street Fighter as a 2D arcade fighting game has aged gracefully within the past three decades. The character sprites, moves and stages in Street Fighter Alpha 2 looked amazing and the game itself felt more challenging than previous installments. In fact, the secret boss battle against Shin Akuma is considered to be one of the hardest battles in almost any Street Fighter game ever made. The introduction of Sakura Kasugano was one of the best things Capcom did with Alpha seeing that she rivaled Chun-Li in popularity during the mid 90’s. Sakura Kasugano was on the cover of the Street Fighter Alpha 2 game along with Ryu and Akuma. Sakura Kasugano she also appeared as a secret playable character in Capcom’s 3D arcade game from ’97 called Rival Schools: United By Fate.

Street Fighter Alpha 2 was among the few games that kept the 2D arcade fighting genre alive during the mid 90’s. Along with Street Fighter Alpha 2 there were other high profile 2D arcade fighting titles like X-Men vs Street Fighter, King of Fighters ’96-’97 and Marvel Super Heroes that kept the genre alive. Despite, not being a massive commercial success Street Fighter Alpha 2 has developed a cult following over the past couple of decades. Street Fighter Alpha 2 has a high replay value along with a memorable art direction which looked more polished than Capcom titles that predated the mid 90’s.