Street Fighter Alpha 3 was the best Street Fighter ever. People are entitled to their own opinions, but nobody ever said anyone else's opinion had to be right. The inclusion of nearly all the major characters, the presentation, the art and the animation was all spot on. It was the peak, and I thought that basically the only way they could top it would be to add more stuff to it. (And maybe get rid of R. Mika completely.)
And so, in 2006 Capcom finally did add to the game. 4 characters missing from the first incarnation of SFA3, new modes and adaptations of my favorite modes from SFA3. They bundled it all up in the perfect package and shipped it...for the PSP.
*ahem*
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
This is going to be the most depressing review I've ever written. Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max is a virtually flawless game, aside from the platform it's on. I would probably be giving this a 9 or higher if it were on the Playstation 2, or available over Xbox Live Arcade on the 360. But it's not. It's on the Portable Nut.
Gameplay
Since the story of Street Fighter is “beat everyone up” there's not really much point for me to go into any detail in that department. Every character gets their own story progression, and 10 fights to plow through.
You've got a bunch of different fight modes open to you at the beginning of the game. You can go with the stock Story Mode, increase your edited character's level in World Tour, fight an 100 fight Kumite, fight an endless battle in Survival Mode, fight a tag team set of 10 matches against the computer in Variable Mode, fight a 2 vs 1 Dramatic Battle, fight a 1 vs 2 Reverse Dramatic Battle, or just take on the boss in a 1 fight showdown.
At your disposal is the vast arsenal of characters from Street Fighter Alpha, 37 in all with a hyper powered M. Bison and Shin Akuma unlockable as well. 4 of the characters, Eagle, Yun, Maki, and Ingrid are new to SFA3. You can choose your fighting speed, anywhere from the days of the original Street Fighter II to the ludicrous speeds of Turbo 7. You can once again choose your “-ism” X, V, or A, and in some mode you can further customize the super.
All this is excellent. This would be fantastic stuff on any other platform that had a real button layout for a fighting game. I would pay $40 for this on a PS2. But I don't have that option. I've got to play it on the PSP. Whoever at Sony thought this would be a good idea on the PSP is totally wrong. What this game does is highlight the number of design flaws in the PSP.
For example, the many switches from flat colors to animated backgrounds makes the number of dead pixels on your screen very evident. The square button feels a whole lot harder to press than the other keys. I popped the Memory Stick slot on the case open while trying to do moves, like once every other fight. The L shoulder trigger is basically unreachable if you're trying to perform moves using the D-Pad, and the D-Pad wrecked my thumb something fierce after 5 or 6 battles.
The fact that this happens to be one of the most vicious Street Fighters I've ever played only makes matters worse. I've broken Zangief's guard and tried to follow up with an attack only to have him Final Atomic Buster me before I could walk a single step and punch him. M. Bison sat and waited for me to let go of my guard and instantly whipped out a Psycho Crusher. All the characters in later stages will utilize incredible recovery times after all their moves. Openings for counterattacks are smaller than I've seen in Street Fighter. I've been grabbed and thrown while trying to land a kick the split second after they whiff their Super. The computer on default difficulty will also corner trap you like crazy and it just dishes out moves like lightning...with smaller bolts of lightning attached to it for extra speed.
I think Capcom did this because they figure people would use the button config options to map one of the shoulder buttons to a super move or a special move, but that's really not Street Fighter, much less Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX. It's more like "My First Street Fighter". While this is satisfying to do a couple times to exact payback against the cheap AI bastards, it really isn't satisfying as a game. If I had a chance to fight back by using skills and not just playing Street Fighter Beatmania, I would probably enjoy the higher level of difficulty. As it is, it feels like I'm just destroying my thumb in order to be a punching bag.
Graphics
The visuals mostly impress. The backgrounds look a bit rough in sections, but the overall art, animation and presentation is still the best of any SF game around.
Basically, if you liked the look and feel of the original Street Fighter Alpha III, you'll enjoy what you're getting out of MAX.
Audio
The audio satisfies as well, save for the annoying announcer guy. He's been a drawback ever since he's been included, so it's not like there's any real surprise in that regard. The rest of the effects, music and speech are done at a typical Street Fighter quality level.
For me, the audio got a bit weird, because the way I hold the PSP in order to keep it gripped involved moving my pinkies over the speaker holes, giving me mono, or muted stereo. I realize that this may just be a problem I have, so I'm not really going to knock points off of it. I do have to say that when playing it unobstructed it does seem to be the loudest PSP title I've played yet, which is a good thing.
Overall
This is only worth a rental, but only if you don't believe what everyone else is telling you and need to see how bad this is with your own eyes. Sure you can play 3-player ad-hoc, but why pay for 3 copies of what basically amounts to each one of you getting the side of the cabinet with the busted controller?
This is one of the cruelest jokes ever played on fans of a game. It's like you've been given a nice big King Crab dinner, only you've been purposely given no implements that can break its shell open. You can try and crack it open with your hands, but there's no guarantee you'll get at any of the goodness inside, and you're going to totally wreck your hands.
If for some reason your PSP's D-Pad is super responsive and your fingers are the perfect size to reach all the triggers and buttons...you're going to have a hell of a lot of fun with this game, and even more fun if you have two friends with who are similarly blessed own PSPs and copies of this game. This is the Street Fighter game with the most options and replay value, and to you, it will embody the all the years of polish that went into it.
For the unfortunate rest of us, we're going to look at Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX and just shake our heads. Come on Sony, get your head outta your Portable Nuts and put this on the Playstation 2 where gamers can actually enjoy it.
