After Street Fighter Alpha, everyone was expecting Street Fighter 3 would be the next game to be released by Capcom. Until they released Street Fighter Alpha 2. =) Street Fighter Alpha 2 was in the first place designed to be an upgrade to the original Street Fighter Alpha, because players complained about the boring backgrounds in SFA1, cheap magic series combos, less characters compared to Super Street Fighter 2, so they decided to do "something'' about it.

They added existing characters from other Capcom games like Gen from the very first "Street Fighter" game, Rolento from Final Fight, and Dhalsim and Zangief from Street Fighter II. The game could use some more female characters, as there where currently only 2 of them. Also they wanted to create a character who everybody should like. Ryu was very populair amongst players, so they created a character who is a bit like him. Sakura Kasugano became SFA2's flagship character and proved to be an instant favorite. (I was pleasantly surprised when I noticed she actually mimiced Ryu's special and standard moves with more or less success. ;-) I really grew to like her later on.)

This pretty minor upgrade to Street Fighter Zero 2, the Japanese version of Street Fighter Alpha 2, had only been released in arcades in Japan, Asia, South America and Spain. The game features new moves for some characters, and includes an improved version of Dramatic Battle, a Shin Gouki Mode, and a Survival Mode. In addition of Zangief and Dhalsim having alternate versions that played like their classic counterparts, the game also included classic versions of Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Sagat, and M. Bison. Evil Ryu makes his Japanese debut in this game. (As Evil Ryu *was* included in Street Fighter Alpha 2.)

New is this version is "Special Sakura", which is Sakura with a different colour palette and new move called "Sakura Otoshi" (Sakura's Drop.) You can select "Special Sakura" by setting the cursor on the character select screen and pressing ''start'' 5 times. (Then press a punch or kick button.) The new move can be done by doing a dragon punch motion with the kick button.