Street Fighter Alpha 2 - Ryu Playthrough (Expert Difficulty)

I really, really like how this game connects with Alpha 3. What I'm sad about is that I think Alpha 2 is a better video game than Alpha 3. I don't mean "competitively" or whatever wound up nerds go on about. I think that whole disagreeing about video games between gamers is timeless. While there are things that haven't aged well, what I like most about Street Fighter Alpha are the brief moments where the game becomes so coherent, so abundantly about socializing and fighting games. It's not so much the theme itself, though I think that's great for Street Fighter, it's the WAY the game accomplishes this. Just doing basic, solid storytelling and theming. I really think Ryu's struggle still resonates with me, because he has to make a decision about what type of player he's going to be. I think if you asked any actual martial artist "why do you fight" they'd tell you "Because I'm good at it and because it makes me money", so the fantasy here IS being a "Street Fighter", so if ultimately the story shifted to some meta/subtext, I think Alpha 2 is the peak of this approach. I also saw someone say that "Alpha 3 has better presentation", please shut the fuck up lol. This game is presented like a very old anime, especially now, from like the 80s. There's a feeling of nostalgia that this game really taps into in terms of the way it looks and sounds. The way that the VS screen cut ins are like eyecatches from some old anime that doesn't actually exist. I want to do a video that really pays respect to these ideas, even though ultimately I think that it's not really socially groundbreaking, it's just groundbreaking for action video games and I think it's worth noting how much of this is succeeded by action games like the Souls series... and how overtly hostile Street Fighter Alpha was to that lmfao.