Subject: ALPHA3 MEGA-POST! YOU ASKED FOR IT! From: webguy@best.com (Tom Cannon) Date: 8 Jun 1998 23:35:42 -0700 Newsgroups: alt.games.sf2 Location Test: Street Fighter Alpha 3 By Tom Cannon, with help from Ben Cureton and David Dial. Part 1 of 2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well lookie, another Street Fighter has gone on location test at Sunnyvale Golfland, so here is the traditional brain dump from myself, with major kudos going to Ben C. and David Dial for filling in the gaps and helping me out with the character sections. There have been a lot of rumors and info snippets flying around here, so hopefully this will clear the air and give everyone a reasonably good feel for the game as it stands now. DISCLAIMER: All of this information is based on roughly 24 hours (by Tom), and 40 or so (by Ben and David) with a beta of SFA3. Certain parts of the beta will be changed in the final. This document, long as it is, cannot possibly contain all the information about the game. So, if you're a lamer like Troy Steel and plan on digging this up in a year to prove a point, don't bother. Now that that's out of the way... SUMMARY ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- There have been several posts speculating that A3 is crap for some reason or another. From what I've seen so far, A3 is already much better than Alpha 2. A3 fixes the two major problems with Alpha 2, Custom Combos and Alpha Counters. On top of this A3 adds a whole slew of new characters, and rolls in some interesting gameplay features that don't appear to be abusable in the same way that the new features in Alpha 2 were abused. ISMS ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- As everyone probably knows by now, there are three "modes" for very character. These are known as "isms" and they are X-ism, A-ism, and V-ism Capcom has done an excellent job of giving each version of a character its own distinctive flavor. Characters get different moves and special abilities depending on which ism they select. For instance, X-ism Chun Li loses her flip-kick and rising kick, but gains the good old Spinning Bird Kick. X-ism Bison has the psycho crusher and ST-style headstomp, but loses his fireball. GUARD CRUSH ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here's how the guard crush system works. Blocking ANY move will lower your guard meter (g-meter), even jabs and shorts. The meter drains quickly enough to be a definite factor in the match. Roughly 6 fierce punches or about 10 strong punches will completely deplete the meter. The g-meter fills fairly slowly, but not quite as slowly as the dizzy meters in SF3. The meter flashes wildly and makes an annoying noise when it's nearly depleted. =) The attacking move that depletes your meter causes a special hit sprite and makes another annoying noise. When your guard is crushed, your character is pretty much STUCK in a reeling frame for roughly 1 second. During this time you cannot block OR move; you're pretty much completely vulnerable. You can "shake out" of a guard crush by whaling on the stick and buttons. Think of the actual guard crush as a mini-dizzy. Your guard meter gets smaller every time it is crushed, but will never get smaller than about 1 cm long (it takes 4 or 5 breaks to get to this point, depending on your character). Your guard meter is restored to its maximum length at the beginning of each round. The only potential problem with the guard meter is with supers. Each hit in a super lowers the guard meter. So, a pretty viable strategy is to play the poking game to lower your opponent's g-meter to about 1/3, then blast them with a super. The first few hits of the super will break his g-meter, and your opponent will eat the remaining hits of the super. This is an especially useful tactic for X-ism characters with their particularly strong supers. The ultimate expression of this tactic is X.Ken, who's Shoryureppa super COMPLETELY breaks a full guard meter, with 2 hits in the super to spare. Jason Nelson's 40+ game win streak utilizing (in part) this tactic has made the designers "aware" of the problem. It will most likely be fixed in the final. =) ALPHA COUNTERS ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- As you probably know by now, ACs are executed by pressing f, p+k after blocking a move. The downside (or upside, depending on your point of view) is that ACs do next to NO damage and decrease the length of your guard meter to boot! Essentially, there's simply no way to use ACs as the kind of passive offense that they were in Alpha 2. Really the only times it makes sense to AC at all is to prevent your guard meter from being crushed or as the KO blow at the end of a round. IMHO Capcom went overboard when toning down the ACs. They are one of the key advantages to A-ism, but they're really quite worthless. ACs would be fine if they didn't lower your guard meter. In this case they would still do only a jab's worth of damage, and could only be used as sort of a push- block to get someone off your back. HARD KICKS ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some characters can execute a hard-hitting, but fairly slow mid-kick by pressing f + RH. This move is particuarly useful in crushing a turtle's guard. JUGGLES ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alpha3's juggling system is closer to Super Turbo's system than SF3's far too forgiving system. I don't think we'll see any infinite combos in the A3 system. Basically, you're completely vulnerable in the air, and any move that would normally knock you out of the air now pops you up a little bit. As you can imagine, this sets up some wacky juggles, so at any time in the air you can press two punches to "flip out" of your falling animation. Your character hops up in the air, which changes their trajectory and can screw up someone's juggle attempt. After flipping out your character can execute any air attack. To limit infinite juggles it looks like you're only allowed 2 "touches" while on the ground. So Chun Li can knock someone out of the air with a stand RH and follow it with a jumping strong, another stand RH, and then maybe a jumping RH (2 hit) for 5 hits total. If she manages to land before her opponent she won't be able to re-juggle with another stand RH...it will whiff. This is all assuming that your opponent is asleep at the switch and doesn't flip out of the juggle. Ahhh, but it takes some amount of skill to know when it's best to flip out of a juggle and when it's best to just fall to the ground. For instance, X.Zangief can knock you out of the air with a jumping RH, then follow it with another jumping RH for huge damage. If you flip out right when Zangief lands from his first jumping RH, then he can delay the 2nd jumping RH and smack you're spazzy ass as you come down. The right thing to do in this situation is to fall and wait to see if Zan is going to go for the 2nd RH. If he is, then flip out just after Zangief jumps. Your flip-hop will mess up Zangief spacing and you'll float over his jumping RH and to safety. MAJOR COUNTERS ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can major counter someone by hitting them with a fierce or roundhouse while any of their moves is in the attacking phase. Hitting a retracting move does not give a major counter. A major counter makes a VERY LOUD hit noise and does a bit more damage. Also, some major counters will pop your opponent into the air for a possible juggle. The characters also pause a touch during the MC, which gives the move a nice, satisfying *oomph* This is usally just a nice bonus for attacking with the slower, stronger moves, but it seriously affects some matches. In Charlie vs. Dhalsim, for example, Dhalsim can counter a far sonic boom 100% of the time with a low fierce. In A2 this would trade a lot of the time. In A3 this is a major counter which means that Dhalsim gets a damage boost for the low fierce, and the sonic boom flies harmlessly over Dhalsim's head during the MC pause. =) VARIATION COMBOS ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- These replace custom combos. I REFUSE to call them Custom Combos because everyone has a pre-conceived notion of what a CC is. Since VCs have little in common with customs, I will be using the official name for them. Here's how the system works... When you activate the VC, three shadows form behind you. The 1st and 2nd shadows look like CC shadows and are meaningless. The 3rd shadow is darker than the others...let's call it your "friend" shadow. When the VC is active, the shadows follow behind you, much like Rose's friends, and your friend shadow executes any moves that you do. The trick is that the friend shadow does not always execute the move right after you, like one of Rose's friends. Details are still sketchy, but it looks like moves executed by the shadow are delayed by an amount based on the strength of the VC. So, executing a VC with jab+short and immediately throwing a jab FB will result in 2 FBs being thrown very close to each other. However, in a fierce+RH VC, your shadow will pause a bit before he throws his own FB, and as a result the FBs will be spaced further apart. While the VC is active your moves and walking speed are faster. It looks like those are the only enhancements that you get when the VC is active. You still have to charge any charge-moves, and you can only have 1 FB on the screen at a time (2 FBs, if you include your shadow's FB). Finally, VCs can "fall through" moves like DPs when done in the air, but do not seem to blow back attacks. So what does all this mean? Well, the only thing that's clear is that putting together a good VC is (so far) significantly more difficult that executing a high-damage CC. Even so, there are probably some pretty effective, wacky things that you can do with VCs. In one game, V.Dan was able to Gale kick over his opponent while his shadow was still executing moves. It's possible that you could get the shadow hitting one side of an opponent while you hit the other. There also may be some nasty high-low games that you can play, like doing an overhead while your shadow is still executing the low attack that you stuck out a second ago. VC = MORE BS? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Towards the end of the test period people were just starting to get the hang of the VCs, and were putting together some very damaging (like 50%) VCs. There is some cause for concern here, but even in a near-worst-case scenario, VCs will be much more tolerable than SCs. Consider the following factors. - No Valle-VC. This means that you have to mess up to be hit by the VC. No more 40% combos just for standing up at the wrong time. - Slow-charging meter. Your meter must be at 1/2 before you can execute the VC, and the A3 meter charges a bit slower than in A2. All this means that if you execute a VC, you're going to have to work a bit before you can charge your meter enough to get another. - 3 isms. V-sim mode probably won't be the best for a lot of characters. Less V-ism characters being played means less VCs on average. CHARACTERS ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- There are 25 characters in A3. 3 "flavors" of each character makes 75 distinct characters, so there's no way that this section is going to be comprehensive. There is some information here for all the characters, but there are some obvious, gaping holes here. I'm not using the "official" names for all the moves, partly because some of the offical names are silly and partly because I don't know all the official names. =) CODY ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- All you Cody bashers can go to hell. =) Really, Cody is a pretty neat character. He is hand-cuffed and walks with a little slump, which really brings out his personality as a prisoner. Like Ryu, Cody is oozing with style. In one of his win poses Cody undos his handcuffs and is chased off the screen by a gun-toting, overweight cop. Another win pose is the same, except Cody runs back on screen and whups up on the cop as he is chasing Cody down. Moves: Cheap Shot: fb + punch Cody grabs a rock off the ground and throws it in a shallow arc. This will go over fireballs and hit the FBer for a major counter. If you do this early against a FB, Cody will be able to block (or dodge in Vism, see below) the FB. Otherwise, it's nearly always a trade in his favor. Holding down the punch button will cause Cody to hold on to the rocks, bouncing them in his hand. The different buttons throw the rocks different lengths. Knife Grab/Throw: d + punch / fb + punch At the start of every round there's a knife in the middle of the screen. Cody can grab the knife by pressing d+p. While he's holding the knife, all of Cody's punches turn into knife stabs which do pretty darn good block damage. Cody drops the knife when he's hit, but can pick it up again at any time. He can throw the knife with a fb motion. This throws the knife at head level, which will go over FBs and hit the FBer for a major counter. =) When Cody picks up the knife, he plays with it for a half second, leaving him open for attack. However, if you press p immediately after picking up the knife with d+p, Cody will automatically attack after picking up the knife. So, pressing d+p,p will pick up the knife and immediately do a quick knife jab, which is of course much safer. Rushing Kick: fb + kick Cody rushes forward and does a little kick. Short will do a low-hitting slide kick, forward will do a mid-kick much like Chun-Li's standing short, and RH will do a high-hitting kick which is useful in juggles. These are NOT like Guy's rushing kicks; Cody rushes forward about a 1/2 step and attacks almost immediately. We found that knocking an opponent out of the air with standing fierce 2-1 into rhouse FB kick worked great for a quick 2 hit. Hurricane twirl thingy: d,d/b,b + punch Cody throws out a short-range whirlwind. This is the move in one of the screenshots on Capcom's site. The hurricane hits up to 5 times. This move is great in juggles and OK anti-air, but is vunerable if blocked. X-ism Supers and notes. Cody's X-ism super sends him into "Final Fight" mode. In this mode you control Cody exactly like you would in Final Fight, except with a jump. =) Back on the stick (block) makes Cody turn around and walk in that direction. =) Pressing punches causes Cody to go into his Final Fight combo. So doing something like jumping kick, p, p, p, p does something that looks like jumping kick, jab, jab, strong, fierce. All of this chains. =) Cody stays in Final Fight mode for a looong time (around 20 seconds), but is knocked out of it if he is hit. A-ism Supers and notes. Funky kick super: double fb + kick Cody rushes forward and does several kicks. Looks like a cross between Chun Li's and Charlie's rushing supers. Final Fight super: double fb + punch Haven't really figured this out, but it looks like a 1-sequence version of the X-ism FF super. Cody rushes forward without attacking, and jamming on punch causes him to go through his FF combo. V-ism notes. In V-ism Cody's block is a *dodge.* Meaning, when Cody is "blocking" all attacks whiff. Cody turns his shoulders and the move misses. Perhaps you've already surmised that V.Cody takes virtually no block damage, and it's nearly impossible for his g-meter to be broken with normal attacks. =) If Cody attacks in the middle of a dodge (while the attack he's dodging is still in its attack phase) he will be hit. Attacks that occur *right* after Cody tries to block or right after a dodge will actually be blocked and not dodged. So, against a super uppercut Cody will dodge the first hit and be forced to block the rest. Strangly enough, Cody can dodge an entire super FB (and normal FBs as well). POTENTIAL BULLSHIT ALERT: Cody can VC during a dodge and use the beginning invunerability to pass through the attack causing the dodge. So, you basically sit there and wait for Cody to dodge, then VC and let loose the attacks. It remains to be seen how effective this really is. Because none of Cody's attacks advance him forward very far, it's difficult to combo more than a few hits in the VC when Cody's opponent is not cornered. MIKA (info contributed by David Dial) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mika's design has come under fire as well. Her character art looks pretty goofy, but her in-game sprites are a little more "normal." I'd say she's no goofier-looking than Zangief. Mika seems to be a decent character, though it was very hard to learn her due to the fact that even in the test version, the old/strong characters were being overused. Poor David devoted his tokens to learning Mika, and hopefully he showed the developers some of her flaws. Moves: Notable normal moves: Mika's normals leave a LOT to be desired. Her best move seems to be her low roundhouse, which is a slide. At certain ranges, the slide can go under fireballs. The slide has good range, speed, AND recovery - but sadly this seems to be the ONLY normal move she has with those attributes. The only other good poking moves that I saw were her jabs and shorts, which of course do very little damage. As anti-air, Mika has VERY little to her disposal. Her standing jab is good if she is in front of the jumping opponent, and her crouching strong is good if she is directly under her opponent (she goes on her tiptoes and hops up - this also can set up a juggle). Neither move has good priority or damage. Buttcheck: d,d/b,b + punch or kick Mika turns around and flings herself butt-first towards her opponent. This move seems extremely useless due to the fact that there is a lag at either end of the buttcheck depending on whether you used punch or kick. If you use punch, she hops first and then does the buttcheck . If you use kick, Mika does a quick buttcheck, and then kneels on the ground for a second. Air Throws: (in air) d,d/b,b + kick, OR toward + PP Mika has two air throws - one special, and one normal. I did not notice if the special throw has more range than the normal. Frankensteiner: 360 motion + punch This is one of her main weapons. Although it has some startup to it, it can be used as a reversal with precise (or accidental =) timing. However, BECAUSE there is startup to it, she can 2 in 1 the motion after a connected attack, and although it won't combo it won't whiff either (i.e. it is escapable). Headlock and Bulldog: 360 motion + kick Mika grabs her opponent in a headlock, bashes their head in for a few hits, then does a running bulldog. This is an EXTREMELY useful move, as it has NO startup to it. You can use this as a type of "magic grab" against a fallen opponent, to grab them as they wake up. Both 360 moves have decent range, but you must be careful about pressing the button at the correct time, or you will get an accidental buttcheck. Mika is a true grappler in that she relies on her throws to win the match. A-ism Supers and notes: Mika has several supers at her disposal in A-ism mode. Buttcheck Super: double fb + punch Mika flails at (and normally whiffs) her opponent for several hits, then does a kick-style buttcheck. Two-part Super: double fb + kick This super is quite confusing. Mika will begin to run in the direction you are holding on your controller (if you hold back, she turns around and runs the other way), and if you press the button again, she will do another move. I believe that the move is determined by the button being pressed, and may also depend on a joystick motion in addition to the button press. One thing to note - there is a window of invincibility where she can pass through fireballs at the start of the super. Humiliation Super: 720 motion + punch Mika will basically do a glorified version of her Bulldog move, but at level 3 a wrestling ring will come out and she will bring her opponent to the top turnbuckle and suplex them back to the floor. =) Note: the Capcom rep said that in order for this to happen, you must continue to spin the joystick and mash on the buttons. I had previously thought that there was a 720 super with kick, but it may just have been the double fb + kick, with an additional kick. HONDA ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This info is included from David Dial's page at: http://www.crl.com./~ddial/zero3b.html, with his permission. Honda has always been my favorite, and it is a joy to see him return as a selectable character. Even better, it is a joy to see him as a truly formidable character. On the first day of testing, I had the longest win streak (at 10 wins), and it was with E.Honda. I mainly used A-ism Honda, so I will go into detail about that particular mode's moves here. Since I didn't pay attention as much to the other characters, only Honda's will be fully detailed, but I'll state significant changes to other characters as well: Standing Attacks S.Jab/S.Strong - same as in Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo. S.Fierce - the "porkchop" from any distance! S.Short - basically, the same as in Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo. S.Forward - the close up standing knee from Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo (as in his Roundhouse grab, but without grabbing anyone). S.Toward+Roundhouse - same as in Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, but it does not knockdown your opponent (except as a major counter, see above). S.Back+Roundhouse - same as in Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo. Crouching Attacks Crouching punches are the same as in Super Street Fighter 2. I am not sure if the C.Fierce knocks down. It is once again the hooking punch, though, if I remember correctly. C.Short - I don't recall. C.Forward - the C.Forward from SSF2, and the S.Forward from ST. It hits twice. C.Roundhouse - same as in Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo. Jumping Attacks J.Jab - looks like Alex's in SF3. All other jumping attacks are the same as in ST, but the J.Forward is always a splash - no need to hold down. His jumps are also slightly higher, so his J.Short does not stay in the hit animation for the length of the jump (i.e. if you press it as soon as you jump, it won't hit your opponent). This is great for "whiff ticks" - whiff the short on your way up, make them think it'll hit so that they block, then you land and Ohicho. Special Moves The Ohicho Throw is now a 360° motion, but it does hardly ANY damage, and has hardly ANY range (which is a fair exchange for his strength and priority). The Hundred Hand Slap, Headbutt and Buttdrop are the same as in ST. A Fierce Headbutt done up close will hit twice, even on an airborne opponent. His PP throw is his Strong throw from the previous versions, and his KK throw is his bearhug. Alpha Counter Honda's Alpha Counter (in A-ism at any rate) is his porkchop. Super Moves Sadly, there is no 720° super for a Final Atomic Ohicho =(. His super from ST returns, with the addition of a Hundred Hand Slap tagged on the end at level 3 (or in X-ism mode). It can go through fireballs from full screen. He has another one that seemed useless, though I just may not have figured it out. It's the same motion as the previous one, but with kick. Honda does a headbutt at about a 30° angle from the ground for one hit on his opponent. You can juggle afterwards, but it seemed useless and did little damage. It will probably end up being an advanced tactic though. Noticeable Changes in X-ism Mode Far-Away S.Fierce hits low. Jumping attacks are the same as in ST. Super is the lvl 3 Punch Super from A-ism. Standard inability to airblock, AC, and have 3 levels of super; stronger than in A-ism. I did not use V-ism E.Honda. CHUN LI ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chun was overpowered in very silly ways in Alpha2. She is tamed in Alpha3. Chun is still powerful, but she's lost the BS factor. Her low forward is not bufferable, and of course her 40% lvl 1 CC is gone. X-ISM NOTES -------------- X.Chun Li loses the flip-kick and the rising DP-like kick. She gains the classic Spinning Bird Kick and boy is it upgraded! The SBK is now excellent air defense. It is executed with a sonic boom motion, just like in ST. Currently Chun Li has no fireball, but doing a SB motion will cause Chun to go through her FB animation. No FB comes out, which strikes me as pretty weird. Hopefully this is a bug and Chun will have a FB in this mode. A-ISM NOTES ------------ Chun Li's up-kick hits 5 times now. Whoopie. She goes into a nice new animation before executing the super up-kick. Her flip kick is a touch slower. VEGA ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vega retains most of his moves from Super Turbo, but he has been "Dhasimized." By this I mean that Capcom did to Vega in A3 what they did to Dhalsim in A2. All of Vega's normal moves are technically the same, but their angles and ranges have been modified to make them less effective. For instance, Vega's low fierce now sticks out at more of a horizontal angle, making it less useful against jumpers. Vega's wall dive also gets the axe. Despite its huge hit sprite, the diving claw does not have that great range, and you have to be literally touching your opponent to grab them after a wall-dive. X-ism notes ------------ This is the only mode where Vega can execute his flip-kick from Super Turbo. A-ism notes ------------- Vega has two supers that we have found so far. The first is a flip-kick super. This is ok anti-air, but it looks like it was meant to be used against an opponent on the ground. Some of the last hits whiff against a jumping opponent. Vega also has his super grab from Super Turbo. Unlike ST, however, executing the super uses meter immediately...in ST meter was only used if the grab actaully connected. If you miss the grab Vega will do a 2-hit swipe with his claws. DHALSIM ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- X-ism notes ------------ X.Dhalsim's fireball doesn't dissipate (yea!) and his drills are quite a bit faster. His super is his old super flame from ST, but it's exectuted with a double hurricane-kick motion. This should make it a lot easier to combo with Dhalsim's short-ranged low attacks. A-ism notes ------------- One new super in this mode. A double hurricane-kick + punch will make Dhalsim spit flames on the ground. This doesn't look like a wildly useful super, but it may be OK in combos. V-ism notes -------------- V.Dhalsim cannot control his limbs! This ends up being a pretty big deal, because it doesn't allow Dhalsim to pick exactly which move he executes in his VC. ROSE ------------ Rose's low fierce has been axed and is completely unreliable as anti-air. Some of her standing kicks have been changed to behave roughly like her old standing forward; Rose hops off the ground and kicks straight out. The "Low Strong of Doom" is less effective, but is still quite good. Finally, it doesn't look like Rose can follow her AC with a low strong anymore. Maybe the timing is just tighter, but none of the Rose players could get the strong to connect. X-ism notes ------------- Rose's X super looks a lot like her lvl 2 super grab. Rose does a few standing punches and finishes with the air grab. This is great anti air. A-ism notes ------------- Rose's friends super is great for knocking chunks off the guard meter. There don't seem to be any big changes other than those mentioned above. RYU ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Not much to say here. Ryu's FB delay is a bit longer, and as mentioned before Ryu and Ken cannot 2-in-1 off of their low RH. Ryu gets a rushing punch that resembles his rush from ST. KEN ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bleh....not much to say about Ken either. He's still a shoto. =) CAMMY ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cammy can no longer 2-in-1 off of low forward. She gains a new kick super that looks like an upside-down Shinryuken. Think egg-beater. =) Her cannon-spike uppercut does a healthy chunk of damage, but is air-blockable if not done pretty deep. DAN ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dan is dan. He can gale kick in the air. Whoopie. Well that's it for part 1. I told you there were gaping holes. =) Part 2 will provide notes for the rest of the characters and probably more gameplay notes. IMHO Alpha3 is shaping up very well. While I'm sure that there will be some BS found in the game (almost certainly related to VCs), the designers seem like they understood the fundamental problems in Alpha2, and took steps to fix those problems in this game. In this respect, Alpha3 get's my respect over a half-baked effort like SF3 2i, which added flash on top of a broken, horrible game engine. --- Tom Cannon webguy@inked.com