The
Introduction Street
Fighter is no stranger to being part of a console battle. The
original Street Fighter II lit up the sales charts for the Super
Nintendo, and unintentionally helped show how bad the limitations of
the Sega Genesis could be. While both made sacrifices in animation,
the Genesis also suffered severe color palette and sound issues.
When the original Street Fighter Alpha hit the consoles, both
versions were remarkably close to the arcade version, with a slight
exception. The Saturn version had a somewhat hidden selectable Super
Shadow color (seen
here) and a better controller. There were subtle issues with the
text boxes in both, but overall the nitpicks were too minimal to
call a clear winner. That all changed with the release of Street
Fighter Alpha 2...
Evidence A: The Opening Cinematic
PlayStation:
Terribly low resolution video footage. Right from the start, the
Sony version shows signs of trouble with not only a lazy way out,
but a poorly streamed, washed out and puzzlingly small video version
of the opening cinematic. The deck even has to have an extra load
screen to dump the file and load up the main menus.
Saturn: Real-time, in-game sprites and graphics used for the
opening. Everything is sharp, larger, and more colorful. There's
also no extra loading time before hitting the main menu.
Advantage: Saturn
Evidence B: Limited Options...
PlayStation:
Okay, no biggie about the opening. We'll just hunker down into the
meat of the game and...wait...this is pretty sparse looking. I could
have sworn there was more to it than this. Let me boot up the Saturn
version again...
Saturn: Oh,
that's why. Besides the Survival Mode, the Saturn also features an
exclusive Illustrations Mode that has 100 classic Capcom
illustrations from the production of the game. They also spent the
extra minute to toss in a textured background. I see a pattern
forming.
Advantage:
Saturn
Evidence C: To the letter
PlayStation:
Originally I was going to use these two images for sprite size
comparison, but then something else began to stick out. Notice the
font choices in the Attack Counter, as well as the size of the
health and super meters.
Saturn: The
Saturn version has larger meters (note the distance between the
screen edge and Charlie's Level 0), has better font control, and
more importantly, uses both Attack counter fonts like the arcade
does. In the PSX version, the 'First Attack' and '1500 points' are
using the same font. The Saturn version is clearly more arcade
exact.
Advantage: Saturn
Evidence D: Feeling a bit blue
PlayStation:
Seriously?
Saturn: Here
Capcom simply altered the already existent selection menu's
background color. Why this couldn't have been done on the
PlayStation, I have no idea. I'm assuming it was to save load times,
but still man...
Advantage:
Saturn
Evidence E: Animation issues, with a particular mystery
PlayStation:
There seem to be small minor animations missing here and there, but
there is one in particular that caught my eye, especially with all
the rumors surrounding it. In Ken's stage, he has various Capcom
characters on his boat. The one behind Ryu's fireball is Strider, of
arcade, Genesis, and Vs. series fame. Notice he is standing still;
he does not animate.
Saturn: In both
the Saturn and arcade version, he tosses up a Teddy Bear when anyone
on-screen performs a Super Move. There was a long thought rumor
circulating in the early days that this was a nod to a Capcom
employee who had worked on the supposed SuperGrafx version of the
Strider game. According to legend, there was so much pressure on him
that it drove him insane and had to be hospitalized.
Advantage: Saturn
Conclusion: Saturn Wins in a Perfect
Victory! So it's
pretty obvious that the Saturn wins hands down in this first installment of
Battle Mode. The Saturn has always been the 2D king, but
there are a few games where the PlayStation did prevail. Tune in again when we
once again pit the same game vs. same game.
