Street Fighter Alpha

Street Fighter Alpha was the first entirely new Street Fighter game that Capcom made since Street Fighter II. With a completely new graphical look (very anime inspired) and game play engine, it provided fans of Street Fighter II with the closest that it would get to a sequel: a prequel. Entitled Street Fighter Zero in Japan, the Street Fighter Alpha series would relay the events that took place between Street Fighter I and Street Fighter II.

SFA drew upon many inspirations for its content, not the least of which was the Street Fighter II anime that was released shortly before the game. SFA also contained a controversial cast. Out of the 16 original cast members from Super Street Fighter II Turbo (not including Akuma), only 4 were selectable in the first Alpha game: Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li and Sagat. M. Bison returned as the boss, who could be selected via a code, along with Akuma, and new secret character Dan. The rest of the cast was filled out by characters who previously appeared in the Final Fight series and Street Fighter I, as well as brand new characters such as Charlie and Rose, the former being the subject of Guile's revenge in SF2.

SFA also contained many new features, some of which were brought over from Capcom's successful Darkstalkers series. These new features included air blocking, multiple super meter bars, multiple super moves per character, counter attacks, chain combos, and taunts. Another new feature (which had no bearing on gameplay) was the little details added to make character interaction more interesting, such as dialogs between characters and alternate prefight animations. Like Super Street Fighter II, SFA was something of a project that was prematurely rushed to market, with palette swapped backgrounds shared between characters. Its sequel, Street Fighter Alpha 2, would serve as the full realization of the series.