"Portable Fighting Perfection"

Back in 2002, a year after the debut of the Game Boy Advance, news of Capcom planning to release a portable version of Street Fighter Alpha 3 for Nintendo's new handheld, actually the game is not based on the 32-Bit PlayStation versions of the game but instead based on the superior Sega Saturn and Dreamcast port. Knowing that my mind was like "heck no!" it can't be possible. The Super NES couldn't even handle a port of Street Fighter Alpha 2 if it weren't for the S-DD1 chip and even with that it still had some slowdowns so what makes the Game Boy Advance so different that it could handle an SFA3 port? Well I got the game and I had to say it plays truly spectacular.

Graphics:

Wow! There's nothing in this game that seems lacking at all. All background visuals featured eye candy treats from Blanka's Amazon jungle stage to Ryu's sunset valley to Vega's Barcelona cage arena all complete with detail foregrounds and fluid backdrops. There's even a few stages with smooth background animations such as Ken stage, the anaconda in Blanka's stage and the floating clouds in the battle stages. Backgrounds aren't just the only treats here, every characters each had more than two or three win poses and also some very unique pre-battle intros, just play Akuma vs. Gen or Sagat vs. Adon and you'll see those for yourself. Everything looks arcade stylish, from the character selection screen to the vs. screen all the way to the beginning of the round, there are no lacking visual details. Even the text, health bar, guard meter, and "-ism" gauge all look and feel faithful to the arcade original. I had to say I can't believe what I am seeing but what Crawfish did with these visuals of this game is awesome. Although I had to say not all of every character's battle stages from the arcade and console versions make the jump here so you'll probably get a few twelve to fifteen arenas to awe at but even that is awesome, some GBA fighting games couldn't even handle eight let alone fifteen.

Music/Sounds:

Well considering this is a portable version of an arcade game, I had to say it at least try to feature some good music. The ones that are available are very true to the arcade version but they are midi down at best and not all characters had their correct shout and scream for example Chun-Li no longer shout her "Kikoken!" like in the other versions and Sakura now had faster version of Ken's voice which could work as this is a cartridge game after all but that's very clever of Crawfish for doing it. Also remember the annoying announcer from the other versions, well Crawfish got rid of him too so if you miss him you might as well stick to the other versions.

Control/Gameplay:

There's always one main problem with a fighting game when it makes its jump to the GBA and this apply to this game as well. The control functionality, for one the GBA's small d-pad makes it difficult to perform motion special attacks and super combos. Another problem with the control is that SFA3 is originally a six buttons game, porting it to a four buttons control is quite a bit awkward. On the bright side you can configure the control to your liking but you will have to make sacrifice on two attacks for simultaneous button press due to the lack of two other attack buttons. Like Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival before it since the control often cause problem for some players, Crawfish included the option to perform easy Super Combos with just a simple motion or tap movements along with the two action buttons. Unlike Revival; however, this only applies to Super Combo initiation so special attacks will still be perform the normal way.

With the control out of the way, the gameplay on the other hand(if the player can get use to it) is fantastic. Every special attacks, super combos, alpha counters, custom combos, air throws, guard crush, and stunning juggles makes it to this edition without cutting corners at all. Every characters had their own arsenal of moves and combos to master plus they all came under three different style of fighting options called "-isms" each borrowing features and throwbacks from other previous Street Fighter games into the mix. You can have a fighter with three levels of power and all the abilities and advantages of the alpha series or you can have a full maximum level of power and crush your opponent Super Street Fighter II Turbo style and if you are a pro you can even take pity with your opponent and go custom combo crazy against them proving that there's more to SFA3 than just flashy super combos.

Replayabilities:

This is the reward of this game, crammed within the heart of this awesome port are three unlockable special modes such as Dramatic Battle Mode where you team up with a CPU partner against a single opponent, there's also a Final Battle Mode where you pit your favorite fighter against the game's final boss as well as a Survival Mode full of challenges for both new and pro players. Of course you can still play the original modes like always but the real replay value doesn't lie on the playable modes alone, before you can even get into a match you still had to choose one of over 33 selectable characters for the upcoming challenges and there's even some new challengers waiting to be discover too. Another thing, be warn that this game is not a walk in the park, expect to fail a few times before you can fully master everything this game had to offer and if you ever do get bored from losing or beating the crap out of the AI for a while you can always link play with a friend(if they had a copy of this game of course). Also if you're wondering what happen to the World Tour Mode from the other versions well, let's just say it's because that requires way too much of the GBA's power to feature it here.

Is it worth buying?

Yes guaranteed, if you still own any version of the GBA and you love a good arcade style fighting game, try and find a copy of this game and you will be amaze. Yes, there's already a superior PSP version of this same game on store shelves too but if you only had a GBA it's worth it for what it is. There's a few minor features that didn't make the jump(ex: no Chun-Li SFII costume or no Sodom with katanas) but in terms of gameplay and replayabilities this game delivers and it is hail as Crawfish's swansong before they went non-existent. Thanks Crawfish for an awesome game!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/29/10

Game Release: Street Fighter Alpha 3 (US, 12/01/02)