Street Fighter Alpha 3 / Street Fighter Zero 3 / ストリートファイターZERO/3 / Sutorīto Faitā Zero Surī

Street Fighter Alpha 3, released as Street Fighter Zero 3[a] in Japan, Asia, South America, and Oceania, is a 2D fighting game originally released by Capcom for the arcade in 1998. It is the third and final installment in the Street Fighter Alpha sub-series, which serves as a sequel to Street Fighter Alpha 2, and ran on the same CP System II hardware as previous Alpha games. The game was produced after the Street Fighter III sub-series has started, being released after 2nd Impact, but before 3rd Strike. Alpha 3 further expanded the playable fighter roster from Street Fighter Alpha 2 and added new features such as selectable fighting styles called "isms".

Alpha 3 has also been released on a variety of home platforms starting with the PlayStation port in 1998, which added an exclusive World Tour mode and brought back even more characters, with further versions on the Sega Saturn, Dreamcast, Game Boy Advance and PlayStation Portable.

Gameplay

Akuma delivers a hurricane kick to Rainbow Mika, on her stage Sardine Beach. Both fighters are using the A-Ism style
Street Fighter Alpha 3 discards the "Manual" and "Auto" modes from the previous Alpha games and instead offers three different playing styles known as "isms" for the player to choose from. The standard playing style, A-ism (or Z-ism in Japan), is based on the previous Alpha games, in which the player has a three-level Super Combo gauge with access to several Super Combo moves. X-ism is a simple style based on Super Street Fighter II Turbo (the term "X-ism" being a reference to that game's Japanese title, Super Street Fighter II X), in which the player has a single-level Super Combo gauge and access to a single but powerful Super Combo move. The third style, V-ism (or "variable" style), is a unique style that allows the player to perform custom combos similar to the ones in Street Fighter Alpha 2, but cannot use Super Combos. In X-ism, the player cannot air-block nor perform Alpha Counters, and can only use 1 Super Combo move in its powerful Level 3 version. To activate V-ism's Super Combo, the player has to press both kick and punch of the same strength. X-ism has the highest attack power but least defence, A-ism has more attack power than V-ism and a similar level of defence. All three modes have variations of movesets for each character, adding considerable depth to the gameplay. In addition, there are hidden modes that add handicaps to the player as well as benefits (for example, Classic mode, which prevents the use of Super Combos but also makes the character unable to be knocked in the air and juggled).

Alpha 3 also introduces a "Guard Power Gauge" which depletes each time the player blocks – if the gauge is completely depleted, then the player will remain vulnerable to an attack. When broken the bar shrinks and is refilled to its new maximum, it can be shrunk a number of times. Worth noting, while in X-Ism the character has the least defence of all modes it also has the largest guard bar, vice versa for V-ism with A-Zism being in the middle. Also the guard bar varies between characters, Zangief e.g. has a very large guard bar. The guard bar does not exist in Dramatic Battle matches so no guard crushing is possible there.

I-ism is a customizable style exclusive to the Dreamcast version's Saikyo Dojo mode and the PSP version's World Tour mode.

The controls for several actions have been modified from the previous Alpha games. For example, the level of a Super Combo move in A-ism is now determined by the strength of the attack button pressed (i.e. Medium Punch or Kick for a Lv. 2 Super Combo), rather than the number of buttons pushed; and throwing is now done by pressing two punch or kick buttons simultaneously.

Characters
The game brings back all eighteen of the characters that appeared in Street Fighter Alpha 2. As with the previous Alpha titles, several characters were added to the game: Cammy, who was previously featured in the console-exclusive Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold, E. Honda, Blanka, Balrog, and Vega. New characters introduced in Alpha 3 include R. Mika, a Japanese female wrestler who idolizes Zangief; Karin, Sakura's rival who was first introduced in the Street Fighter manga Sakura Ganbaru! by Masahiko Nakahira; Cody from Final Fight, who has since become an escaped convict; and Juli and Juni, two of Shadaloo's "Dolls" who serve as Bison's assassins and guards.

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Developer(s) Capcom
Crawfish Interactive (GBA)
Publisher(s) Capcom
PAL: Virgin Interactive (PS1, Dreamcast)
Composer(s) Takayuki Iwai
Yuki Iwai
Isao Abe
Hideki Okugawa
Tetsuya Shibata
Series Street Fighter
Platform(s) Arcade, PlayStation, Dreamcast, Saturn, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation Portable
Release
June 29, 1998
Genre(s) Fighting
Mode(s) Up to 2 players simultaneously
Arcade system CP System II
Sega NAOMI (Zero 3 Upper)

#Street Fighter Alpha 3 #capcom #arcade_game