Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper

Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper     i s a fighting game developed by Crawfish Interactive and published by Capcom, released exclusively for the Game Boy Advance in 2002. It's the third update of the Arcade title Street Fighter Alpha 3 of 1998, also third and final game in the Street Fighter Alpha sub-series and the eighth main title of the Street Fighter series on a Nintendo system.

This games includes many new elements and characters in the cast of playable fighters, while adapting to the Game Boy Advance limited hardware and cartridge space. Commands and button layout were also reajusted to better fit for the system.

The story takes place after the events of the first Street Fighter game, and before Street Fighter II: The World Warrior. Although it rewrites some of the characters stories, Alpha 3 shares space in the canon of the series with its antecessor.

Changes
The Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper release on the Game Boy Advance contains most of all the content seen in the Arcade, and previous domestic versions of the game, while adapting the engine for a overall weaker hardware. As result of this, some characters have fewer frames of animation than they had in the original game, and voice clips are shared between them (alterning pitch), to better accomodate in the cartridge space.

Due the fact that are only four action buttons available on the system, and Street Fighter games are normally played with a six button layout, much of the attacks and commands passed through a needed remapping (but all of them were kept in the final game).

Compared to the other versions, it lacks some modes like World Tour, Team Battle and Vs. Dramatic Battle. As well doesn't support online play, since the system didn't have any connectivy. It still has Multiplayer through the Link Cable, which the first Alpha game on a handheld lacked.

For esthetic pourposes, now characters like Evil Ryu and Shin Akuma, have their entire name displayed on the Lifebar, instead of the natural Ryu and Akuma from the previous editions.

The Upper stands for the additions in the cast of playable characters, with 3 new fighters, coming from Capcom vs. SNK 2.

As for cut content, some stages were removed (there are 19 out of previous 28), as well some of the unique Intros between characters (present 15 from the previous 25 count). The Ending for winning and loosing against M. Bison's final battle is also the same for all the characters, doesn't matter which character you play as; However there's a special ending for Evil Ryu loosing the match against Shin Akuma.

Gameplay

 * See Gameplay in the Street Fighter series

The title discards the original "Manual" and "Auto" modes from the previous Alpha games and instead offers three different playing styles known as "isms" for players to choose from.

The standard playing style, A-ism (or Z-ism in Japan), is based on the previous 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, in which the player has a single-level Super Combo gauge and access to a single but powerful Super Combo move. In this style, although, players cannot air-block nor perform Alpha Counters.

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.

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.

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

Roster
The cast consist in a total of 37 playable fighters, all seen in previous releases of Street Fighter Alpha 3, plus 3 more coming from Capcom vs. SNK 2:
 * M. Bison
 * Eagle
 * Guile
 * Charlie
 * Street_Fighter_Alpha_3_Upper_(roster).png-Li
 * Sagat
 * Fei Long
 * Dee Jay
 * Dan
 * Guy
 * R. Mika
 * Birdie
 * Akuma
 * Shin Akuma
 * Evil Ryu
 * Ryu
 * E. Honda
 * Cody
 * Karin
 * Vega
 * Blanka
 * Ken
 * Juli
 * Dhalsim
 * Sodom
 * Cammy
 * Adon
 * Zangief
 * Juni
 * T. Hawk
 * Rolento
 * Sakura
 * Gen
 * Balrog
 * Maki
 * Rose
 * Yun

Reception
By 2003, was registered that Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper has sold over 30,000 copies. 

Trivia

 * By the limitations of the hardware, many characters voice clips were cut to fit in the cartridge space, resulting in most of the cast sharing same voice. Oddly enough, Sakura has gotten Ken's voice high pitched.

See Also:

 * Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors' Dreams
 * Street Fighter Alpha 2